"condemn the priest that made you mad and hurt your feelings so much dave, but not the entire catholic church in general....
you don't believe in God anymore?
whom do you believed at! you sound like you've become an atheist now...shame on you! if you're writing it to impress people or just for the heck of it, then, it ain't funny...and obviously not very nice to think about...freedom of expression is good but condemning the church as well as GOD is a mortal sin...come to think of it. "ang gaba raba dili magsaba"....i enjoyed reading your blogs all the time except this one...please dont write stuff like this again. thats scares me."

Auntie, have you really read the entire blog entry? Because if you did, you’ll realize there’s no need for you to write this. Honestly, the moment i read your response and that was a few minutes ago, I felt devastated. For someone to not examine my writing fully especially when it deals with a subject i feel strongly about, pains me, even more when he puts it in writing.

Yes, I detest the priest and in fact, if I were raised in a less decent environment and were in front of him the moment he said those ridiculous words, I don’t know what I would have done aside from the most tempting idea of spitting on his face. And the reason why he was confident in saying those was because he is a priest, a Catholic priest, which even made it worse since I claim to be a member of the institution where he is thought highly of. You know why? Because when a priest, within the vicinity of the church, and wearing his robe is asked for an opinion about whether or not an issue is moral, his opinion is the Catholic Church’s opinion. Not just his own. And the reason why he is so proud to verbalize his judgment about homosexuals is because he is so sure the church he serves supports him. Does it not? And if you are a member of the Catholic Church and hears him preaching this, you have to agree with it. That’s why a lot of people are so sure that we, homosexuals, are evil and will be burned in hell.

In the past we were led to believe homosexuals as sinful and immoral human beings. We almost treat them like animals. As a child, who didn’t know I was one of them, I believed this too. It was not until I grew up and tried to understand myself, my behaviour and the nature of my being that I am not sinful because of my sexual preference at all. I am sinful because I am a human being, not because I’m gay. Does the Catholic Church accept this? No. What they just want is for us to believe that we are sinners and immoral and, for us to be redeemed, we need to come to them and with God’s power, we will be healed. As if what we have is a disease.

I don’t know why you mentioned the word “atheist” in your comment. If you re- read my blog entry, you will not see anything there about me despising God, or not believing Him. I never talk about God easily. Because when I think about Him I think of the things I have done, am still doing, and am still going to do that might not be in accordance to the ideals set by Him.

Let me tell you about the God I believe in. My God, knows me more than anyone else in this world. Even knows myself more than I do. And the God I know is a reasonable God; someone who also sees the circumstances, not just the result. He is someone who loves me even more than my parents do. Look at my mama and papa. I know they love me so much. But I also know that if given a chance to change me to become straight, they would have done it because I know they want me to live a normal life the way most of the others do. But they have learned to accept me because I know that they see more in me than what society and the Church tells them. That kind of love, to the Gazillionth power, is how the God I believe in loves me. The God of the Catholic Church that I know has no interest in knowing who I am; not to mention, loving me. He has only given me two choices: to be straight or to go to hell.

I am not an atheist. I have faith in a power greater than me. Much as it pains me to accept but I don’t think I believe in Catholicism anymore. But, believe me, I so want to. I just don’t think it’s right when you claim to be a believer of that Institution when the truth is you only believe parts of what it preaches.

When I came home from duty, I had no intention of writing anything. I just wanted to pull up my websites to check on updates and then I stumbled upon your comment. Now I find myself in front of the PC for 4 hours trying to respond to you. And this scene pretty much summarizes how I come up with something written. Something has to happen to make me want to write or else the repressed ideas would just bother me.

If you can check on my blog sites, you will notice that I don’t even write that much. And there’s a reason for that.

Writing for me is a need. It comes without an effort when there’s something I want to desperately express. Although sometimes, when the feeling is so overwhelming, I also couldn’t write. An example of this is the blog entry where you posted a comment on. I just made an introduction after I saw the news on TV Patrol Cebu. The rest is an article written by JJ Garcia. If you read it carefully, you will see his name there.

I don’t know where you get the idea that I could be writing just for the heck of it or just to impress people. If they are indeed impressed, that’s good. But what does that do? If you’re fishing for attention and compliments, go write about shopping or about love, or choose the most recent movie to review. And make sure you write everyday. But these are not the things I write about; and that’s not how I write. When I do, the people I expect to read are those who think. Not the ones who are reading just to be impressed as a product of inferiority complex because they cannot write. Or of superiority complex because they think someone writes as good as or better than them.

I don’t know Auntie Jennifer; I respect you as my aunt. But I need you to see me as a grown- up. And I’d like to think that I made sense in what I wrote; although, a lot of people, like you, may not agree with it.

As regards me not writing what you referred to as “stuff like this.” I’m not sure what the exact things, that fall into that category, are; but I will continue to write and express what I feel and make sure it will create ripples and move people to create changes that make us closer to having a world governed by sensibility, compassion and, respect.