Growing up as a Filipino Catholic, I was always surrounded by faith and have witnessed God’s presence in many forms: in the miracle of gaining my speech as a toddler after having been non-verbal for years in the blessing of having just enough support to realize my childhood dream of studying in a university abroad and in my loving friends and family.
Even with the uncertainty of believing in a God who I had no direct contact with, all these signs gave me undeniable proof that a higher power existed.
To maintain my relationship with God, I followed all the ideals that constituted a “good Christian.” I attended mass every Sunday and excelled in all my high school theology classes. I prayed before each of my meals and right before I went to sleep.
However, as I entered university, I started to feel like there were beliefs shared within the Catholic church that did not sit right with me. Although the main commandments of our religion are founded on unconditional love, many of the people I met within the church restricted it to multiple conditions — including being against Queer love.
Around the same time, I realized I was bisexual.
I had questioned my sexuality throughout high school, assuming that something would separate the feeling of crushing on a woman from crushing on a man, but I eventually learned that these experiences were not all that different. With all the guys and girls I fell in love with, I found myself similarly giddy from the glances I shared with them and heartbroken when they did not reciprocate my feelings.
I felt torn between being a Christian and bisexual. I felt unwelcomed in many churches and faith groups, usually hearing phrases along the lines of “We love our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, but we do not celebrate their actions.” But I also felt embarrassed when I prayed in front of my Queer friends, knowing that many of them had been hurt by the Church and did not share the same faith as me. I was an aimless anomaly — not fully Christian, yet not fully Queer.
Trying to figure out my identity led me back to my early Catholic education, grounded in the philosophy of Augustinianism. St. Augustine spent his entire life searching for truth in sources within and outside of Christianity — with time, I realized that living my life in a similar way felt most fulfilling to me.
I allowed myself to find truth in both my Christianity and my bisexuality. I grounded myself on the main commandment of Christianity — “to love your God above all things, and to love your neighbour as you love yourself” — and found its applications spreading far beyond the church. Many of the people whom I’ve seen exemplify this commandment are the very people that the Christian Church condemns: Queer people and non-believers. It reminded me of the stories I read about Jesus in the Bible, where he surrounded himself with the very people who were shunned from synagogues. If he were alive today, I believe he would find his truth in the same people I surround myself with now.
As a Christian and bisexual person, I continue to see God’s work taking shape in different ways. In the sermons I hear at church that give me the right advice at the right time and in the men and women I feel attracted to. Because of these signs, I have no doubt that God exists.
Share this article
