Homophobes can be very creative when it comes to finding ways to hurt people they despise. While some tend to hate queer people for no valid reason, others justify it with their faith. And then proceed to use “the word of God” to spread hate and misinformation.
Just like this man, who was offered a job by a gay office manager, but quickly refused it saying the Lord was leading him to do so. Then, later on, he proceeded to basically harass the manager by sending them quotes from scriptures and wishing them to “resist their urges.”
More info: Reddit
How should one react when someone texts you wishing to change your sexual orientation?
Image credits: freepik / freepik (not the actual photo)
After a job interview, an office manager opened up to the potential hire about how they left the church after coming out
Image credits: freepik / freepik (not the actual photo)
At first, the man seemed understanding of the situation and didn't say anything too bad
Image credits: freepik / freepik (not the actual photo)
But then, a bit later, when he was offered the job, he refused it and sent the office manager an overly long text about "the choice of being gay"
Image credits: u/xSloth91
This left the post's author literally speechless as they didn't know what to answer to such a text
The OP works as the office manager for a private contractor in a major city. Their job includes hiring new people for the company. So, one day they interviewed a man who had a very religious background.
After the interview, they talked a little bit, and the author was asked about their religion. Bored Panda's interviewee Dr. Catherine Connelly from McMaster University said that during the job interview discussing religion is not legally prohibited, but it can open the company up to legal liability depending on how the information about religion was used. So, it's better not to collect any information about the applicant's religion at all.
To make avoiding such questions easier, companies should have very structured interview processes. For instance, Dr. Connelly said that they could "stay away from open-ended questions such as 'tell me about yourself' because you will learn a lot of irrelevant information that won’t even help you to choose the best candidate." Instead, it's better to ask questions that directly correlate with the job.
Yet, in the case of this story, it was not the interviewer, but the applicant asking the question about religion. So, the author revealed that they left the church after coming out. Such situations are not rare. In fact, it was found that people who belong under the LGBTQ+ umbrella are almost twice as likely to disaffiliate from their religion.
We can take Christianity as an example. Queer people likely leave this religion because fairly many Christians still believe that being LGBTQ+ is incompatible with their faith. Here, according to Pew Research Center data, 38% out of 25,048 questioned Christians believe that homosexuality should be discouraged. Quite a lot, isn’t it? So, no wonder people tend to leave a community that doesn’t accept them.
Today's OP knew they were gay from a very early age, which made being a member of the Southern Baptist church difficult. During such a confessional conversation, the potential hire seemed understanding. The author said that there were a few red flags with him, but they decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and hire him.
So, the man came in to fill out the paperwork, but before he started the training videos, he announced that he had to leave. Apparently, he had to get his truck from the shop and give his sister the car he'd borrowed back.
Image credits: freepik / freepik (not the actual photo)
A week later, the OP received the text messages they added to the post. Basically, the man said that the Lord was leading him away from taking the job. This is understandable; maybe he just didn’t feel in his place at the workplace. But this text wasn’t the end. Actually, it was just the beginning of the overly long text – 8 paragraphs, to be more exact.
In a nutshell, in these paragraphs, he blabbed about religion and gayness. For example, he said that the thing that separates humans and animals is that humans can resist their urges, with homosexuality being one of them. And instead, people should give in to God's word if they want to live a peaceful and eternal life.
To strengthen his point, the man decided to quote several scriptures, saying they “might help.” He mentioned sentences from Galatians, which talked about “flesh desires,” “the fruit of the Spirit,” and similar things. All of it supported the things he yapped about before – how humans should resist their urges, homosexuality included.
There are people who criticize those who weaponize Biblical texts against things they don’t like. They call it an abuse of scripture. Selecting to believe in only those texts that support prejudices against certain social groups while ignoring other texts is not the right use of the Bible.
After receiving such condescending texts, the OP was not sure what to do. So, they left them hanging. After all, what could they say?
Well, people in the comments under the post had what to say. They were enraged by the man’s entitlement to rub his beliefs in the author’s face. And not simply rub them in, but use them to trivialize their identity and imply that it could be changed. Any sensible individual knows that a person’s sexual identity isn’t a choice; it’s what they were born as, which makes claims like that discriminatory.
Some even said that the OP dodged a bullet with this possible coworker. Do you know what a nightmare it could have been working with it? Our interviewee thinks so too. She said, "Just be happy they aren’t your new coworker." She also advised the OP to keep the texts as a record, in case the man decides to apply for any other position in the future.
The Bible says that one must “love thy neighbor.” So, it’s very interesting to see such religious nuts be so about the word of God in one instance, but completely ignore it in others. This just shows that they might be not such a good person as they pretend to be by weaponizing their faith. And that’s just terrible, isn’t it?
On the other hand, people online had plenty to say – from anger to jokes at the texter's expense
