It can be hard
Every now and then the reality of life can come bounding forth and stand right before you, staring you in the eye, face-to-face.
One aspect of growing up gay within a tradition that is absolutely opposed to such a thing is the tremendous amount of energy and time spent trying to not be - trying to not be what you know inside you are, but everything externally tells you that you cannot be and are not. If one's faith is as important as one's ability and desire to love and be loved, then the conflict is compounded all the more.
There are still far too many kids growing up in households and communities where to admit that they are gay is so stressful and problematic, even dangerous. They cannot develop normally, in the sense of discovering who they may be compatible with, who they may want to be in relationship with, and then developing the emotional and interpersonal skills needed to maintain an honest, mutual, and mature intimate relationship.
I've watched a few episodes of this year's Real World on MTV. One of the cast members is a young guy who is gay and who is still trying to maintain his faith. It is hard in an environment like the Real World to begin with, but he has also been disowned by his family - parents, brother, sister. He was told he was not welcome to come home for Easter until he "stops living a sinful lifestyle." This kind of familial dysfunction is still common in this country, and is being perpetuated by the anti-gay crusade of the Religious Right.
One aspect that makes this whole situation so sad, aside from what it is doing to Davis, is that his family really believes that they do not live a "sinful lifestyle." They are so convinced that they are absolutely right and that the way they live their lives is absolutely the way God wants them to live. Their blindness, arrogance and hypocrisy is astounding. Davis has to grow up relationally without the help and encouragement of the primary source of strength - his family. My prayer is that his first source of strength is maintained - the relationship with the One who promises to never leave us or forsake us - unlike his temporal family.
I remember on the porch of the campus house of the campus ministry I belonged to as an undergrad. The guys would be on the porch watching the women go by, ogling them, and making comments. I used to get really pissed off because they were not controlling their lustful thoughts or feelings, like a good Christian is supposed to do – don’t objectify the ladies. I used to get all over them about it. I thought, "If I have to put forth this amount of energy to control, deny, and hide my own thoughts and feelings – even the legitimate ones - and will never be able to even talk about it to anyone, then by God you better start acting like you claim to be and stop being hypocrites."
Finally, in my early 30's, I reconciled by faith and my orientation. It took a while longer before I began to furtively start dating. I had to learn all the relationships stuff that most young guys learn in the teens and twenties. I was 15 years behind, and it still affects me. Young people like Davis, who may be disowned by their families, are at least able to begin the process of learning how to be in relationships and with whom they are compatible must earlier - to their emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
I am confronted from time-to-time, like this morning, with the reality of time wasted. So much time and energy expended in order to try to not be gay. The money spent on counseling. The hurt feelings of women in my life along the way (I constantly had women falling in love with me, and they couldn't understand why I just wasn't interested in them in that way. I was later told by a very kind older couple that I could not at all treat women like I wanted my sister to be treated, because if I did, they would fall for me. What's up with that? Anyway, it seems to be true.)
So many Christians are still doing all the ex-gay stuff, and the newly initiated are promised such grand things – freedom, hope, heterosexuality. Some of the promises are true, and some are a perpetuation of the leaders’ own prejudices. This isn’t from God, but from people who presume to speak for God. Those who have been “with the program” for a while realize that what these people promised God would do, God never promised. Too many of them then reject God and never integrate their faith and their orientation, rather than reject the false promises of people whose agenda is anti-gay.
It is a sad situation when the normal path of relational development for most people is blocked for so many gay young people. I think this is one of the reasons that promiscuity and relational immaturity is so common among gay men. As guys and girls who are Christian and gay become more comfortable with their orientations at an earlier age, they will be able to better integrate their faith and orientation. Hopefully, this will result in not doing the all too common thing - jettisoning their faith because they believe that God cannot love them and will not accommodate them in an intimate relationship with the one they love and long to be loved by. That is what they hear from their parents, their youth group, their church, and particularly from the Religious Right and their lackeys in government. That is what they are told God says in the Bible.
How much better things will be when this period of our history is over. When the realization that Scripture no more speaks to the reality of sexual orientation than it does about the reality of working on Wall Street. What it does speak to is how we are to relate to one another and to God, how we are to love God with everything we are and how we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. God does present a standard, and we as Christians bind ourselves to that standard, but we need to be diligent to understand what the standard is and what it means outside of our own prejudices and proclivities. If we don't, there will be too, too many young people who grow up in dire straights.
comments? e-mail me
my primary blog: hypersync
One aspect of growing up gay within a tradition that is absolutely opposed to such a thing is the tremendous amount of energy and time spent trying to not be - trying to not be what you know inside you are, but everything externally tells you that you cannot be and are not. If one's faith is as important as one's ability and desire to love and be loved, then the conflict is compounded all the more.
There are still far too many kids growing up in households and communities where to admit that they are gay is so stressful and problematic, even dangerous. They cannot develop normally, in the sense of discovering who they may be compatible with, who they may want to be in relationship with, and then developing the emotional and interpersonal skills needed to maintain an honest, mutual, and mature intimate relationship.
I've watched a few episodes of this year's Real World on MTV. One of the cast members is a young guy who is gay and who is still trying to maintain his faith. It is hard in an environment like the Real World to begin with, but he has also been disowned by his family - parents, brother, sister. He was told he was not welcome to come home for Easter until he "stops living a sinful lifestyle." This kind of familial dysfunction is still common in this country, and is being perpetuated by the anti-gay crusade of the Religious Right.
One aspect that makes this whole situation so sad, aside from what it is doing to Davis, is that his family really believes that they do not live a "sinful lifestyle." They are so convinced that they are absolutely right and that the way they live their lives is absolutely the way God wants them to live. Their blindness, arrogance and hypocrisy is astounding. Davis has to grow up relationally without the help and encouragement of the primary source of strength - his family. My prayer is that his first source of strength is maintained - the relationship with the One who promises to never leave us or forsake us - unlike his temporal family.
I remember on the porch of the campus house of the campus ministry I belonged to as an undergrad. The guys would be on the porch watching the women go by, ogling them, and making comments. I used to get really pissed off because they were not controlling their lustful thoughts or feelings, like a good Christian is supposed to do – don’t objectify the ladies. I used to get all over them about it. I thought, "If I have to put forth this amount of energy to control, deny, and hide my own thoughts and feelings – even the legitimate ones - and will never be able to even talk about it to anyone, then by God you better start acting like you claim to be and stop being hypocrites."
Finally, in my early 30's, I reconciled by faith and my orientation. It took a while longer before I began to furtively start dating. I had to learn all the relationships stuff that most young guys learn in the teens and twenties. I was 15 years behind, and it still affects me. Young people like Davis, who may be disowned by their families, are at least able to begin the process of learning how to be in relationships and with whom they are compatible must earlier - to their emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
I am confronted from time-to-time, like this morning, with the reality of time wasted. So much time and energy expended in order to try to not be gay. The money spent on counseling. The hurt feelings of women in my life along the way (I constantly had women falling in love with me, and they couldn't understand why I just wasn't interested in them in that way. I was later told by a very kind older couple that I could not at all treat women like I wanted my sister to be treated, because if I did, they would fall for me. What's up with that? Anyway, it seems to be true.)
So many Christians are still doing all the ex-gay stuff, and the newly initiated are promised such grand things – freedom, hope, heterosexuality. Some of the promises are true, and some are a perpetuation of the leaders’ own prejudices. This isn’t from God, but from people who presume to speak for God. Those who have been “with the program” for a while realize that what these people promised God would do, God never promised. Too many of them then reject God and never integrate their faith and their orientation, rather than reject the false promises of people whose agenda is anti-gay.
It is a sad situation when the normal path of relational development for most people is blocked for so many gay young people. I think this is one of the reasons that promiscuity and relational immaturity is so common among gay men. As guys and girls who are Christian and gay become more comfortable with their orientations at an earlier age, they will be able to better integrate their faith and orientation. Hopefully, this will result in not doing the all too common thing - jettisoning their faith because they believe that God cannot love them and will not accommodate them in an intimate relationship with the one they love and long to be loved by. That is what they hear from their parents, their youth group, their church, and particularly from the Religious Right and their lackeys in government. That is what they are told God says in the Bible.
How much better things will be when this period of our history is over. When the realization that Scripture no more speaks to the reality of sexual orientation than it does about the reality of working on Wall Street. What it does speak to is how we are to relate to one another and to God, how we are to love God with everything we are and how we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. God does present a standard, and we as Christians bind ourselves to that standard, but we need to be diligent to understand what the standard is and what it means outside of our own prejudices and proclivities. If we don't, there will be too, too many young people who grow up in dire straights.
comments? e-mail me
my primary blog: hypersync
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