My True Soul

Ed Madden

I just had to read this for my English class. It's in my textbook and there were many quotes I really liked, so I'm posting them on here.

"When you're a little kid, and when you are beginning to sense that the difference you feel from your culture is something so hated, you learn your lessons well. Often you spend your time wokring for God's favor and praying for change. Sometimes you spend your time cultivating the favor of your parents, knowing that there is something about you that they might (and often do) reject. Sometimes you cultivate asexuality, and avoid love or devotion altogether. Sometimes you date women to keep up appearances. Always you learn to be silent. Always you learn to lie, when necessary. Always you learn how to hate yourself." - Ed Madden

"And those of us who grow up knowing we are gay or lesbian, but also know we are Christian, find ourselves in an impossible situation. We are both part of the community, and we are its object of hatred" - Ed Madden

"When I decided to be honest with my family, I further learned how Christan and family values are acted out when you happen to be gay. What are those family values? That honesty has a cost. That family love is conditionaly. That brother may reject brother. That the use of scripture is selectively enforced. (Although Jesus has a lot to say about greed, homosexuality is the condition that requires that you reject your own loved ones.) That dishonesty is a virtue. (I was told that I should spend my life lying, that I should "lie to [my] grave.") That homosexuality is the worst possible thing one can be. (If only, as one family member said, I could be addicted to drugs or had murdered someone, they could deal with that.)" - Ed Madden

"Regardless of what you think about homosexuality, please remember that you know homosexuals and lesbians, whether you are aware of them or not. Remeber that most of us experience our sexual orientation as an essential part of who we are, an identity, not an isolated act or a behavioral choice. Remember that some of us found ourselves rejected by our families and our churches, and many of us have not experienced compassion or understanding from the Christian communites in which we grew up. Remember that most of us were, in fact, forced to find other communities in order to be honest people.
Remember that there are lots of frightened gay teenagers, who are studiously learning how to hate themselves and how to lie, who have all their self-hatred and fear affirmed every time they hear messages of demonization rather than messages of compassion. Remember that lots of other teenage kids have grown up in a Christian community that taught them that it is perfectly acceptable to despise and hate gays and lesbians, even if they're in your own family, and it is perfectly within the bounds of Christian love to reject your own brother or sister if they happen to be gay or lesbian." - Ed Madden