From the moment I was conceived, my fate was decided for me. My parents were catholic. My parents' parents were catholic and so on. My brother and I were going to be raised catholic whether we liked it or not.

We were both born in religious hospitals. We were baptized as soon as we could be. We went to catholic school up through 6th grade. We went to church every Sunday. We received all our sacraments and did volunteer work in the name of God. We even had some biblical stories memorized because of how many times we heard them in Sunday mass.

So, how exactly did my brother and I both end up becoming liberals?

Much of the liberal agenda goes against the bible and the teachings we received growing up. Some of these are LGBTQ+ marriage, women's equality, trans* rights to health care and ya know, basic evolution. And yet, we still believe in moving forward from conservatism.

My theory is that we took the true parts of catholicism and translated the scripture into modern day use.

We were raised to respect and love all people. I mean, the "Golden Rule" is "treat others the way you want to be treated." Our catholic school lessons taught us that all people were created equal and in the likeness of God. We were taught if you lead a good life with kindness in your heart, you deserve nothing but that.

Ignoring the outdated details of the Bible, it's not so difficult to see why my brother and I are liberals. We want equality for all people. We want everyone to live peacefully and happily regardless of race, gender, orientation and religion. People shouldn't have to fear for their life because they are a different religion than the dominant culture. People shouldn't have to fear deportation because they are a minority. People shouldn't be told they can't have health care because they're deemed "too expensive" because of hormones or birth control.

So yeah, it really is aggravating when radicals like the Westboro Baptist Church and Kim Davis use my religion as a defense for their small mindedness.

Christianity is commonly associated with conservatism but I think that's unfitting. It's just an excuse to keep things as they are. It's comfortable to live in the United States if you're a white, straight, christian because that is the dominant culture.

If someone is a true christian, they would want everyone to be able to love who they want, have access to health care regardless of circumstance and just be nice to each other.

I know that the in the biblical book of Exodus it says, "a man should not lie with a man as he does a women" and some could argue that this is a demand against marriage equality. But Exodus also says not to dye your hair, cut your beard or eat shellfish and everyone conveniently seems to have ignored those details.

And I know for sure the bible does not say anywhere "create hateful picket signs and protest fallen soliders' funerals as a way to really stick it to those gays" so I wonder where that action came form.

So, on behalf of narrow christians everywhere who hide behind select verses from the bible to enforce their bigoted opinions, I'm sorry. Because if these people really walked with God, they would fight so every single person can live the life that he/she/they/etc are entitled to .