This morning, when I was not yet awake, the doorbell went off. This sent Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund, into a frenzy of shrieking\u2014like she was being electrocuted or something. I, in my housecoat and with a Breathe-Rite strip affixed over the bridge of my nose, staggered dumbly to the front door.<\/p>\n

It was not UPS handing me a big box of money, as I had hoped, but a young man and a young woman, shivering and smiling. God had sent them. I rolled my eyes and gave them the \u201cOh, come on!\u201d look, and then the man began to speak quickly. He handed me a flier and invited me to come to a talk at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses on the weekend.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a fag,\u201d I said bluntly.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany struggle with such feelings,\u201d said the man.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I don\u2019t struggle, I embrace those feelings, I embrace them hard and frequently,\u201d I responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should come to our event, we would welcome you,\u201d the woman quietly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you don\u2019t welcome homosexuality in your church, do you?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n

She looked at me with dewy, hopeful eyes, \u201cOur ministry is a ministry of hope for anyone who is seeking to serve Jehovah. Jesus loves EVERYONE, including homosexuals, lesbians and transvestites. He is the Great Healer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man stepped in, \u201cHowever, Scripture is clear that God intended for sexuality to remain within the boundaries of one-man, one-woman marriage, but a homosexual or lesbian relationship isn\u2019t any more condemned by God than a heterosexual relationship outside the bonds of marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGod sure is funny about sex. Why do you think he never took a wife? I\u2019ve always wondered about that. I\u2019ve had my suspicions, you know? It just seems that all of his rules, especially against the gays, seems a little over-compensatory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you come to our event, all will be explained,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill brunch be served? 10:00 is pretty early for me on a Saturday. Also, will there be quizzes. I like quizzes. I do brain training games everyday!\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman piped up again, \u201cThere won\u2019t be any quizzes, but there will be coffee and donuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to hand it to God, he really does know how to put on a classy event. But look, Jehovah knows all and never makes a mistake, so why would he make me this way, with the feelings, the strong, strong feelings that I have and act on a couple of times everyday?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cScience is starting to reveal that when a baby is growing in the womb, certain chemicals are released that enable the baby to discern the moods of the mother and sense whether she wants the child. This sense of alienation confuses the child which is why they move to homosexuality later in life,\u201d the woman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s the mother\u2019s fault, of course! Now it makes sense, and look, just so you know, everybody online thinks that the Jesus on your fliers looks exactly like Kenny Loggins. It\u2019s become a bit of an Internet meme.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

And then I closed the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning, when I was not yet awake, the doorbell went off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1268,1269,1266,830,36,371,476,1267,1263,126,1262,61,1271,471,1270,181,69,96,55,1264,77,38,1265,592],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4219,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions\/4219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}