“Being Gay is a choice.” “Those in that lifestyle are freely condemning themselves” “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” Those are just a few phrases I have heard growing up in a Christian home.

I have always felt attracted toward the same sex, but never wanted to admit it. My parents and church had instilled in me that being gay was wrong and I was sure that they would reject me.

I wanted to be normal and I did not want to go to hell, but I struggled with the concept that I had to suppress my “unnatural” attractions; rules by which I was forced to abide while growing up.

Through middle school and high school a part of me hid from everyone. On the outside I was lovable, fun and conservative, but on the inside I was completely torn.

I pretended to like girls to the point that I began to believe my lies.

I spent many nights praying that God would take this struggle away from me, but he only showed me what I needed rather than what I wanted. He had convinced me that there was nothing wrong with me and that he had made me just the way I was.

I never wanted to give up on my faith and I still haven’t. When I lost my mother in May 2012, I swore that I would continue to love God and chase my dreams of being a writer. This forced me to find comfort in my own skin; to be the man I really am.

So I searched the internet, read the Bible and prayed a lot. I came across a website called The Gay Christian Network and to much surprise found a community of people with helpful, supportive reassurance that there really wasn’t anything wrong with me.

At first it was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of being gay and Christian because I was conditioned to believe those two things contradicted each other.

I came to the conclusion though, that everyone is imperfect, including the men who translated the Bible. It cannot be expected of people to perfectly and infallibly translate ancient Hebrew and Greek into English. They are bound to get things wrong. Not to mention the word, “homosexual” was not coined until the eighteenth century.

I discovered that whenever someone used the Bible to condemn LGBT people those verses would only be speaking of violent sexual acts such as: gang rape or pedophilia. Those verses never mention loving, same sex, monogamous relationships.

While I could continue on, the point is that I believe in Christ’s truth and what he sacrificed for everyone. I believe that love is love, no matter who one may be attracted to, and that homosexuality is not a sin.

There is a large number of men and women around the world, including Fresno City College, who struggle with their sexuality. As a college student, it was hard for me to pick a group to which I wanted to associate myself.

I knew the christian group would most likely not accept me as a gay man, but I also feared that the LGBT group would struggle to understand my faith; I felt like there was no happy medium.

So, until I can find a comfortable setting to express my sexuality and religion, I choose to stand as a beacon of hope for those who are LGBT and Christian, waning in their faith. I have seen far too many LGBT people turn away from God because of family or churches and it saddens me deeply.

I want to help people and inspire them, but most of all I want them to know that God does not hate them, nor does he condemn them. There is no sin in being a gay Christian.