Hi, arich62. I too am glad that you were able to at least get past the point of feeling so self-destructive over RW's choice to end his life. I can relate, I was in a really dark place myself 4 weeks ago, and when I heard about it, I was actually envious that he had done that. which is pretty screwed up thinking, I know, I don't really want to end that way.

I am not deeply religious by any means, I consider myself a "cultural Christian", in other words, I grew up with Christianity as my nominal religion, and we followed the cultural rituals of it, Easter, Christmas, etc., but it wasn't really ever a deep thing. And my knowledge of a lot of it is superficial, I know the basics of Bible stories, etc, but that's about it. I am OK with that personally.

I don't want to make this a debate about religion. But I want to state what bothers me is the intolerance that some adherents show for anyone who doesn't follow their way of life. I am also so upset when I hear religiously based attacks on GLBT people, or that those folks have been "damaged" psychologically by being forced to deny who they really are, and how they were "made" biologically, to satisfy someone's beliefs. For example, the entire movement in some Christian circles to "pray away the gay" - as if it were a disease or disorder. It's not, it's just the orientation a pretty significant percentage of the population is born with.

I think trying to deny or cover up who you are inside is so much more damaging than just accepting and being who you were born to be. I know so many people like the Lady Gaga song Born This Way because of the message that "God makes no mistakes", which I truly believe. I do believe in God, and even at times in Jesus, but not the angry, vengeful, cruel version that some espouse. I believe in the open, tolerant version which accepts and loves and did make us all perfectly. If only humans could see that.