I've known something was different about me ever since I wanted to kiss Mr. Peterson in 8th grade. The son of two pastors in the Church of the Nazarene -- a small, evangelical Christian denomination -- I never thought I'd tell anyone about my little, rainbow-patterned secret: that I'd bury my head in my locker when the guys would change after P.E., that I left the television on every night because I had to silence the voices in my head that told me I was disgusting, that sometimes I'd get so scared of being caught I'd throw up. I was hopelessly haunted by the biblical passages I'd read -- the ones that allegedly said people like me couldn't be Christian -- afraid that if my hunch was right about the kind of sex I wanted to have, I'd lose everything. It wasn't until my last year of college that I finally reconciled my sexuality and my Christian identity.
I remember my fingers feeling numb first, like I'd snuck them into a bowl of ice and forgotten them there for hours. I was sitting in the office of an administrator at Point Loma Nazarene University, where I was a senior. I was the Director of Spiritual Life -- an elected position of student chaplaincy -- and some months before, while looking into the sage, wrinkled eyes of my father, had whispered those mythical, telltale words that, for some of us, change everything: "I'm gay." I told my supervisor, too, and my professors and my friends, which is how I'd landed in her emerald, padded chair that Wednesday afternoon. She'd just told me I could keep my job as chaplain, so long as I didn't "act gay."
"Wait," I clarified. "If I hold a guy's hand, is that acting gay?" She nodded her head in affirmation, and I pressed further. "If I go on a date, is that acting gay?" Another nod. "If I have a crush?" Her gaze was sympathetically heavy as her head gently moved up and down for the third time.
"That's ridiculous," I cried.
Wherever injustice is present, I've learned, life has a propensity to wax messy. A few weeks later, I quit my job, and not because I lacked capability. On the contrary, I feared being morally culpable in the systemic silencing of people like me: LGBT students, faculty and staff at Christian colleges and universities who long, more than anything, to be unashamedly celebrated by the communities they so desperately love. After I came out, the response was admittedly varied: I remember a professor asking me over dinner in the cafeteria if I ever planned on preaching again.
"Yeah," I said, forking my chicken and broccoli. "I imagine I will." His response reached down my throat and punched my stomach.
"Hell's real, you know." I stood up from the table and took my plate to the dish return.
I got an e-mail from one alum who told me a harrowing story. When he was at Loma in the 1970s, his friend had written a love letter to a student of the same sex, but hadn't the courage to deliver it and threw it in the trash one morning before heading to class. Someone --suspicious of the way he walked, and the way his words lingered a bit longer than his colleagues -- reached into the trash after he left and unfolded his secret, dropping the letter off on the desk of the dean. The student would subsequently be expelled for un-Christian conduct, and would never again return to the church before losing his life to AIDS 20 years later.
"I wanted to say thank you," the alum's e-mail concluded, "because people don't have to have to be afraid that they're alone anymore. I often wonder how his story would have been different if someone would have told him that."
The shrewdest, loudest, most violent lie that LGBT people at Christian colleges and universities carry is this: that no one else like them exists. More important, and more enduring than the stares and questions and assaulting prayers, are the stories of the 70 current students, and 130 alumni who contacted me to say they had the same kind of dreams I did.
And that's only from Point Loma. Students from across the nation sent messages my way, notes of gratitude and concern and question and fear.
"You're not alone," I told them all, "and there's plenty of space in the church for you, should you choose to stay."
When I tried to start a gay-straight alliance at the school after resigning, and before I graduated, the charter was refused for conflicting with University policy on homosexual behavior. We met anyway, and the group continues to gather across campus this year, a beacon of hope for so many who would otherwise live in the shadows. Other schools have faced the same opposition: Seattle Pacific, Pepperdine, Westmont. The not-so-secret gospel news is that we're everywhere, us gays. We're your teachers and janitors and friends and pastors. The question isn't whether or not we exist; it's what Christian colleges and universities are going to do with us.
A friend of mine works as an admissions counselor at one of these institutions. I asked her recently what she tells to openly LGBT students who are in the application process.
"I tell them to go somewhere else," she tearfully responded, "somewhere that can celebrate them and love them without condition."
I've just been accepted to Yale and Emory for graduate studies in divinity. "We'd be happy to have you here," their letters said. I long for the day that Christian colleges and universities can be the same: a good, safe, fruitful place for people of all orientations.
Before you make "smokescreen" claims, try learning about the institutions you're criticizing.
Of course the biggest kicker of all is the passage in the Bible that damns gays as an abomination. A few verses over in the same chapter it damns all men who touch the dead skin of a pig as abominations. Think that through. Every man who has ever touched a football is, according to the Bible, an abomination in the exact same category as a gay man. The same chapter of the same book of the Bible condemns them both. Calls them the same ugly name.
Any Christian who quotes the Bible damning gays had better give exactly the same heat and energy and attention to those who touch footballs. We need Constitutional amendments against football. We need to kick football touchers out of college. We need to pass laws where they can't be mentioned, and set up ministeries to "pray the football away". If we don't, we make ourselves one of the hypocrites and Pharisees that Jesus drove from the temple with a whip.
Why not have acceptance of everyone. You know, don't worry about someone's sexual orientation, or their skin color or their religion. Why not let people live their lives without someone else judging them?
This would be like a person who signs up in a weight loss class, but soon reveals that they're eating a dozen doughnuts every night after lights out and that they want their behavior to be accepted by the others who are at camp to lose weight. When their coming out party is met with derision and disapproval, they call the press and complain about the bias and bigotry at the weight loss camp. Soon, they pack up their bags and head over to the "dozen a night" club, where they are hailed as having some kind of backbone for standing up to those folks who want to be skinny.
Yes, my analogy is ridiculous ... as is the first story.
It is good that he finally decided that it was who he is and no amount of god could help him. However, being surprised by the lack of open arms was certainly naive.
Of course he went to a church school. That church was his entire world. Where else was he going to go? He discovers what he is there, and deals with it as best he can. He hoped against all hope that they might accept him. When they didn't, he moved on. He is one of the fortunate ones. He survived.
Do you realize how many gay kids are told by their parents to go kill themselves? Do you realize how many kids have come home from the school bullies, black and blue from the gay bashers, and are then blamed or beaten by their own family? These kids are going through sheerest hell in a society that seems to think it is open season on those they don't like.
And now you are saying he shouldn't talk about it? That is what these threads are for, isn't it? This kid is expressing the direct experiences of his own life. What in the world is wrong with that.
I'm not for abusing anyone, for any reason. My point is, don't go into an environment that you KNOW is not conducive to your particular behavior/beliefs/ideologies and think that you're somehow going to be unscathed when you make a public announcement that your beliefs run counter to those represented/believed in by those you have chosen to associate with. And those you KNOW will be in opposition to your position. Life is not always fair ... but it does have a way of pushing us into the "birds of the feather" environ whether we like it or not.
Congrats. You have much to contribute.
Show me were you think I am WRONG, I have got to being as close to perfect as I am by seeking out correction in righteousness.
Not saying I am absolutely perfect yet, but if you can help me get a little closer that would be nice. You are trying to be a nice person aren't you?
If you care to update your biological program files on what is right and what is wrong according to Christian standards you may be able to download a copy of the whole Bible free on the net and install it in your own biological computer at your own convenience.
Unfortunately the church hierarchy has selectively picked and chosen which parts of Leviticus are still worth holding onto and which it is okay to dispense with, despite the fact that Jesus was pretty clear on the matter. Once you dispense with that hierarchy than only freedom follows.
For those of you thinking about attending such colleges - just say no. This is THE equal rights issue of the new century in America. You will be less angry, and surprise, surprise - find many in the non-evangelical culture who are loving, compassionate and supportive. It's worth the trip ....
http://catholicsforequality.org/page/catholics-equality
If he only knew I was gay, he might not have favored me so much. He also doesn't know that's why I didn't take his class.
Just goes to show that there are gays here, and we aren't going away. I'm at Point Loma because I chose to be. Just because I'm gay doesn't mean that every one of my life decisions is driven by that fact. I love my friends here, and that's why I'm here. The faculty are so much more fostering and caring.... I would probably not have been to 7 of my professors homes for dinner at UCLA. (All 7 of them here know I'm gay, btw. The administration is the problem here, not the students or faculty.)
So, to "Hell" professor... Stop your blindness.