During my time as a GLBT youth worker in Milton Keynes, I encountered a number of young people who were struggling to reconcile their Christian upbringing and their sexual orientation. This can make the coming out process far more difficult for people who have been brought up by parents who believe that simply being gay is sinful.
While I don’t count myself among the faithful anymore, I was raised Catholic and can definitely understand the heartache this causes, parents sometimes sadly reject their GLBT children and the toll that all of this can take on a young person’s confidence and self esteem can be devastating.
About a month ago, a 21 year old student named Matthew Vines from the rather conservative state of Kansas in the US posted a video on Youtube that he researched for two years. In the video, Matthew looks very carefully at the biblical arguments made by conservative Christians related to this issue and very gently and brilliantly puts together a persuasive case that they’ve got it all wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQjNJUSraY&feature=player_embedded
Blogger Bart
Q:alliance Blog 
Nice guy and I hope he finds happiness long term. But if he’s relying on these arguments, i think he’s going to find his position dissolving when faced with people who know the Bible or its original languages well. Right from the start of his theological analysis, he shows flaws in his thinking, eg when he misinterprets Matthew chapter 7. What grounds are there that his interpretation of the Greek is better than most Bible translators? Even if he’s right about the sections of the Bible that are usually translated as disapproving, he still has the problem that in the New Testament, the only personal relationship model that Jesus allows for Christians (Matthew 19, and Luke 14:26) are heterosexual. If he’s determined to be religious, perhaps he’s best to find a religion that supports homosexual relationships.
More details here: http://stasisonline.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/homosexual-marriage/
For me the battle to combat internalized homophobia is far more important than the battle against religious thinking – people have been trying for years to argue this case and the fact that they still hasn’t gotten through to them means that it doesn’t matter how much we try to fixate upon flaws their argument, they still aren’t going to change it any time soon. It’s more important to concentrate on justifying the path that we walk, and empower ourselves with this justification to give us the confidence to be who we are, and love ourselves for who we are. If other religions don’t support this, that’s their problem – we can take the power from them onto ourselves by finding one that does, and finding the ability to embrace it as we so choose.