Thanks Father Tony for this.

You can go into any gay and lesbian shelf of the major chain bookstories and find books on spirituality and religion. I myself believe in something but I am not quite sure what to call that something and, truthfully, it's not that important.

I also think that all people tend to want to get in touch with that "something" as they get older (something to do with the fear of death, IMO). The fact that gay culture is a youth oriented culture would also give the impression that much of gay culture is atheist and I am not sure that's case. The focus is on the doubting and questioning nature of youth. However, time changes for all of us.

Also one can be "atheist" and still have a spiriual practice such as mediation; one can even be a Buddhist (an "atheistic religion, in some forms). It does not require returning to one of the 3 monotheistic religions, though many gay people do that to but on their own terms.

I am amazed at ANY Christian, gay or straight. They are hate mongers, terrorist and murderers. It is nice to follow the words of one person, i.e., Jesus (was Jesus gay?). Still, there are other more formidable spiritual ways than Christianity like Paganism.

Christians will never let the LGTB community in their club...we should stop trying.

There is nothing wrong with being an atheist as we favor scientific psychological "mental health" findings over belief in 4000/2000 year old Middle Eastern fairy tales. We are also not afraid to die as most of us have lived good lives and have no desire for the hereafter. I appreciate LGBT Christians trying to come to a compromise with our "God-ridden" government but claiming that Jesus was gay is divisive and not helpful. We are headed away from a democracy and towards a theocracy. It makes good business sense that LGBT non-proftis would have their religious committees in order to get a piece of the "faith based" funds. They have to stay in the closet until such time as science becomes reason and religion is seen for what it is, superstition.

You are much nicer to her than I would have been! I am a straight non-believer but know many religious gay people. My cousin, a lesbian, was actually in seminary for a time. She's now working on a PhD in New Testament theology.

The idea that because of one or two Bible passages taken out of context can be construed to sound like a condemnation of homosexuality is the absolute worst reasoning I can think of to assert that "the bible clearly states that homosexuality is a perversion". I almost think that this comment was made just to incite people.

I can think of numerous Bible passages that would appear to condone slavery, rape and murder, and ones that condemn eating seafood or interacting with women who are menstruating. I don't see these passages being held up as paradigms of god's word by so-called religious people.

One of the main reasons I left Christianity is exactly this phenomenon. In my opinion, unless you follow ALL of the Bible literally, you're a hypocrite. And NO Christians, not even the creationists, take it ALL literally. You can't pick and choose, and then condemn OTHER people based on your selections. Whatever happened to "judge not, lest ye be judged"? Or, "let he without sin cast the first stone?" Many of today's so-called Christians seem to have forgotten THOSE passages.

Either take every word, every passage, literally, or take it for what it IS - an old collection of morality tales and fables written by many many men over thousands of years.

::stepping off soapbox::

I wish a Christian could explain why thousands of other deities that have been worshipped throughout the last several thousand years, and yet only the Christian God(s) are real and the others were just make believe. Many people fervently believe in Jesus (look, he has appeared on a grilled cheese sandwich, it's a miracle!), and yet people in ancient Egypt believed in O Mighty Isis and those Greeks worshipped boy-raper Zeus. Heck, they built massive buildings for these Gods and Goddesses, some men castrated themselves to honor Cybele, and those crafty Aztecs ripped the hearts out of their fellow humans to honor their gods. Fun time had by all!

Father Tony: you are much kinder than i am. I would not have offered Roxanne all that information because i truly believe she is making an ignorant statement to you posing it as a question.
I also fin Pat Condell is a bit too old to be playing "cool". He is somewhat unbecoming. So what if people are atheists or believers.
Both philosophies are opposite extremes and deserving of condemnation.

Love your blogging/voice, but I don't believe that gay people "question things more." Maybe they're more likely to be skeptical of a society that does not readily accept them, but I'd argue that that's simply a human characteristic, not something inherently tied to the "gay gene."

Additionally, people who question things naturally may be more likely to question their own sexuality and thereby identify with an LGBT/Queer identity. If that's the case then it could skew the character of the demographic. However, once again, it's not a defining character trait, just a co-incidence.