The following is a guest post by Trav Mamone from Bi Any Means.

In the Emergent Christian scene, there’s a focus on dialogue between liberals and conservatives. The underlining philosophy is that all Christians are members of the same Body of Christ, and as such, our petty differences shouldn’t cause schisms.

I was a Christian for twelve years, and I dabbled in every theological persuasion I could find: tongue-talking holy-rollers, suburban megachurches, old-school Lutherans, and Emergent hipsters. I’ve bounced around since becoming an atheist, too. After being convinced by Richard Dawkins, I read Chris Stedman’s Faitheist, which was similar to what drew me in to Emergent Christianity. I’ve since become a bit more anti-religious, especially with recent events like Leelah Alcorn’s suicide, the Charlie Hedbo shooting, and Raif Badawi’s imprisonment.

Throughout all this, I’ve come to realize that, while dialogue is still a vital tool in understanding where people come from and what motivates them, it sometimes just doesn’t work no matter how hard you try.

Dialogue is most effective when both sides are willing to listen without judgment. Both sides can disagree, of course, but if the end result is two people who have a better understanding of where the other person comes from, then dialogue works.

Through Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, and other social media outlets, I’ve discovered a huge community of queer activists and intersectional feminists. Some of the activists I’ve met are secular, and some are religious. In the believers I’ve met, I’ve found theologies that not only validate their identities, but also call for social reform. Because I share similar struggles with other online activists, I’m more open to hear what they have to say. In fact, I want to know how their faith helps and fuels their activism.

Recently I interviewed bisexual Christian blogger Eliel Cruz. He told me that his church shunned him because of his identity, but that only made him draw deeper to his faith. “No one can tell you God thinks you’re an abomination,” he told me, “if you have a personal relationship with God and God is telling you you’re not.” Cruz also explained how his faith and social justice intersect for him. He said that, according to the Gospels, Jesus chose solidarity with the sinners than strict obedience to religious laws. “For me,” he said, “that shows me what we’re supposed to do as Christians, and that sometimes we have to defy the law to stand in solidarity with those who are being oppressed by it.”

I still believe secular humanism is a better option than religion, but through conversations like these, I better understand why my queer Christian friends are still Christian, despite the Church’s rampant homophobia.

Through dialogue, not only can I learn something new, but so can the people I talk to. My closest friend Courtney is a heterosexual cisgender woman who has lived all her life (so far) in Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore area. She told me that since we’ve been friends, she has learned a lot about bisexuality and nonbinary genders through my story. Before me, the only things she heard about queer people were that we are “sick” and “disgusting.” Being my friend put a face to a controversial issue, and it made her rethink a lot of what she had been told. That, in turn, has made our friendship stronger.

The world would be a much better place if we all took time to listen to everyone’s stories, but some people just aren’t that interested in hearing stories other than their own. They’re so comfortable with their own worldviews that they’re afraid to even entertain the possibility that they might be wrong.

I was once Facebook friends with a Calvinist. One day he wrote on his wall that accepting homosexuality as natural makes as much sense as saying pedophilia was natural. I was freshly out of the closet, and I was still involved in Emergent Christianity, so I still believed that dialogue could magically make anyone change their mind. I tried to explain to him why he was wrong. I told him there’s a huge difference between sex between consenting adults and sex with a child. I told him about my journey toward accepting and loving my queerness. I thought I had won the argument, and he should at least be able to second guess his previously held beliefs.

My Calvinist friend simply responded with, “So, do you think pedophilia is natural?”

I told him to fuck off and unfriended him immediately.

Since then, I realized that I have neither the time nor the energy to take every homophobe and transphobe by the hand and educate them about my humanity. I can yell and scream about my worth and dignity as a human being until a collapse on the floor, but when I’m met with only “But the Bible says . . .” I feel like I’m shouting at a wall. People who just believe in some sort of higher power don’t bother me as much as the ones who say their higher power is the right one and everyone who doesn’t believe is an enemy. I have no respect for anyone who believes their god hates people like me.

Of course there’s always hope for some. I have a friend named Jake who is sort of a moderately-progressive Christian. When I came out as queer on my Facebook wall, he messaged me and told me that, while he could not support marriage equality, he still wanted to hear my story. We don’t always chat, so I’m not sure if he still holds the same views, but at least he offered to listen without any judgment. And who knows, maybe hearing my story has made him reconsider things. I can only hope. If dialogue doesn’t work, well then, as Jesus would say, I’d just shake the dust off my feet.