Student Told To Criticize Homosexuality Pens 127-Page ‘Gay Marriage Is Fabulous’ Essay Instead

“Christ never condemned homosexuality, God never condemned homosexuality, and nor does the Bible condemn homosexuality.”

After being told to write a paper condemning homosexuality, a teen who attends a Catholic high school instead penned a 127-page paper titled “Gay Marriage Is Fabulous.” The deeply researched essay outlines how Jesus, God, and the Bible haven’t ever really been against gay marriage. Instead, the church decided to cherry pick scriptures to defend its exclusion of certain people.

The student, known only as averagesmurf on Reddit, shared the story of how the assignment came about on the social media platform. “In class, we were told to choose three topics that we were either interested in or passionate about and that we would be writing a paper on their relationship with the church, as well as the morality of that issue,” the teen explained. “So, of course, I choose gay marriage as one of them (I think the others were Justified War and Nuclear Armament).”

The students were given a few days to come up with the main point their finished essays would make and defend. “If I remember correctly, mine was along the lines of ‘If Jesus were alive today, he’d be a supporter of gay marriage,'” the student shared.

Considering Pope Francis came out in support of Catholics welcoming gay and lesbian people into churches last year, the issue is timely. But the student’s teacher didn’t approve of his essay’s original focus. “In the next class, I was then informed that I had to write in support of the view of the church. Furthermore, this was also the class where she said we had to prove and support the Church’s teachings,” the student wrote. “It’s not that I’m incapable of writing something I don’t agree with, it’s just that, in this case, that was not the right choice, for a number of reasons.”

It might seem silly to fight back against an opinion that an institution has held for so long, but the Pope doesn’t think that’s the case. And neither do gay people or their family and friends. It was also important for this teen to defend homosexuality using church scripture and religious experts. “I just recently came out and thought this would be a great way to display to kids how homosexuality is nothing to take issue with,” the student shared. “I knew writing something like this would impress my grandfather, who is a devout Catholic and spent seven years in the seminary, and, just maybe, would offer some information that helped him understand me.”

Most importantly, though, the teen wanted to help others: “I just wanted people to have a resource where they could find information on why it’s okay to be Catholic and pro-gay, to, hopefully, spread a little bit of love and enlightenment.” With more than 100 resources cited, the teen came to the same conclusion that most of us have: “When you tell people that they cannot marry based upon your prejudices and archaic traditions … you reject God and Christ’s plan for love, and you reject what they stand for. Do you know better than God?” The paper goes on to remind everyone that we’re all really here to love: “Marriage is not between man and woman, marriage is between love and love. Love is not wrong, love is not a mistake, love is not an abomination, love is just love.”