I suppose I should begin all of this with some sort of witty personal introduction, something funny and pithy that would give you soundbytes with which to reference this blog and discuss it with your friends. I'll do that in an upcoming post very soon, I promise.
For now, though, I'm going to post a letter I wrote a while back. I never sent it, mind you--whether from cowardice, apathy, or ambivalence, it's been stuck in my "Documents" folder, unread by anyone but me and a couple of friends. Most likely, I never really intended to send it, but I wrote it for the same reason I started this blog: catharsis.
(One of the friends to whom I gave this letter said, "You know, Traveler, you should be a writer!" I laughed and rolled my eyes. And here I am...writing. Who knew?)
Here goes:
Dear Pastor XXXX:
I am writing you specifically because I think it’s highly likely that you really do hear from God, and I have exhausted every other available resource. I need a tangible, reliable answer to my questions, and I don’t know where else to turn; please don’t pass this letter to one of your associates, even though I know you’re incredibly busy. I ask only that if you really don’t have a definite answer for me, please say so.
I’m a gay man, and I’ve been gay for as long as I can remember, since early childhood. Since before I knew what “gay” is, I’ve known I was different from others in that I am sexually attracted to men rather than women. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I’m an American male in my thirties, 6’ 1”, attractive, healthy, and athletic. I’m college educated and was raised in a Christian home with my father, mother and siblings, and I talk with all of them regularly. I have always been a Christian; I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior.
Here’s my sexual history, what little there is of it. I was a virgin until my early 30’s (yes, my early 30’s), at which time I began a relationship with another man. Prior to that experience, I had kissed three women and been on one date with another, with whom nothing happened at all. I spent time with these women hoping to discover some physical attraction to them, but that didn’t happen. Specifically because I didn’t want to have sex outside of marriage or deal with the complications related to doing so, I chose my whole life not to be sexually active with anyone; except for the one date I mentioned, I had never been on a date with a woman or a man. Since my first relationship, I’ve had sexual relations with one other man. Although I have a high sex drive and enjoy sex a great deal, I’ve controlled myself when it comes to actual intercourse—partly because of my wish to adhere to familiar Biblical principles and because I don’t want to be sexually promiscuous, but more so because I don’t want to put myself in danger of losing my health and/or life via STD’s. I am now and have always been interested in a monogamous relationship with one man, not in accruing a number of sexual partners. In short, I’m the marrying type.
Regarding my spiritual life, I was, as I mentioned, raised in a Christian home. I spent my formative years in Sunday school and youth choir. In college my church attendance and prayer time were intermittent, but I returned to serious prayer and church involvement in the late 90’s. Since then I’ve spent a significant amount of time in teaching from ministers like XXXX, XXXX, XXXX and XXXX, and I first prayed in the Spirit during an altar call. For most of my life, I have wanted very much to have a close, personal relationship with God and to know Him as my heavenly Father who loves me and wants the best for me.
I’ve always known I was gay, since at least three years old, although at that time I obviously didn’t know what to call it or exactly how I was different from other people. I have also known from a young age that the world and the Bible have nothing positive to say about homosexuality, so I’ve done everything I can to be straight. I have prayed, fasted, gone for altar calls, attended therapy, and researched ex-gay ministries as well as scientific and psychological studies on homosexuality. Ministers have prayed for me, binding the "spirit of perversion" and laying hands on me. They instructed me variously to pray, to abstain completely from sex indefinitely, to wait on the Lord, to remain in the Word, and to treat my homosexuality as an illness to be healed by the Holy Spirit through intercession. I did all these things, only to find months or years later that nothing had changed. At one point, I went to a minister who I understood to have extensive experience dealing with and helping Christian men who are gay. He told me that I wasn’t really gay and that regardless of my sexual relationships I would, as a saved individual, go to heaven, even though this wasn’t God’s best for me. (I’ve since wondered: is this true? Given the fact that it’s not as though I want to displease God by being gay, does His forgiveness cover my being with another man, up to and including the point at which my soul leaves my body? Will I, as someone who’s accepted Christ but never found a way to “un-gay” myself, go to heaven rather than hell if I die in the arms of a partner?) Since I had found nothing to help me and since I was without further options, I began to think that the best I could hope for on this earth was to live until death as a miserably lonely and celibate gay man and await a better life after the resurrection. I have tried to desire women rather than men, to no avail. I have tried to subvert my sexuality altogether and become a eunuch, remaining sexless and avoiding romantic relationships of any kind for many years only to come steps away from suicide on more than one occasion because I was so powerfully lonely, a feeling made all the more unbearable because I was never convinced that simple abstinence was sufficient to guarantee my ascension to heaven; I was still gay, after all. I have “left it to God” for long periods of time, only to realize that I’m still gay. I have sought the help of ministers and actively tried to deal with the situation, only to be told, “Godspeed, my brother; abstain and pray, and we’ll pray for you.” No one has thus far been able to help me, and every time another minister or avenue proves to be a closed door, I feel more hurt and less willing to try again, as though God truly does not intend to help me in this area. In all my churchgoing years, I have witnessed ready answers, ready compassion and absolute solutions for murderers, rapists, drug dealers, thieves, and liars—all of them imperfect, as I am. However, let one openly non-heterosexual person walk into the sanctuary and all the answers become judgments, all the compassion disintegrates, and all the solutions immediately become inadequate. It seems that for challenges having secular solutions (rehab, medicine, therapy, surgery, money), compassion flows freely. Unfortunately, there is no medicine or procedure or payment that will take care of this, so the love of God’s people runs cold on this topic. There’s no “solving” this.
There’s no real way to explain how for over twenty years, I lay in bed awake until early in the morning, terrified of the nightmares I’d inevitably have about dying and going to hell, even though I’d accepted Christ as my Savior. How could I possibly relate to you the fear I’ve felt getting on a plane, worried that it would crash and I would die a gay man and go to hell? Words can’t describe the absolute terror I felt when, after a lifetime of denying myself any kind of sexual activity whatsoever and before I had ever done anything sexual with anyone, I lay down with my boyfriend simply to take a nap and trembled for fear that God would strike me dead and send me to hell for being in bed with another man. I lost count of how many times I prayed to God, both in the Spirit and in my understanding, for guidance and comfort and peace and relief and healing from being gay, only to awaken the next morning and be as afraid as ever because I still wanted to be with a man instead of a woman. Please, please believe me when I say that I have left no stone unturned whatsoever in trying to be straight, which is what I have always assumed God has wanted me to be—even though He hasn’t made it happen, nor has He apparently blessed my attempts to do so.
I first considered suicide when I was fourteen years old. At home alone one evening, I sat at the window in the front of my family’s house and believed that God had abandoned me; what other explanation could there be for Him not to answer a reasonable prayer that certainly coincided with His wishes? I thought, I could run down to the drug store on the corner and buy some sleeping pills, then write a note explaining why I was taking my own life, and in a couple of hours it would all be over. Had I been sure I’d go to heaven and not hell, I may have done it. Later in high school and on through college, when people insulted me for being “faggy,” I considered sitting in an idling car in the garage. About three months into my only relationship, I became so depressed that I almost drove my car into a telephone pole. I never thought a human being could feel so hurt, frustrated, terrified, lost, ignored, worthless and desperate, but there I was, crying so hard I couldn’t see the road and hoping that my car would explode with me in it so it could all just be over—in spite of the fear that once that happened, I’d go to hell. A year before that, I was unable to sleep more than an hour a night for weeks at a time because of the anguish I felt over my unanswered prayers to be straight. When I began dating my ex-boyfriend, the first person I’d ever been with sexually in my whole life, my family cursed me in ways I never thought possible, and deep down I believed them because the Bible says that people who do, or even desire to do, what I desire to do will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Pastor XXXX, I don’t doubt that God’s Word is true. I believe Him, which is why I have been confused and tormented for so long. If there were a magic “straight” pill, I’d have taken it when I was four years old—which, by the way, is the first time I asked God to make me “normal.” As it happens, I can’t think of anything I haven’t tried. Thank God for the anti-depressants that eventually regulated my emotions sufficiently for me to function efficiently on a daily basis.
I’ve scoured concordances for original-language translations of Biblical texts about men having sex with men—what few there are, anyway—and come away with more questions than answers. Beyond that, I have read countless religious papers and studies on the subject, and they’ve left me with one observation: everything can be explained and excused readily except being gay. It’s OK for women to preach to men in church, even though Paul said they shouldn’t, because things were different in his day. It’s OK for us all to wear garments made from multiple types of fabric, because rules regarding such things from the Old Testament were for the Jews of the time, and now we’re in a new dispensation under a new covenant. It’s OK to eat shellfish, to work on the Sabbath, to do all sorts of things formerly prohibited; James even said that if circumcision were a stumbling block to the Gentiles, forget it! However, all this freedom comes to a screeching halt concerning homosexuality. I remember meeting a bishop who’s on his third wife and justified both his position and his marriage by quoting scripture on God’s mercy and forgiveness. Never mind the fact that Paul says a bishop should be the husband of one wife, and neither of this man’s first two wives was dead or had been sexually unfaithful to him, which according to New Testament scripture were the only two reasons a man could take a second wife. This bishop subsequently preached a sermon on how gay men and women are flawed and need deliverance and healing; in other words, he can have three wives, but I can’t have one husband.
I don’t know what your experience is dealing with gay men and women, Pastor, but allow me to tell you what the deal is as far as my sexuality. I did not choose homosexuality; homosexuality chose me. There was never a point at which I had the option to accept heterosexuality or reject homosexuality, and had that been the case I certainly wouldn’t have picked the latter over the former. I didn’t decide to be attracted to men; rather, I have been ever since I first discovered what sexual attraction is. In fact, I love women. I appreciate women as being sexy and beautiful, and I think the female body is one of God’s greatest creations. I understand completely why a man would find a woman sexually appealing; it’s simply that I don’t. I was never molested, or raped, or abused, or beaten, or abandoned as a child. I don’t hate my father and mother, nor do I blame them for my sexual desires; I love them both dearly. My siblings are straight, so it’s not as though that’s an issue. Whereas I have in the past blamed God and excoriated Him for not helping me in a tangible way, and though I don’t feel as if I have an easy relationship with Him or understand much about Him now, I still believe He’s God. On the other hand, I run warm, lukewarm and cold with Him, forever trapped in a state of ambivalence. It makes me wonder: He said He prefers either hot or cold, and that the lukewarm He will spit from His mouth. Given my regular state of mind, is it best to stick with cold? I don’t go to church often, although I do pray regularly; I also have regular devotion time with God, spending time talking with Him and reading the Word. I am freely, humbly grateful to Him for everything He’s done for me and given to me—so many magnificent blessings. I am highly disciplined about paying tithes and offerings, and I’m looking into participating in a juvenile detention center ministry. I’ve a few close, Christian friends without whom I don’t think I’d be alive right now; I’m fortunate that they are strong in the Lord and that they are compassionate and non-judgmental. They pray for me often.
I have never felt truly close to God. After all the preaching and teaching I’ve heard about Him, after all my praying, and after what I’ve read in the Bible, I don’t feel I know Him at all. I don’t know why He hasn’t granted my requests to be straight or at least to be guided in the right direction, but I’m tired. I’m truly weary, Pastor XXXX, and it’s to the point that I have to ask friends to pray for me because I can’t do it anymore for myself. I have been making my prayers and supplications known to God since I was four years old; I’m cried out, worried out, yelled out and tapped out. If you have any help to give me, please do. I pray this letter reaches you directly and I pray you feel moved to respond, because at this stage of my life I’m just about ready to give up, whatever that means.
Again, thank you for taking the time to read my letter.
Sincerely,
“Traveler”
