Tim Rymel's Blog, page 18
March 17, 2016
Dear Closeted Gay Christian Teen
This post first appeared on The Good Men Project.
Growing up gay in the Christian faith leaves some teens feeling isolated and fearful. Advice from someone who’s been there.
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I still remember the cold chills that ran down my spine when it finally dawned on me that I was gay. I never asked for it. I never wanted to be “that way,” whatever that meant. I wondered if those feelings would go away over time, or if I would always be attracted to the same sex. The only thing I knew for sure was that I had to pray that God would take those feelings away and I could never tell anyone.
That was 36 years ago.
I’d like to tell you that those feelings went away after I submitted my life to God, that I got married and raised a family like I wanted to, and that everything is fine. Well, I did get married to a woman and we had a family. Everything is fine now, but the road here was long, difficult, and excruciatingly painful. It’s not one I would wish on my worst enemy. If you’ll listen, let me save you some time in your own journey.
♦◊♦
Be Honest With Yourself
I wasted decades trying to fit in and be someone I was never meant to be. I lied a lot. But it’s not that I was lying on purpose; I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t gay. I was trying to convince others that I was “normal,” like them and that I fit in. No matter what I said, though, I felt ashamed. I felt like I never fit in anywhere.
I spent an enormous amount of energy hiding my own feelings from others, but mostly hiding my feelings from myself. I learned to say what I was supposed to say and I said it so often I believed it.
Be who you are, even if you feel you can only be that when you’re alone. You don’t have to come out all at once, especially if you don’t feel safe. God knows you and nothing you say or do is going to change the fact that He loves you. I now believe that there is no greater calling in life than to be exactly who we are. It’s from that space that we do our best work and have our best relationships.
Don’t be deceitful
Shame can drive us to do a lot of things we wouldn’t normally do and put us in dangerous situations. Meeting strangers on the web or in a park without anyone knowing may seem like a good idea, but it’s not. While you may feel like you’re not in a position to completely come out, don’t do anything stupid. Your parents may have a difficult time dealing with the fact that you’re gay, but it would be much worse to hear that you had been hurt, or worse, killed.
But deceitfulness is not always life threatening. More often, it starts small and leads to bigger lies. I got married believing that I was “healed,” after going through conversion therapy. Conversion therapy didn’t cure me, it just taught me to lie even better. My girlfriend believed God had healed me because that’s what the ministry told her. That’s what I told her. I really wanted it to be true and so did she. When we divorced six and a half years later, now with two babies, my deceitfulness impacted more lives than just mine. The lies I told, that I thought I needed to tell, turned a bad situation worse.
Make Peace With Your Faith
Growing up in the Pentecostal, evangelical world, I believed homosexuality was wrong. I preached it. When I finally came to terms with the fact that I was gay, I also decided that since I couldn’t be gay and Christian, I would just be gay.
There are over 41,000 denominations in Christianity alone, meaning there are thousands of interpretations of the Bible and no one person can say that he or she has “the truth” more than anyone else. If God were that concerned over interpretations and “the truth,” wouldn’t He have made the message a little more clear?
I realized that my faith caused me to live my life in fear. I measured everything I said, did, thought and believed in fear of making God mad, or fear of going to hell. I spent so much energy worrying about what God thought of me, I didn’t have enough energy to give to others.
Here’s the bottom line: No one can say with any authority what the actual interpretation of the Bible is, or if there is one. In fact, no one can say with any authority whether or not God even exists. Those who can prove God’s existence and their relationship with Him can only point back to their interpretation of the Bible and their feelings. Those are merely beliefs, not facts, and certainly not absolute truths.
Whatever your feeling or relationship with God might be, it is sufficient to know that you are loved, you are valued and you are uniquely you. God doesn’t expect anymore of you than who you are, exactly the way you are.
Life is Bigger Than Your Sexuality
Though it may not feel this way now, especially as a teenager, your life is much bigger than your sexuality. You have much to give, much to receive and a lot of living yet to do. Yes, life does get better, even when it doesn’t turn out the way you expected it to. Perhaps life gets better because it turns out in ways we never saw coming.
In the grand scheme of things, who you love isn’t as important as simply loving. Life was never meant to be spent in fear, self-loathing, or worrying about what others think of us. It was meant to be spent building and cultivating relationships with fellow human beings.
Your sexuality is a small piece of you; it is not all of you. As you get older – and you will get older – you’ll find that the depth of relationships transcends the mere sexual attraction to others. Eventually, your sexuality will seamlessly blend with your personality, your way of life and gradually take a back seat to the things you most enjoy.
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My advice is to take a deep breath, try to gain perspective on where you are now and know that you are not alone. In the end, you will find peace with God, your family and yourself.
Resource:
The Gay Christian Network
Photo – Flickr?FaceMePLS
Tim
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Honestly Deceptive: The Art and Science of Self-deception
This post first appeared on The Good Men Project.
What we see in other people is seldom as it appears, but what we see in ourselves may not be true either.
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I frequently start my speeches with an experience I had on a radio show nearly 25 years ago. I’d been invited, as a minister and staff member of a notorious conversion therapy ministry, to talk about my experience of going from gay to straight. The concept was met with cynicism from the show’s host, and contempt from the lesbian guests he included in our interview. He never told me they would be there.
As the show progressed, the lesbian guests were clearly perturbed with my seemingly aloof answers and word puzzle responses. Finally, one of them said, “Let me ask you this question. What will you do 20 years from now when you find out this [being ex-gay] didn’t work?”
As I say in my speeches, to not be straight was a concept so far beyond my thinking at the time, that it never entered my conscious mind. I had to be straight and live a straight life. Every fiber of my being, inside and out, told me that God had delivered me from homosexuality. I was straight. I would never be gay. The Bible was clear on the issue. As a Christian, there was no turning back, or accepting sexuality other than the one I firmly believed was the absolute truth about me. I was a heterosexual man who simply struggled with same sex attraction.
Six years after my wife left me, and almost 15 years after I left the ex-gay ministry, the fortress of self-deception began to crack. I was nearly 40 years old, still tightly holding to the belief that I was a straight man. I had become mentally and physically ill telling myself I was straight. Ultimately, I was dragged into reality against my will, as I detail in my book Going Gay, and I spent the next several years coming to grips with the fact that I was indeed gay. I had always been gay and nothing – marriage to a woman, two children and church membership – was going to change that fact.
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While my self-deception might seem extreme, it is certainly not uncommon. We lie to ourselves every day, whether it’s the amount of alcohol we consume, the money we spend, what we think we look like (better or worse), or why it’s OK to take a pad of sticky notes from the office. And self-deception is easier than we’d think.
H. L. Mencken said, “The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.” When we are born, we are handed a set of morals, values, truths, and acceptable behaviors. As we grow, we internalize our beliefs, particularly about ourselves, and build a cognitive schema, or pattern of thinking about the world around us and how we relate to it. We create what neurologist and author, Robert Burton, would call a storyline.
Our storyline, or narrative, creates an illusion of who we are and what we believe about ourselves. Those beliefs help us decide whom we will marry, where we will work, our politics, religious beliefs, where we will live and how we will spend our money. When asked to describe ourselves, the narrative is what we tell people around us, even if it is not necessarily true. Usually, we say it and mean it with all sincerity and no one can tell us differently.
To defend our positions, we point to the things around us that verify, at least in our own minds, how it is true. In my case, I was married to a woman and we had two children. I was also a conservative Christian with strong beliefs about acceptable morality and sexual orientation. While my feelings and sexual desires belied the outward appearances, the narrative I told myself is the one I truly believed.
Dr. Michael Shermer, author of several books on belief, says that humans look for patterns, which confirm what we strongly feel to be true. He calls this “association learning patternicity,” or the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless noise. The tendency to find patterns go up, Shermer says, when we feel a lack of control.
But how can someone remain so self-deceptive for so long against so much evidence? The simple answer is dopamine. It’s the brain chemical that makes us feel good and is released in our brains whenever we reward ourselves mentally, or physically. Sex, food and drug use are examples of when dopamine is released in large doses. It’s part of the reason we over indulge in those types of behaviors.
But dopamine is also released when we create stories, right or wrong, about other people and ourselves. We don’t like to live in uncertainty. As part of our evolutionary biology, we need to know what’s lying under the rock, or who the people are that we’re sleeping with. When we can fill in the blanks, whether we are right or not, our brain releases dopamine and rewards us for completing the story. At the same time, the release of dopamine also causes us to see more patterns, which we interpret in favorable ways confirming that what we believe is true about ourselves and other people.
Additionally, our stories are driven by emotion in the immediate need to self-protect, according to sociologist, Brene Brown and author of Rising Strong. Making up stories, or the narrative about us is part of our basic wiring and making meaning helps us self-protect. As Brown says, “We don’t need to be accurate, we just need to be certain.”
Neurologist Robert Burton notes that the “ah ha” moments that many of us have, can shut down uncertainty and vulnerability so that our brains can experience dopamine, which can also keep us from getting to the truth. Brene Brown adds that we get a shot of dopamine even if we only create half a story and that story is wrong because our brains are simply wired to make meaning, not correct meaning.
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In many ways, self-deception is how we have evolved to deal with the inconsistencies of life. It’s how we face threats and opposing points of view, which don’t fit our world view, or cognitive schema. It’s also a convenient way to keep from facing the realities of life that we don’t like about ourselves, or having to face the harsh truth that there are things about us that we need to face and come to terms with.
As Brene Brown points out, our bodies long for truth. They tell us when we’re not being honest by reacting with physical signs of stress. Our biology seeks to live authentically and true. We can only ignore the signs for so long before the façade begins to crack and we have to face reality. In my case, coming to terms with my sexual orientation released me to become the person I was meant to be all along. The overarching effect was that the people I love were able to do the same.
Photo – Getty Images
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Are You Hiding Bad Behavior Behind Your Religion?
This post first appeared on The Good Men Project.
Claiming grace and forgiveness doesn’t mean you can be a jerk to everyone else.
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In August of 2015, Michigan Republican Representative Todd Courser devised a plan to cover up his affair with fellow Representative Cindy Gamrat. Both ran their campaigns and were elected on conservative Christian values. The affair continued for months amid speculation and consequent denials.
In a weird, twisted tale, Gamrad’s own husband, unbeknownst to anyone, began stalking her and her secret love affair to blackmail her lover, Courser, into resigning his position. In an even weirder response to the blackmail, Courser concocted a story of homosexual encounters to throw the blackmailer and fellow Republican critics off the scent. Being gay, he thought, would be an even bigger story than a heterosexual affair, and one he could more easily deny.
Courser and Gamrad’s downfall finally came when Courser fired his aide, in whom he had confided everything. Fellow Republicans, who told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were a disgrace to the party, voted both Courser and Gamrad out of their positions.
In a recent 20/20 interview, Courser, finally confessed all the sordid details, explaining, “Everybody would hear that I’m a believer in Christ. They wouldn’t hear the part that I’m failed and flawed, you know, like everybody else.”
The sickening irony is the pretentiousness on which Courser built his “traditional values” political career. He easily dismissed his behavior as “failed and flawed,” and yet had no tolerance for behaviors of those people with whom he disagrees. By his own ideology, Courser believed that he deserved grace; his opponents needed to be voted out of the system of equal rights. Why? Because he is a “believer in Christ.”
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In other words, simply claiming to be a Christian relieved Courser of the responsibility of human decency. His transgressions – deception, lies, adultery, abuse of power – were quickly and easily erased because of a profession of faith. The ultimate show of Courser and Gamrad’s arrogance and audacity came only a week after their dismissal when they decided to run for office again to try and regain the seats they were thrown out of. Voters weren’t buying it and both lost re-election.
Courser and Gamrad are not the first to hide bad behavior behind their piousness. There have been a long string of conservative Christians in recent months, including former Family Research Council’s lobbyist, and reality TV star, Josh Duggar.
Duggar’s child molestation charges, and then affairs, became media fodder for months as the stories of deception and cover-up unfolded. Infamous Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, a former pastor, stood beside Josh Duggar stating in a Facebook post that Duggar’s actions were “’inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable.’”
Rowan, Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis refused marriage licenses to same sex couples in spite of her four marriages, affairs and illegitimate children, all of which are condemned by her fundamentalist faith. Yet, again, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and presidential candidate Ted Cruz, along with a long list of conservative Christian leaders stood beside her. One pastor called her a “minister of God.”
Davis explained away her discretions by saying, “Following the death of my godly mother-in-law” (she doesn’t state which one) “over four years ago, I went to church to fulfill her dying wish. There I heard a message of grace and forgiveness and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I am not perfect. No one is. But I am forgiven and I love my Lord and must be obedient to Him and to the Word of God.”
In years past, we have seen the likes of televangelists Jimmy Swaggart caught with prostitutes, Jim Bakker’s affair with Jessica Hahn, former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard’s drug abuse and gay encounters and countless other politicians and “family oriented” leaders caught in an array of deceptive and illicit activities. What they share in common, besides bad behavior, is their belief that a confession and admission of guilt sets them apart from other human beings, namely non-Christians, and places them back on the pedestal of “not perfect, but forgiven.”
Affairs sometimes happen, even among the most devoted of spouses. Planned, long-term deception and cover-ups, however, require a lot more energy, thought and intent. Belief that “God will just forgive me,” reduces whatever graces the individual believes about God to a tool for power, manipulation and control. Perhaps the person claiming forgiveness doesn’t see what he’s doing, but it’s obvious to everyone else and diminishes, even further, the intended message of a loving and forgiving God.
When religious people set themselves apart from their actions, claiming “imperfection” and “brokenness,” yet do not extend the same grace to non-believers, those words translate into “self-righteous” and “holier-than-thou.” When politicians and preachers spend their lives denying equal human rights to LGBT, non-religious, or non-conformists citizens, the glaring hypocrisy creates walls and chasms between groups of people. Politicians and religious leaders expect special favor because they are “sinners saved by grace,” while they continue to dehumanize and further disenfranchise people who hold a different point of view.
Courser, Gamrat, Duggar and many of the others hid behind religion because they wanted to continue the dishonest behavior they enjoyed. None of them had any intention of stopping the behavior, as represented by the fact that they did not come forward on their own; they were exposed. While they can claim that God has forgiven them, and perhaps even justify why they should enjoy their former positions of distinguished citizenships, their integrity has been lost forever. God himself cannot erase the consequences of their actions. Their legacy is deception, cheating and lies. Thanks to the Internet, it is electronically encased forever.
The disturbing fact is that religious ideologies, particularly fundamentalism, attempt to squeeze people into conformity. When people don’t neatly fit into the gender, sexual orientation, or philosophical categories, they compromise. They justify behaviors, which are often driven underground.
One study, for example, by researchers at Brock University in Ontario, Canada found that states primarily identified as religiously and politically conservative looked up more online pornography than more liberal states. The Bible Belt, according to research released by one pornographer, has the highest consumption of gay porn.
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The false dichotomy of hiding behind religion is that religion often covers the shame people feel over behaviors they want to control, or the belief that tells them they are shameful, sinful and unworthy. The circular thinking that accompanies the thought – I am sinful and need religion, which tells me I am sinful and need religion – keeps people from finding freedom from the bad behaviors that drive them and which causes them to use religion as a cover in the first place.
Faith and belief can have positive roles in people’s lives, as evidenced by a multitude of studies. Religion in and of itself is not bad, but using it to avoid introspection, or worse, to marginalize others by manipulation and control doesn’t make a person better, it makes him a jerk.
Photo –Caity Rymel
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Growing Up Jewish and Gay
This post first appeared on The Good Men Project.
A man shares his story of coming to terms with his sexuality and conservative faith.
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Paul was born into a Jewish family in the South at a pivotal time in history. It was 1960, just 15 years after the holocaust, and four years before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. “Race was an important identifier,” Paul said. “Where I grew up, Jews weren’t really white. We were part of this very tiny minority that belonged to this ‘other faith’ community. It was like we were space aliens, just kind of these oddities.”
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Paul’s family, like their southern counterparts, took their religion seriously. “Our liturgical calendar ruled our lives,” he said. Paul and his brother were active in their synagogue and close to their rabbi. “He was our neighbor,” Paul adds. Like most minority communities in rural places, he describes his Jewish community as close-knit.
Paul didn’t give much thought to feeling differently about himself, perhaps because, by community standards, he was already different. At age 14, his parents sent him to an Episcopal boarding school in Texas. “In retrospect,” he said, “the school was pretty liberal compared to what was around it, but it didn’t feel that way at the time.” It’s where he studied and developed a great admiration for Sigmund Freud, who became somewhat of a solace for him through Paul’s years of puberty.
Freud’s work made Paul see himself as normal. “[My homosexuality] wasn’t so much a conflict. Freud hypothesized the part of the sexual identity process from 14-15, and I totally identified with that,” he said. “The crushes I had on those boys were ways of comparing myself to them, identifying with them, and being a better man.”
Paul said he told himself he was smarter than the other kids and more aware of what he was going through. “They were using ‘fag’ and stuff to put each other down, and I thought that’s exactly what Freud would predict. I’m kind of above that.” Yet, Paul identified as more of a nerd than gay, until he was around 18. He wasn’t quite ready to come out to his parents, yet.
“Anita Bryant was big, my senior year of high school,” he said, “and I remember my father talking about how she was so clearly wrong. Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign proliferated the idea that gay people recruited children and made them gay. Paul said his father knew that wasn’t true. But Paul waited until his sophomore year of college before he finally told his parents he was gay.
“I went to college in suburban Los Angeles,” he said. “[The college] was very accepting before its time. We had an openly gay dean of housing.” As liberal as his parents may have appeared, however, when Paul gave them the news, “they didn’t accept it very well.”
“The Jewishness that I grew up with was basically like fundamentalist Christianity,” Paul said. “We didn’t eat pork; they didn’t drink. They didn’t dance; we didn’t drive on Saturday. The theology was kind of the same, but we just had different rules. My parents believe in a Southern Baptist God, but he’s Jewish.”
Paul said he credits his college experience for saving his life. It was the late 70s and early 80s. The AIDS crisis was just beginning. “I had very idealized views of what love and sex and relationships were supposed to be like,” he said. Between his sophomore and junior years of college, Paul worked as an intern in New York City. “I’d go down to Christopher Street and it was so clear I had no connection with [those gay men]. It was very sexualized and very disco and poppers. It was not my life. I had turned up my nose at all of the male pornographic sexuality and bath houses.” Paul said he was looking for something with more meaning. Sadly, many of the people his age, some of whom were his college cohorts, were some of the first people to contract and die from AIDS.
Later, a professor invited Paul to a conference called the Gay Academic Union. He said, “I went to it and it was full of people just like me; the nerdy professor types who were gay.” Paul described the event as “eye-opening,” seeing that other gay people could be serious and academic. He discovered many Jewish professors, some of whom taught at USC and UCLA.
“So when I got to college, I found there was this Judaism that was much more liberating and intellectual,” he said. “The conflict wasn’t with Judaism itself.” Paul called out the distinction between Orthodox Judaism, which believes in the literal interpretation of the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible, with conservative Jews, who tend to be more socially liberal and see the Scriptures as words of wisdom.
“Because we’re a minority, issues of liberation are really important for Jews,” he said. Paul made a concerted effort to involve himself in Jewish culture that was different from the one in which he grew up. In fact, by the time he reached his senior year of college, he applied to rabbinical school to become a rabbi.
“On the application we had to write about our religious experience,” he said. “I decided to write about my coming out as a religious experience.” The admissions counselor was less than impressed.
During the interview process, Paul watched the counselor’s colleagues interrupt their 45-minute meeting to congratulate him on his new baby. Yet, the counselor’s response to Paul was, “We cannot have openly gay students. I think sexuality is so private. Why would you share this with people?”
Paul exploded. “Nobody’s asking you to keep your sexuality private. Why would you ask me to keep mine private?”
Not dissuaded, Paul went on to attend Harvard Divinity School, where he earned his Masters of Divinity degree and became a Unitarian Universalist minister. Upon graduation, however, Paul said, “At the end of the process, I really wasn’t cut out to lead a faith community. Nonetheless, his drive to help others only took him in a slightly different direction
Paul earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Texas University and became a marriage and family therapist. He specializes in psychodynamic therapy and spiritual issues where he works in private practice in Chicago. He and his husband have been together for 24 years.
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In regards to his spirituality today, he said, “If I had to check a box I’d check atheist, but I don’t think Judaism and atheism are mutually exclusive.” He points out that “before Christianity there wasn’t this idea you had to believe something.” He said he believes that “religions are simply metaphors that people have chosen to help them be good people and to understand something that is essentially incomprehensible.”
Photo – Getty Images
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Gay and Muslim in America
This post first appeared The Good Men Project.
How one man navigates his Muslim faith and sexual orientation.
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Jareem sat across the table from me at a café in Davis, California, the first time we met. It was early fall and he had just started another year of college. A mutual friend connected us. I had written a book about coming out of the closet as an evangelical Christian, and Jareem, a Muslim-American, had just come out to his parents. Our friend had given him my book.
I knew nothing of Islam, let alone anything about Muslims and homosexuality. “I have a confession to make,” I told Jareem, “I’m so ignorant about Muslims I don’t even know what you people eat.” His eyes lit up as he laughed.
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Like most Americans, I got my news from TV. ISIS, and the barbaric practice of throwing gay men from the roofs of tall buildings, had been all over the news that summer. All I could imagine for Jareem is that he must have had a few rough months during the school break at home with his parents.
Jareem’s parents migrated to Los Angeles, California from Pakistan in the 1980s, after his dad’s brothers and sisters moved to the states. “Until age of 10, my family wasn’t too religious,” he said. But my mother prayed five times a day and my dad only prayed once in a while.” He described his formative years of growing up in a “semi-conservative household.”
When Jareem was around the age of 11, his mother got involved in a well-established American-Islamic organization. Jareem said there is a saying in Arabic that translates to mean, “Mothers are the gateway to religious behaviors in the household.” His family was no exception.
He noticed he was drawn to other boys around the age of nine. “When it dawned on me, I would talk about it [to my mother] vaguely. Her opinion was law,” he said. He would test the waters to see what kind of reaction she would give, and it wasn’t a positive one. “Being Gay meant you didn’t want to take on the responsibility of building a home and a family”At 22, Jareem is a highly articulate, introspective and intelligent young man. So it was no surprise to hear that he and his mother attended academic lectures, learning about the faith and Koran when he was just 11-years old. “That jump-started a change in my narrative,” he said. By the time he was 14, he was heavily involved in the Islamic community and gaining notoriety and stature among the leadership because of his commitment to the faith and the unusually eloquent way he communicated as a boy. He found himself preaching in front of crowds of hundreds and leading prayers in the mosque. But Jareem felt something wasn’t quite right.
As Jareem hit his stride in the Muslim community, in his early teens, he also became fully aware of his “same sex attraction,” as he refers to it. “It was around high school when my friends were having relationships with their significant others that I started realizing what was going on,” he said. “That’s when I realized there was a divide.”
Yet, as a leader, Jareem said, “You have to act differently.” So he internalized his struggle and looked for answers within his faith. Between the ages of 18 and 20, “I finally started to revive myself,” he said. “Not just look at religion in the text, but the meaning behind the text. [That] is the spirit of religion. That is the key to understanding what God intends for us.” That epiphany was when Jareem said he became more calm and found peace within his religion.He described those years as the dark period of his life. “I remember being in the bathroom one day crying my heart out and questioning if God even existed. I went through a phase looking at Judaism and Christianity and eventually back to Islam, wondering if religion was something I should accept,” he confessed. He described the pain of questioning his faith as if it was ripping out something that was buried deep inside of him. “I wondered if I would ever find love. Would I ever find the right person?” He said. That question, for a brief period, pushed him to the point of believing there was no God.
Several months after our first meeting, I talked with Jareem again and asked how things were going at home. His parents, particularly his mother, blamed his friends and the school for making him gay. When they sent him back to school they took away his car. Jareem has since come out to his closest friends at school, who had no idea he was gay.
What I found especially curious, as I talked with Jareem, was his continued use of the words “same sex attraction.” Those are familiar words, frequently used by conversion and reparative therapy practitioners and “ex-gays.” I asked him how he would describe his sexual orientation.“My mentors and friends have accepted me,” he said, “but have told me I should remain abstinent for the rest of my life to prevent any sinful actions” His mom, who took him to a Muslim psychologist upon his confession, told him he has to change. “My parents believe that I can and will change,” he said. “She tries to crush my self esteem to make me a better person.” Even though he knows the intentions behind her words, it doesn’t make her words any less painful.
He wonders if he will ever find someone with whom he can display his affection. He is continually researching and asking scholars for their thoughts and opinions on the issue of homosexuality, which is as divisive among Muslim scholars as it is Christian scholars.“I’m continuously trying to figure out whether or not it’s permissible for me to act upon my sexuality,” he said. “However, I don’t think of problems involving just myself, but I’m constantly worried about other Muslims.” Jareem said he prayed that God would just let it be his problem so that no one else would experience what he’s been through.
Yet, Jareem believes in his heart, “There is no fair God who would ever program someone to feel a certain way, but tell them, ‘You can’t have love on earth.’ It’s not God-like,” he said.
At the same time, he holds on to the feeling that perhaps there is a possibility he will find that one special woman to whom he will be attracted and marry. “Being gay or straight is not wrong,” he adds. “It’s what you feel and what makes you happy in life. I wouldn’t go out of my way to marry straight, but if I found the right person, I would marry her.”
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Jareem says he is not a fan of labels because they are divisive, and points to the dissension between Shiites and Sunnis to make his point. He sees himself as a visionary, someone who sees far off into the future and sees what it will be like 20 years from now. “That gives me hope and trust in God,” he said. “I haven’t found the answer yet to know if I need to remain celibate, but my trust in God will not be demolished.”
Photo – Getty Images
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What is Like to be Gay and Mormon?
This story first appeared on The Good Men Project.
A man shares his personal story of coming to terms with faith and sexuality in the Mormon Church.
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In November of 2015, the Mormon Church declared that, not only are gay Mormons apostate, their children could not be blessed or baptized until they are 18, and then only after disavowing same-sex marriage. While it was already generally accepted among the Latter Day Saint (LDS) culture that same-sex relationships were sinful, many interpreted the new declaration as a hateful move toward the children of LGBT people. In fact, it was reported, around 1,500 people resigned from the church the next day, following the announcement.
The seemingly abrupt declaration on this issue from the Mormon hierarchy alienated thousands of LGBT people and their families, already struggling to come to terms with their sexuality and faith. Just three months later, 32 suicides were reported in one support group alone, said the founder of Mama Dragons, and LGBT support group for parents. Additionally, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that “Therapists have seen an uptick in clients who reported suicidal thoughts.” What’s clear, is that it’s not easy being gay and Mormon.
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At first, Bryan looked for ways to minister to his boss, once he found out he was a Mormon, but over time, and as he studied the Book of Mormon, Bryan was instead drawn into the religion. Of his relationship with this person he said, “I felt truly loved for the first time.”As a young man, Bryan did not grow up in the LDS church. He was raised as a Southern Baptist, but found his home in the Mormon Church after moving to Washington D.C. and befriending a man who was the antithesis of his dad. “I grew up with a critical, hot-tempered father,” he said, “who put his own interests of hunting and fishing with his buddies above spending time with me.” In his new friend, who worked several levels above Bryan’s boss, Bryan found someone “more like the type of dad that I’d always wanted to have,” he said.
The leader of his new church, who knew that Bryan had just turned 30, approached him a week after his baptism. “He said I needed to get married now because I was, as Brigham Young phrased it, ‘a menace to society,’” Bryan said. Bryan confessed his personal struggle with same sex attraction to his leader and was told that his sexual “frustrations” would be resolved once he just found a good wife.
“Just remember,” this person told Bryan, “The head of our faith says that there is no reason why any two people committed to gospel principles can’t be happy.” Bryan said he gave him a deadline of six months to find that person.
“Shortly before the wedding, I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of panic as I realized that along with a wedding would come a honeymoon,” Bryan said. “I was about to go from a life currently devoid of almost all physical contact to the most intimate of human relationships.” Bryan said that sex and love with his new wife was more amazing than he thought it would be and described the event to a friend later as, “the best minute and a half of my life.”Bryan believed that his life would change and, with his new baptism, his old feelings of attraction toward men would disappear. But within six weeks, he said, “I discovered that those same thoughts, attractions and weaknesses were creeping back and consuming me again, which created a feeling of hopelessness and despair.” Through series of events, however, Bryan made a renewed commitment and soon found the woman he believed God wanted him to marry.
Soon he became a father of four sons and describes the next several years of that part of his life as a blur. “Because I was so busy, thoughts related to same-sex attraction rarely surfaced anymore,” he said. “Still, there was an uneasiness that I felt from time to time. Sometimes, though rarely, I felt I didn’t want this life at all, as good as it seemed, and I just couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was that I was missing, even though I felt that I was truly ‘fixed.’”
Bryan had suffered horrible sexual abuse as a teenager at the hands of a middle-aged man. Triggers began bubbling to the surface: the smell of motor oil, or words stenciled on cans of emergency water which lined the wall of a basement, similar to the one in which he was raped. He felt he was coming undone.
At first, Bryan’s wife was relieved to hear of his struggle. “I always knew there was something that kept this wall there between us. I’ve been waiting to have this talk for 25 years,” she told him. But as time went on, she grew angrier. She felt deceived.One afternoon, Bryan picked up the mail and found an LDS magazine. His eye was drawn to a picture of some attractive young men on the cover, but it was the title that caught his attention: “Living with Same-Sex Attraction: Our Story.” Bryan stopped everything he was doing and read the stories. The article referenced a book he had, which he’d forgotten about, that also told the stories of gay Mormon men. He grabbed the book and read all of it that night. At the end of the book, he recognized the name of someone he knew and decided to reach out to him. Bryan ended up sharing his entire story for the first time ever. “Becoming more authentic is what led me, in a huge leap of faith and trust, to first confide my story to my family,” he said.
“She felt that our whole marriage was a lie,” Bryan said. While he was feeling like a weight had been lifted off of him, she was detaching.
Bryan began sharing his story with others on a website he founded. The purpose of the site was to give voice to the many ways gay Mormons choose to live their lives. “Becoming truly authentic led to an increased desire to share the story of my journey with others,” he said. That journey has not been easy. Last year Bryan and his wife divorced after more than 25 years of marriage.
Bryan’s church includes many members of the gay community and he still serves in the church, but as an openly gay man. It’s important to him to create an environment where others feel valued and included. When asked about his position on homosexuality and celibacy, he said, “I’ve gotten much more tolerant and accepting of people’s individual choices and the right to have those. I’ve come to the conclusion that a loving heavenly father would not relegate people to hell for things beyond their control. For every person who has a faith driven life, it is a personal decision between abstinence and unabashed anonymous sex. Everybody has to find a place where they can reconcile all the aspects of their life that works for them. It feels wrong for me to have sexual experiences with people I don’t feel strongly about.”Bryan still holds to his faith, though he admits that it looks different than it did. “Part of the transition over the last couple of years has been to put less emphasis on the appearance of doing the right things and being a better person. Rather than trying to become ‘a good Mormon,’ my focus has become trying to love and serve other people,” he said.
Bryan and his family have made peace with his decisions. Though his children are grown, he and his ex-wife still spend time with their family and grandchildren. Bryan’s children have come to admire their father and his work within the gay community, especially since some of their own friends have admitted they are gay.
♦◊♦
Still, Bryan admits that it is difficult. “Being gay and Mormon,” he said, “you don’t fit into either world.” He struggles to find people with whom to share his life, who also share his religious beliefs and values. In a word, Bryan said what it’s like to be gay a Mormon, is lonely.
Photo – Getty Images
Tim
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July 27, 2015
Let Me Explain
Several months ago I was contacted by a journalist who introduced himself by saying he could never write about me because of my involvement in ex-gay ministry. He was polite, but blunt. He was afraid of the hate mail his readers would send him if he wrote about my book. More honestly, he said he could simply never do it in good conscience.
I get it. What Exodus stood for when I was involved in the mid-90s, and what it became after I left, was atrocious. It dehumanized millions of people and told them that there was something wrong with them; that they were unacceptable to God the way they were. It caused good people and their families’ unbearable pain. Some then, as now, have committed suicide over the message. Families have been ripped apart. There is no excuse.
But there is an explanation.
In the early ‘70s, fresh off of the charismatic Jesus Movement, came the idea that whatever an earnest Christian asked for, God would grant it. Homosexuality, it was believed then, as now in most fundamentalist circles, was a sin. Therefore, if a gay Christian simply prayed for God to remove it, it was done. Regardless of the feelings, he or she was considered “ex-gay.”
At first, the ex-gay message was only shared and believed among the few involved in the sanitized hippie population of the Jesus Movement. But more organizations began popping up around the United States, carried by the expanding charismatic crusade. Those organizations were eventually organized into what became Exodus International in 1976. For the next 20 years, through religious-political groups like Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, the ex-gay movement became something it was never intended to be: political.
In the fundamentalist church, it was no longer a question of whether or not God could change someone from gay to straight, it was expected. The message of “freedom from homosexuality through Jesus Christ” was preached from pulpits, even though there was no understanding of how, or if, it worked. The churches didn’t know that most of the early founders of the ex-gay movement had abandoned, and even denounced the movement as ineffective and damaging, before it ever got off the ground.
Fundamentalism, just like the ex-gay movement, had taken on a life of its own. Those who didn’t measure up were simply tossed aside. Those who dissented, were metaphorically stamped with a scarlet letter as deceived, backsliders, or ungodly. The quickest way to both dehumanize someone and avoid having to examine one’s personal beliefs and motivations is to deflect the discussion and point to that person as the problem.
Many of us who were leaders, as well as ex-gay participants, came to the ministry with fundamentalist backgrounds. The Bible, we believed, was the inerrant Word of God. If anything was wrong, it was us, not the Bible. We learned to suppress our sexual orientations, talk like the culture in which we were a part, and believe that we were really changing. The ex-gay message was merely an extension of the Christian faith to which we so firmly clung.
The mental conflict, for many of us, took years to come to the surface. Away from the ex-gay ministry, and off the stage, we had to face real life. In spite of our feelings, we refused to believe that we were gay and that we were wrong about God and our message. To be wrong meant the very core of who we were was wrong. That meant our entire lives would change. For many of us, that’s exactly what happened.
Ex-gay ministry is an extension of the fundamentalist, evangelical church. The problem was, and always has been, systematic in nature. Teach the Church what homosexuality is really about, and ex-gay ministry goes away.
However, it’s not that simple. As I’ve written before, three things have to be present to change someone’s mind: cognitive dissonance, critical thinking, and experience. People can live their entire lives experiencing any one, or two of those things together, but their minds won’t be changed until they experience the third piece of the puzzle. Then, and only then, will they start to rethink their positions. Just like we former leaders had to do, these people will need to dismantle what they believe and rebuild it on a different platform. Without a significant reason to do so, it will never happen.
When reparative therapy, based on outdated and debunked theories, became part of the Exodus message, the door opened further for even more inhumane practices. This time it was under the guise of “professional counseling.” This, too, is all part of the same faulty thinking, at least as it relates to those who believe it further validates their fundamentalist world view. It all dehumanizes, oppresses and shames the LGBT community. Like other recovering ex-gays and fundamentalists, I am all to familiar with the pain, the shame, the anger and the suicidal thoughts that always seem to lie just under the surface of “normal.”
I realize there are those, like the journalist who contacted me, that would like us former leaders and founders to simply go away. The leadership of the new version of “Exodus” would like us to go away, too. The reason we were in the ministry in the first place is not because it was a way to gain publicity and make money. We truly loved the people to whom we ministered and believed that what we were doing was for their eternal good. We were wrong. As a former leader in ex-gay ministry, I cannot apologize enough for my involvement.
Few people know the internal workings of the ex-gay “regime” and right wing politics like we do. Even fewer people have relationships with political figures and influential pastors like we do. Some former ex-gay leaders were, or are, well-known public figures. When they speak, the media listens. Because of their involvement, reparative therapy for minors has been outlawed in four states and the District of Columbia. Currently, there is a federal policy on the table that may outlaw reparative therapy for youth around the country.
I know of no one who makes a living speaking strictly about his or her involvement with ex-gay ministry. We mostly self-publish our books to ensure our stories get told so that others can learn the truth about ex-gay ministries. Those books and occasional speaking engagements allow us to reach people who have either been personally affected by the church or reparative therapy, or who can relate to religious conflict we experienced. To quote Robin Robertson, “Our mess is our message.”
I cannot stress enough how important ex-gay survivor stories are, both for ending conversion therapy and for personal healing. Stories should be shared whenever and wherever possible. There are two sites available: Beyond Ex-gay, and ConversionTherapySurvivors.org. Still, because of the damage done by fundamentalism and the ex-gay message, many survivors cannot speak for themselves. They suffer tremendous shame and are simply unable to share their lives.
We, as former leaders have set up a website, Former Ex-gay Leaders Alliance (FELA), to work together and speak out as a group to put an end to ex-gay ministries around the world. While we cannot reverse the damage that has been done, we are working to keep it from continuing.
Photo – Flickr/^@^ina (Irina Patrascu Gheorghita )
Tim
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April 5, 2015
Do Religious Freedom Laws Make Logical Sense?
This article first appeared in The Good Men Project April 5, 2015
The ways we justify our reasoning has less to do with sound arguments than you may think.
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“Arkansas Governor: My Son Asked Me To Veto ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill,” read the Huffington Post headline on my Facebook stream. Governor Asa Hutchinson repeatedly confirmed he was ready to sign the bill as soon as it came across his desk. So what happened? Economic pressure?
Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, certainly opposed it. Hutchinson definitely saw the backlash against the state of Indiana when their law went into effect, and I’m sure that had something to do with it. But the fact that he called out his son as a significant influence spoke volumes.
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Our emotional reactions are so swift and unconscious, logical reasoning doesn’t have time to catch up.
Our initial, gut reactions to moral, political and religious issues come from a combination of heredity and upbringing. For those of us indoctrinated in a particular religious or political belief system, we see things through the lens of those beliefs. Our emotional reactions are so swift and unconscious, logical reasoning doesn’t have time to catch up.
In his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, Dr. Jonathan Haidt introduces us to the metaphor of “the elephant and the rider.” The elephant illustrates the unconscious thought process; the automatic, emotional visceral brain. The rider illustrates our reasoning process; the conscious, verbal, thinking brain. The way to train the elephant is not by brute force, but by making mindful, conscious decisions through reasoning and logic. Often times, reasoning conflicts with what our core values tell us is right and wrong. You can think of this as the little human rider trying to tell the big elephant where to go.
As a former 25-year member of the religious right, I completely understand where the religious freedom laws are coming from. They are an elephant reaction to seemingly widespread acceptance of LGBT people. Many believe it is only a matter of time before gay marriage will become the law of the land. From a conservative Christian’s perspective, government sanctioning of gay marriage is not only an affront to God Himself, but can only lead to persecution of those who believe the Bible sanctions marriage between one man and one woman. (Click here for a more accurate view of Biblical marriage.)
In order to avoid being caught in the crosshairs – between God and country – a law that protects someone from having to “approve” of the “vile acts” of homosexuals, is a necessary evil. That’s the elephant talking.
…research shows when we are only with others who think like us, we tend to go deeper into our own values, moving us further right or left of center and convincing ourselves that we are right and everyone else is wrong.
The problem with “logic,” however, is that sometimes it only makes sense to us, or to our group. Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein, in his book, Wiser – Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter, says that research shows when we are only with others who think like us, we tend to go deeper into our own values, moving us further right or left of center and convincing ourselves that we are right and everyone else is wrong.
It’s not difficult to imagine, then, how a group of seemingly persecuted religious individuals came together to do something about a perceived problem.
So where does Governor Hutchinson’s son come in to this? Stay with me for a moment.
There are three ways in which the rider – the conscious, verbal, thinking brain – can guide the elephant, and they are not mutually exclusive. In other words, they all work together to bring about change in our thought processes and reactions.
1. Cognitive Dissonance
This is holding contradictory beliefs at the same time. For example, someone may oppose gay marriage for religious reasons, but have a gay child. He or she knows the child personally and realizes that all of the stereotypes and beliefs taught about homosexuality from a religious point of view do not apply to that child. This causes a conflict between a belief held to be true, and the reality of what is seen.
Once a mental conflict arises, a person now has other experiences that confirm the long-held belief may indeed not be completely accurate, or in fact is completely untrue.
2. Experience
Experience is knowledge of an event through involvement or exposure. Once a mental conflict arises, a person now has other experiences that confirm the long-held belief may indeed not be completely accurate, or in fact is completely untrue.
3. Critical thinking
A person who can think critically about their experiences, or make clear and reasoned judgments, particularly when those experiences don’t align to long-held beliefs, is now steering the elephant.
According to the Huffington Post article Governor Hutchinson said, “My son Seth signed the petition asking me, Dad, the governor, to veto this bill…And he gave me permission to make that reference, and it shows that families — and there’s a generational difference of opinion on these issues.”
Governor Hutchinson was experiencing cognitive dissonance between what he believed to be true and the influence of his son, whom he trusts and respects. He recognized and valued the difference of opinion between generations, as well as the toll this bill was having on families, and I’m sure, businesses. What we see is a combination of cognitive dissonance, experience and critical thinking swaying the governor’s point of view.
But what does this say about the future of those who believe in the need for such laws? Is there any hope of bringing them around?
First of all, let’s differentiate what Indiana has done compared to the 19 other states with religious freedom laws. Indiana’s law is the only one that specifically applies to disputes between private citizens. While Texas has a somewhat similar law, it exempts civil rights protections. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed by Bill Clinton in 1993, was put into effect to protect citizens and entities against other entities or governments, not to protect citizens from each other.
It’s difficult to address the issue by simply defining what Christianity is about or what Christians should do. There are multiple facets of Christianity and the Christian label is available to anyone who wants to claim it. Logically, religious freedom bills don’t make any sense. Gay marriage is still likely to be approved by the Supreme Court, and to make matters worse for the Christian right, the LGBT community becomes the underdog. Historically, this means stronger support, particularly from younger generations.
The problem the Christian right has with the LGBT community stems from misinformation about LGBT people gathered from the 1950s. This outdated and debunked propaganda fits nicely within their fundamentalist worldview and, unfortunately, is still proliferated by the large, well-funded, religious PACs firmly planted in political wallets. It is a shining example of what happens when the elephant controls the rider.
Photo – Flickr/michael_swan
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March 29, 2015
Brain Sex: Gender, Sexuality and Cultural Roles
This article first appeared in The Good Men Project March, 29, 2015
Neuroscience teaches us what it means to be human.——
Growing up in a staunchly conservative Christian home, I was taught very defined gender roles. Years later, when I came out as a gay man, it was nearly as difficult to reconcile my view of gender roles as it was my religion. I describe a little of this in my book, as I was getting acquainted with other gay men:
Simon caught [my friend] Joseph’s eye at a local pub where we were meeting…Simon embodied all of the gay stereotypes that movies portray and reality TV adores. If I thought I’d conquered my own homophobia, Simon was about to reveal the raging Evangelical Republican that dwelt inside.
“Hey, cutie,” he said to Joseph while clutching his gold lamé coin purse.
“Hi.” Joseph smiled. I was watching what looked like a bad b-movie unfolding in front of my eyes.
“My friends and I are going to a bar down the street to hang out some more. Do you want to come with us?” Simon asked. I was certain Joseph would say no.
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” he said and looked at me, “You wanna go?” Simon disgusted me. I wasn’t sure what this half-man-mostly-girl was up to, but my suspicions ran high. I reluctantly went with Joseph and his new friends to the bar, mostly because I felt Joseph was going to need an alibi.
Simon carried most of the conversation, waving his thin little arms around like a junior high girl, sauntering back and forth to the bar to refill his drink. My disgust must have been written all over my face.
I’m ashamed to admit that I held on to that discomfort for years, looking down my nose on any man who didn’t act like the narrowly defined, Christian bred idea of masculinity I so firmly believed to be true.
♦◊♦
As I studied and researched gender and sexuality, however, I first learned that the two were not the same.
As I studied and researched gender and sexuality, however, I first learned that the two were not the same. Sexuality is about attraction to another person, not about how masculine or feminine the sexually attracted person acts. My friend, Joseph, for example, spent 10 years in construction work. Most people never knew, or suspected he was gay. Simon, the person to whom he was attracted, could pass as a girl if he wanted to dress the part, though he was also sexually attracted to men.
Gender roles are also not as clearly defined. One reason for this is that we are not purely binary, only male and only female. Neurology Professor Jeanette Norden breaks down the differences in her lectures on Understanding the Brain (a must-have series for neuropsychology nerds).
Genotypic sex
This is our gene, or chromosome type sex. Most of the time, females are XX and males are XY. However, there are instances where someone can appear to be one gender on the outside and have the opposite sex chromosomes. There are also individuals who have XXY Chromosomes. A majority of those are male and some are born with female genetilia.
Phenotypic sex
This is the genitalia with which we are born, and is determined by the development of internal and/or external genitalia. Generally, genotypic and phenotypic sex are related, though that is not always the case. As noted above, there are instances where someone can have the chromosomes of one gender and outwardly display the genitalia of the opposite gender.
Gender identification
Those who feel they were born with the wrong body are often diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a disconnect between the gender they feel they are the body they have.
This is the subjective perception of one’s gender and is a construct created by the brain that relates them to their gender identity. Those who feel they were born with the wrong body are often diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a disconnect between the gender they feel they are the body they have.
Brain sex
Brain sex is the structural difference between male and female brains. The clinical term is “sexual dimorphism,” meaning brain structure size, number or density of neurons, etc. that separates male brains from female brains. There are particular areas of neurons that may be more or less dense in female vs. male brains and vice versa. Brain sex also contributes to how a person relates to his or her environment, as well as gender identification and expression.
Brain sex is determined in humans before birth, while brain sex in a rat is postnatal, or after they are born. There is a critical period of time when brain sex can be manipulated. Studies show that when testosterone is given to a female rat during that critical period, she will sexually act like a male. Similarly, when young male rats are castrated, stopping the induction of testosterone that masculinizes their brains, they exhibit nesting behavior, typically found in female rats.
People are born with a combination genotypic, phenotypic and brain sex types, meaning there is a combination of gender expressions and sexuality.
People are born with a combination of genotypic, phenotypic and brain sex types, meaning there is a combination of gender expressions and sexuality. Gay men, in one study, were found to have the nucleus of a female brain, though it is difficult to definitively tell whether or not this plays into sexual behavior.
Similarly, a study of females with adrenal hyperplasia, showed that the adrenal gland appeared to have masculinized the brain. This study found these women were more likely to behave as tomboys, show aggressive behaviors, and identify with males, even when they were younger. They also showed an increased preference of other females as sexual partners.
Most cultures tend to exaggerate the differences between males and females. Much of this has to do with who establishes the rules and what is considered culturally acceptable for each gender. In American culture, highly influenced by religion, we tend to keep gender roles more clearly separated and defined.
However, as cultures become more open about sexuality, sexual orientation and a blending of roles, people feel more open to express themselves more authentically. We see this play out in younger celebrities such as Alex Newell, who played Glee’s transgender student, Unique Adams, and EJ Johnson, Magic Johnson’s son. Both blend traditionally male and female clothing options into their own styles. We call this gender fluidity, or the gender expression of a person who may feel male one day, female a different day, a combination of both, or neither.
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It’s important to point out that expression of sexuality and gender can be changed, as well as behavior, however brain gender and sexuality cannot be altered by experience, therapy, or shaming or embarrassing anyone. These are variations found in humans and animals, and noted in science throughout history.
I have to admit that learning the science behind what has become such a political issue was eye-opening. It’s where knowledge meets compassion and subjects become people.
Following my friend Joseph’s month-long tryst with Simon, I asked, “How you can you so easily accept people like him?”
In his wisdom he said, “There is a reason people do what they do. Who am I to judge them when I don’t know their stories?” Come to find out, people’s journeys are really only part of their stories.
For more information, watch this Buzzfeed video, What It’s Like To Be Intersex.
Photo – Flickr/ djneight
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March 22, 2015
Is My Gay Agenda Anti-Christian?
This article first appeared in The Good Men Project March 22, 2015
A former evangelical minister turned LGBT advocate comes clean about his motives.
——
This week I was accused of having it out for Christians. In fact the person said that all she seems to find from me is “judgment, criticism, no respect for the Fundamentalist’s beliefs and constant bombardment of article upon article of how ‘Christians’ are wrong.”
This is true. And here’s why.
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I spent over 25 years of my life as a fundamentalist Christian. I grew up in church and then became a minister. I spoke out against homosexuality and, by default, homosexuals themselves. When my accusers called me homophobic, I flat out denied it. After all, opposing sin isn’t homophobic, it’s heroic in a culture that seems to worship idolatry and human beings over God. I stood firmly against the tide, with God on my side. Besides, I protested, the Bible is very clear on the issue.
And then I came out.
I was a gay man trapped inside a minister’s body. I tried to believe, do and say all the right things. I prayed and memorized books of the Bible. I was a worship leader, leading hundreds and sometimes thousands of people into the throne room of heaven. I had a relationship with Jesus that, at times, felt like it moved mountains.
After decades of this, I mentally cracked under the strain. It forced me to rethink what I believed and it violently pushed me into reality.
The problem is that I had become so accustomed to deceiving myself about the fact that I was attracted to the same sex, I made sure others believed it, too. I pushed it down, prayed, confessed, cried, and pushed it down some more. After decades of this, I mentally cracked under the strain. It forced me to rethink what I believed and it violently pushed me into reality.
Up until then, ideology and dogma ruled my life like a tyrannical dictator. And, in the name of God, that’s exactly how I treated people who disagreed with me. Compassion, I discovered, was impossible to find for others when I had none for myself. I could no longer avoid the fact that what I believed was a lie.
Then there’s something that happens to a person when he gets honest with himself. With the judgment gone, I started listening to other people’s stories in a way I had never listened, nor could I listen, before. And the stories I heard…
From across the country and around the globe came stories of other Christian men and women who had been thrown out of their churches, lost their jobs, families, and life-long friends all while simply trying to “do the right thing.” Some eventually committed suicide, believing that the problem was with them. They received and believed the message that they were better off dead and in heaven, then gay and in hell.
My friend Amy, from Memphis, Tennessee shared with me this week that her partner’s brother, a fundamentalist Christian, told his ten-year-old daughter that she could no longer follow his sister on social media. It was one more sign of rejection for Amy’s long-time partner.
At 17, her Christian family put her on Zoloft because she was gay. When that didn’t change her, she was kicked out of the family, ignored, berated and shamed. They removed her from family functions and refused to have anything to do with her. Only after a young cousin died did her mother finally realize that she didn’t want to lose her daughter completely without some kind of relationship. Still, the bonds are strained.
The cold hard reality is that 20-40% of homeless youth are LGBT. In the Bible belt those numbers go up significantly, as high as 80%.
The cold hard reality is that 20-40% of homeless youth are LGBT. In the Bible belt those numbers go up significantly, as high as 80%. According to the Human Rights Campaign, “Highly rejected LGBT youth [by their families] are MORE THAN 8 TIMES as likely to have attempted suicide and 3 times as likely to be at high risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.” They are also 3 times more likely to use illegal drugs compared with young people from families with little or no rejection.
Unfortunately, many from the fundamentalist Christian community will brush those statistics off thinking, if not saying, “Those people get what they deserve.” After all, the Bible clearly says the wages of sin is death. And the most important thing a Christian can do, in the mind of many fundamentalists, is follow the Bible.
But here’s the deal. Christian fundamentalism is relatively new. In fact, historians pinpoint it to around 1920, at a time when science and faith in America began to collide. It caused a split between what became Christian modernists, or the more liberal segment of the faith, and fundamentalists who believed the Bible must be taken literally.
As I began to study the roots of Christianity itself, I discovered that the Bible, as we know it, came into existence some 500 years after Christ lived. Homosexuality, a word not coined until the late 1800s and not added to the Bible until 1946, was virtually ignored, until around 1,200 AD.
Since the inception of Christianity there have been disagreements about what books should be included in the Bible and, in fact, there are several Bibles, all under the “Christian faith” umbrella. Additionally, there are over 33,000 sects of Christianity. Evangelical Christianity is purely an American phenomenon, which began in the 1730s, evolving into a brand of Christianity that is oddly synonymous with the American Dream.
Christians in the United States, particularly evangelical fundamentalist Christians, often represent their faith with a sense of entitlement.
Christians in the United States, particularly evangelical fundamentalist Christians, often represent their faith with a sense of entitlement. Many feel they should not have to offer the same hospitality to the LGBT community as they do the rest of humanity. It is similar to what the black community experienced during the civil rights movement, much with an attitude also grounded in the fundamentalist Christian faith.
Fundamentalists talk about a clash of rights, as though granting equal human rights to the LGBT community will somehow nullify their own. However, to my knowledge, no fundamentalist has ever been denied services because he or she self-identifies as a Christian, which is a chosen behavior and belief system. No fundamentalist has ever been tracked down and killed in the streets for simply existing. No fundamentalist has been denied the right to marry the person he loves. No fundamentalist has been told she is mentally ill because of her feelings. No fundamentalist has been separated from a dying partner because he was the “wrong” gender. No fundamentalist has ever committed suicide because she couldn’t stop being a fundamentalist. No fundamentalist has ever been made to feel he was a second-class citizen just because he was born.
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So, yes, I have an agenda. It’s to challenge the fundamentalist Christian community that their dogma and beliefs, based on highly suspect beginnings, are little more than thinly disguised discrimination. It’s to force them to look at the damage decades of mental, and sometimes physical abuse have caused families, for no purpose other than blind obedience to a belief system. It’s to challenge a view that God is more concerned with sheer obedience than inhumane behavior. It’s to give the self-righteous pause about looking down their noses at those who disagree with them. It’s to offer a valid, scientific explanation that all people are created equally, with natural variations, including gender and sexual orientation.
So when I write an article, post a controversial meme on social media, or speak out against religious dogma and discrimination, what I’m trying to say is look at the world from another point of view. Put down your Bible for a minute. Set aside what you think God is about. If God loved the entire world so much that He sent His only son to die for it, is He really more concerned about people perfectly understanding a book that no one has ever been able to agree on, more than simply loving people and treating them kindness, decency and dignity? That’s my agenda. I’m fairly confident that is His, too.
Photo – Abel Perez
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Just yesterday, a friend pointed me to another person who had reached the limit in her own struggle to come to grips with her life and fundamentalist upbringing. I found it poignant and wanted to share it here.
I am Angry, by Dena LynnI am finding myself so, so, so very enraged tonight. I am angry … just seething with rage at the rape of my soul.
The system of religion (in my case, Christianity), that claimed to be the foundation of ALL Truth (& the ONLY Truth), told me that everything about me that makes me human is also that which makes me aberrant, evil, and unworthy … despised by the very Creator who made me.
That my body is sinful, and that’s why it must die; that my mind is corrupt, and that’s why I must. not. think; that my emotions are untrustworthy, and that’s why I must. not. feel; that my heart is deceitfully wicked, and that’s why I must never-ever, not ever, trust myself; that my motives are impure, and that’s why I must never make my own decisions; that my desires are evil, and that’s why I must never want anything, and if I get what I want, it MUST be sacrificed and taken away; that my personality is prideful, and that’s why I must repent of anything that makes me unique; that my talents and gifts are worthless, unless they’re being used in service to God, and with God getting all the credit; that everything about me is evil, and must be denounced, despised and confessed as utter worthlessness; that everything about me is wretched, and that is why I, like everyone else, had to be cast away from God, separated from the Source of All Life. Don’t bother trying to fathom how that would even be possible, just accept that I’m uber-evil, to my very core, period. It marinated me in shame.
BUT, that if I accept my depravity, and confess it (before God and man), and face that God “loves me so much,” that even though He hates me the way He made me, and even though somebody’s gotta shed some blood in order to pay for this … God chose to kill God to appease God …Jesus dying on the cross, to pay the price that all us evil humans deserve to pay for being the way we’re made, by God. And that’s the “good news.”
Oh, and there’s a catch. See, God loves me SO much, wants to be with me forever SO badly, that he gave me this gift … annnnnd … if I don’t accept this gift, if I don’t admit that I’m evil, and receive this offer of salvation/connection-back-to-god; if I don’t “love him back” that way, then he has no choice but to send me to hell, where I’ll be consciously tormented and tortured forever and ever, without end.
That, I was told, is “unconditional love.”
Oh really? If I were courted by a man who said, “I love you with all my heart, and I want to be with you forever, and I’ll give you everything, but if you don’t love me back, and accept my gifts, then I have no choice but to stalk you and hunt you down, and torture you and kill you,” I might acquiesce, but it would be out of fear. I couldn’t actually love under those conditions.
I bought into it. I did all that because the fear of the consequences was too strong and because everyone in my life who I loved, trusted, and was told I had to obey, wanted me to do so. And I didn’t want to risk their rejection…as well as God’s. Did I have a choice? Does a dependent child ever really have a choice? Does the adult whose entire tribe is comprised of those who – loudly, staunchly, adamantly – believe that, really have a choice? When it’s “acquiesce or be banished” is that really a choice?
It turns out that I had a choice. And it turns out that banishment was indeed the price to be paid. Eleven years ago, following a life changing experience – and experience trumps doctrine … but only every time – I asked for “truth at all cost.” Truth mattered that much to me. I knew it was the only thing that would give me the security I so desperately needed. I was willing to risk everything I once believed, for the sake of truth. It cost me plenty. I lost nearly everything.
Truth came in like a slow-motion avalanche, toppling sacred cows like dominoes: hell; judgement day, and the whole second-coming of Jesus; original sin;sin, period; the origins of Christianity; the “inerrancy” of the Bible, and that it’s “God’s Word to be obeyed and followed”; and finally, once I “real-eyes’d” that nothing can be “separated” from the Source of All Life and live, the very foundation of Christianity itself.
And so, without any sort of decision, I noticed that I shed it, like a garment that could no longer fit me. The concept of God got far larger, kinder, vaster, more loving, less male, more inclusive, less exclusive, less separated, more innate, less “out there” and more “in here,” less human-hating, and more human-integrating. So that even the word “God” no longer fit, being far too limiting for All That Is.
Sounds good, right? Sounds like I was let out of prison, and catapulted into wide-expansive freedom, right?
Here’s the deal. The very painful, very discouraging, very enraging deal. It’s one thing to get the girl out of religion. It’s another thing entirely to get the religion out of the girl.
Conditioning is tough to overcome. No question. It’s part of life for all of us. But when the conditioning is stamped and sealed with “This Is The Absolute Truth of The Very Being Who Created You,” when that conditioning goes to the core of who you ARE as a human, when that conditioning carries the Extreme Authority of God Almighty, that conditioning goes deep, and digs in its talons, and keeps showing up, no matter WHAT I now know and believe; no matter how much proof I’ve evidenced, no matter HOW many books, seminars, healing sessions, ayahuasca ceremonies, hypnotherapy sessions, mantra-recitations, affirmation-repeatings I’ve experienced. That conditioning acts as though it has the legal right to BE there – as if I signed a contract that I can’t find – and to reduce my life to a mere shadow of what I KNOW it’s meant to be!
I do not know ANYthing as insidiously damaging to the soul, than Christianity. Period. And if you didn’t experience it, if you were spared it, then celebrate it. But make no mistake, you don’t get it.
NO, I do NOT see the good in Christianity. I know and love many Christians, but I despise the system of Christianity. Just as I can love a slave, but utterly despise the system of Slavery. What makes Christianity even more insidious is that it claims to be the highest good; that it claims to be the ONLY truth.
I despise ANYthing that enslaves anyone and I am infuriated that no matter what I do – and I don’t know of anyone who has tried to get free any harder than I have – this thing keeps its grip on me. This thing continues to hold me in slavery AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO TO GET FREE!
I am angry!!!!!! SO angry!!! And, dammit, I will remain angry, I will feel this anger until it passes. And then I shall feel whatever comes next.
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