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10.24.2010

Being Gay and Coptic. Gay in the Coptic Orthodox Church.

christian, coptic orthodox, and gay: sound like a contradiction? To many people, perhaps. To me and many others, not so much. Growing up gay and orthodox had its challenges. I hope that others out there who are struggling or who are in the shadows may stumble upon this blog. I hope to let others know they don't have to be alone.





The Coptics, though not Orthodox, could easily be said to be the closest to the Eastern Orthodox, probably much, much closer than anyone else. This blogger is Coptic and gay. This blog needs to be seen by all. In both Eastern and Coptic Churches the discussion on gay marriage is painfully small and closeted.

Orthodox and Coptics are never going to accept homosexuality until they figure out that what constitutes a gay person. A gay person may be one of the members of their own Church or someone in their coffee group.

Hierarchs in both Churches may rant and rave but they completely discredit themselves when they talk about being gay as though it were some kind of lifestyle choice. Then they talk about flippant homosexual orgies happening everywhere in the streets if we legalize gay marriage, or how if it gay marriage was legal, then everyone would do it!

It's painful to hear them educate the youth on homosexuality by telling them that there are better ways to get attention. So painful. They know so little about these innocents deprived of life and love, with many feeling forced to flee into the monastic life in order to avoid suspicion.

While members of their own congregations  portray them as drug addicts and binge drinkers in order to make what they don't like look even worse. I mean, who could defend a life that involved getting high and binging? Right?...

24 comments:

  1. I am Coptic American and not gay but I support you. I am also politically liberal; these things, as you know, tend not to be so popular in the Church. I will continue to follow you and may God bless you.

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  2. Thank you so much for your support, it means so much to me. I'm not gay either, but I'm pretty sure you could count the number of socialists in the Orthodox and Coptic Churches on one hand (maybe two).

    I'm not going to lie. It gets lonely out here in cyber space.

    Also, I apologize for the slow updates. Uni takes up a lot of my time. But this blog is far from over!

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  3. Wow, thank you so much for the support!!! I just saw this and I am humbled. Leftmost, definitely focus on your studies :) But I like what you have to say, so keep on writing.

    And Anonymous, thank you for the support!

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  4. WE must broaden the conversation. The Orthodox position has been to ask and don't tell, excommunicate if not in actuality then in an informal bannishment (OCA style where everything is always unofficial) or it has been unable or unwilling to seperate a sin and condemnation from the sinner. We have used gay and lesbians as huge targets within the church to discount our own infidelity in marriage and to the Great Church of Christ. "Are we Orthodox the kenotic parent of the Prodigal or the self-consumed sibling ever noting the speck outside whilst denying our own darkness within?". Jn 1034 put on your cassock and get to work we all need you!

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  5. What ever happened to JN1034 anyway?

    Well, where-ever they are, the longer they blogged, the more disillusioned I became with them. I found them to be too arrogant, a tad ignorant, far too prideful, and too selective in their blogging.

    Hopefully a new LGBT support group for Orthodox Christians can emerge.

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  6. I identify as a gay Coptic Christian male, and to be honest, I think it will be a very, very long time before the Coptic Church recognizes and accepts the homosexual community within the church. Their ignorance and intolerance have even until today prevented me to open up to any single Coptic Christian about my sexual orientation. It saddens me to see the church that I have grown to love so dearly be insensitive to an issue that can quite possibly have an effect on a large portion of the Coptic community. I sincerely hope that your message somehow reaches out to Coptic Christians so that they would understand our struggle as what it is rather than a "lifestyle choice".

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  7. I,also, identify myself as a gay Coptic Christian male. I struggled for a long time ever since I was a kid, I am very discreet till this moment. I stopped going to the church 2 years ago, because I get very depressed being a liar and a deceiver the few hours I spent there every week. I don't know whether I am right or wrong? I don't know where the truth is about this whole homosexuality topic? All I know, I am DIFFERENT, I prayed, fasted, isolated myself for months away from everybody, yet I am still DIFFERENT. I hear members of my church judging, and discgusting people like myself and I am standing, listening, and may be crying later because I am one of these people. I am not mad or upset at anybody nor I am trying to find an excuse for being gay.I just stopped going to the church because IT IS A FACT that it is completely unhealthy mentally and psychologically for a DIFFERENT person to be among a group of people, who share common characteristics different from his, rejecting his existence and integrity. All what I ask from Whoever think he/she is, writing a book or giving a sermon about homosexuality in the coptic a church, to be in my shoes before you come forward and judge. BE GAY LIKE ME, AND THEN COME JUDGE ME

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  8. I am also gay and coptic...to those who are gay and coptic there is an awesome facebook group called LGBT Coptic Orthodox.

    https://www.facebook.com/lgbtcopts

    Also, if your interested in chatting more, email me: missgeekla@yahoo.com I would love to make more coptic gay friends!

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  9. Coptic, Gay Male in Australia I'm kinda out really. The names Gabriel. I'll take you up on that offer missgeekla, definitely would love to have more gay coptic friends too!

    Peace.

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  10. I'm gay and orthodox, I'm 29 years old, living deep Greefe and agony all days of my life for being gay, it breaks my heart into pieces when I see couple walking in the street with lots of happeness or attend a wedding at church, it is like a dark cloud hanging over my head all the time, my father confessor knows all about me which helps me alot, but what kills me that the church has no answer, or solution to our case, the church believes in the wellness of body and soul, and the importance to satisfy the body as if not it may be a reason to loose eternal life. I advice every one here to talk with father confessor it helps alot just getting it out makes a lot of healing. I was born in Egypt and now I live in NY. I would like to meet other gay orthodox men just to hang out and to talk with no sexual acts to be unvolved. Love you all

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  11. Every time I see that my post here has someone's life is some way it makes me smile, just a little, to know that I've reached out and told someone they're not alone.

    Amiribrahim, you are luck to have a Confessor who understands you. Unfortunately not everyone is so lucky, and even fewer are brave enough to find out.

    How do you explain to someone that homosexuality is not the same as being an alcoholic? That for one person to want to love and be loved by another person, is not comparable to binge drinking? It should stand all on it's own that this comparison is absurd. Yet, unfortunately, that is how the Church sees homosexuality; as something deviant, like being an alcoholic.

    Thought to be fair...it HAS improved. Priests and Hierarchs used to believe, back in the 80's, that people choose to be gay so they could be more popular in modern, secular, Public Schools. Where they got this thinking, who knows...

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  12. I am also a homosexual in the Coptic Orthodox Church and I see blogs like this and you'd think they'd bring be some sort of hope but rather, they do the complete opposite... I feel blogs like these aren't going to make a difference because the church fathers are adamant in their views on homosexuality. As Copts, we often look to the Bible for guidance but when I look to it for help on homosexuality, all I find is hate and condemnation. We can say oh yeah, the old testament is pretty old-fashioned using the age-old example of public stoning for adulterers but the bottom line is that the bible counts homosexuality as sexual immorality and this, according to the book of revelations, will get us nothing but an eternity of fire and brimstone...
    but i digress, as a homosexual teenager who is strong in his belief in God and the Coptic church, i'm terrified. The pope as written books and given sermons on homosexuality but every time, all he ever does is talks about the sexual side of things. It's as though he and the church fathers don't even consider the idea that homosexuals can experience true feelings of love for another of the same sex. They blame it on "biological or chemical abnormalities in the body" even though there is no scientific proof to support their evidence.
    I'm feeling lost and alone and I haven't even gone to my father of confession for a long time because I just can't bring myself to say anything and that is preventing me from relieving myself of my other sins. I haven't done anything with another guy and I won't until i'm in a relationship with one but I just don't know what i'm doing anymore...

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  13. Do you guys think that we are born gay?

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  14. ^ Sexual orientation is a thing we do not fully understand. We cannot explain how people are gay, let alone how they are straight.
    However, yes, most people are born gay, and they either know this earlier on, or discover it as they age.

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  15. Can I email a gay coptic person? I am really worried about myself since I am gay as well. I just dont want to put my email out there. Thanks

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  16. ^ I suggest you email the blogger for Gaycopt.blogspot, his email is, gaycopt AT yahoo DOT com

    Let me know if he doesn't respond.

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  17. Yes I emailed them yesterday, I will wait longer to see if he responds. Thanks

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  18. I wish God had made it just a little easier for gays and lesbians to know how He fully stands on the issue. If God Himself is not against it then I can have a little more courage to stand up to the Church but right now, I am still confused as to why God would put us in this situation if only to suffer incredibly or if He wanted us to love and be loved like any other person. How can we know for sure what God really feels?

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  19. Well that's just it. Nobody can really claim to know the mind of God.

    There are people who will scour creation seeking answers and saying things like, "He is here" or "There lies His handy-work in creation". But the truth is that creation is fallen and so, it is futile to seek evidence if the Divine in the fallen nature. How can the Adam of corruption be used to draw a corollary between himself and his own previously promised immortality in the garden?

    So when people ask the fundamental question, "Why" in search of the evermore elusive answer, perhaps they make up stories because what they fear is the defining silence that mankind has always gotten so it seems. There is no answer.

    "Why did God make me this why?" ... the only response I can give is that, from God, we may never hear an answer for the corruption of nature (a nature of birth, frailty and death) until the very Last Day.

    What is dangerous mostly of all is to seek out God's purpose, in creation. For this, we can have no answer. No one can seek out the many connections between the birds, the bees, & the trees, and then claim to have an insight as to God's plan.

    Yet what we can do is grow. We can observe the example given to us in Christ the Lord, and from this example we can begin to develop an ever evolving moral theory, which holds Christ as the standard bearer and in this moral theory we can begin to work out not the Divine purpose (if one exists) but what we ourselves ought to do with the limited time and resources given to us.

    If there is any valid argument to be made out of this, one which is, though a folly attempt of man to comprehend the Divine, an attempt in the vain of Plato's the nobile lie, to acquire a higher morality.

    We might be able to say, that God has given to us, all manner of sexualities and all manner of sexual desires so that we might come to know Him. That as He knows no bounds to His own Love, so we might express ours in as many shades as possible. In this, we might come to understand how He Loves mankind. That to Him there is neither man nor woman, Greek nor Jew.

    If we can take this, and elevate ourselves to a new, higher morality, of a higher standard than that of our elders. Then perhaps we will have done, in president, similarly to as what Christ had done. To have not abolished the Law but made it more strict.

    If the law of Moses were that a man might love woman as his equal, then the new law would be that it is man that should love man, woman that should love woman, and all that should be held in kind as equals to oneself. And this can be our expanding upon the old Law, by having not abolished, but hardened it.

    This is the best answer that I can give. Can we know where God acts, or even His purpose, I should be highly skeptical of anyone who says they do. But is it a nobile thing, to say that God has given to us all manner of people that we might learn to overcome? It think it is nobile and worthy to believe.

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  20. The Churcj that we believe in is a load of rubbish. There is no god. Don't be silly. Why would foolish people on these churches condemn people who were born that way. These church Orthodox folk are completely ignorant to people who are not the same as them. Most Copts are very rude and arrogant and gossip and have no self respect. They are brainwashed at a young age to think homosexuality is wrong and this is simply disgusting.

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  21. Peace and grace. I am a Coptic male, and have read all the above posts, I do have some observations:
    1. You always refer to the Church or its clergy as if they are the source of the reject. This is a big mistake because they only execute what the Bible says.
    2. No one born gay, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever. If God make people this way and then judge them as sinners, well, He is not a fair or just God and not worthy of worshipping.
    3. Homosexuals Agenda in 1980’s was to convert the media from seeing it the way it is (sexual behavior) to Identity (which is a big lie).
    4. The Bible is so clear both Old and New Testaments on that subject (maybe all of us know exactly where to find these passages in the bible.
    5. Homosexuals in general, and Copts specifically, should realize that it is a sin like any other sin (If you believe in the Bible), then deal with it because YOU CAN. I know it is easy say than do, but St. Paul said I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH JESUS WHO STRENGTHEN ME. We all struggle against many sins in our life, and it is up to us to fight, fall and rise again or give up and surrender.
    6. Comparing Homosexuality to drinking is not accurate, I agree, the Bible include it as a sexual immorality category.
    7. I know it is hard now than ever to fight that sin because all the media is up to defend it, but the truth will prevail.
    8. Please, go to your father of confession and pour yourself in front of him to help you out, himself or can direct you to some professional help (since that feeling in your body, it will be hard to get rid of it on your own, but you have to have the will) ,more you keep these feelings inside yourself will give Satan the opportunity to devour you day and night. The priest hears only the sins, all kind of sins during the confession, yours is one of many.
    9. Real Christians love everybody, but not to encourage what oppose the Bible teachings.
    I ask God to help all of us to be victorious by His grace and His power.

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    Replies
    1. Still you have no idea what these people are talking about nor what they are going through, you are just repeating what everyone else is saying without offering any real solutions or understanding.

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    2. You Do Not choose to be Gay. Being gay is not an illness. You simply are attracted to the same gender. Have you chosen to be heterosexual? NO because you are without thinking about it.

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  22. The first sentence of this post is inaccurate, as is the rest of the article. Coptic Orthodox is indeed Orthodoxy, given it is in the title. You may choose not to include it in the title, but do not give information to the public that is completely wrong.
    Homosexuality is wrong, as it is a sin as well as an illness. One does not just "feel attraction" towards the same gender. A man can love a woman and a woman can love a man. And I do not say "can" as in it is possible, because it is not possible to love the same gender. If you are filled with the love of our Lord then you will not have these feelings. And you cannot say that you love God and are also gay, because if that is the case, then I would love to see a list of names of people in the Bible who are homosexual and were called righteous.

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