The Bipolar Stereotype of the Gay Christian

   To many of us living in the Bible Belt, the term "Gay Christian" causes the brain to cease processing and turn to mush, therefore even a semblance of a definition for this phrase is unable to form and feelings of disease, disgust, fear, and/or anger arrives and settles in. This leaves the "Gay Christian" in a dangerous predicament, especially if we have lived and/or grown up in households where the environment is one that creates the same brain mushing sequence to happen when we hear it ourselves. To deal with such internal angst of "Being Gay is Wrong," and "I really love Jesus," and "Oh God, I'm a homosexual!" a split occurs. The newly self discovered "Gay Christian" feels he/she must choose  Jesus, OR choose to live the stereotyped "Gay Lifestyle." Sadly, the stereotype of the "Gay Lifestyle" is reinforced in many Christian households with like terms such as "sodomy," because of the Bible story of Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot chooses to act hospitably to angels when they enter his home, and protect them from sexual passion/hate filled people of Sodom at the expense of his daughters by offering them instead of his gentlemen angelic visitors when the men outside beg Lot to bring his visitors out to rape them. Here is a question, why would Lot offer his FEMALE daughters, if the men outside were GAY? Wouldn't the more logical people he could offer be himself or his male servants if the men outside were gay? Food for thought. Along with this stereotype of the "Gay Lifestyle", many Christian households also throw homosexuality in with the term "sexual perversion", and classifies same sex attraction as solely "lustful". Therefore, since many "Gay Christians" who choose to be honest with themselves and their family find themselves ostracized by their Church family, and sometimes their blood family, why is anyone surprised that many find themselves in the welcome open embrace of the bar/club dwellers, and the sexually promiscuous? (Am I judging these people? Certainly not! They are often the most welcoming and non judgemental people I know - these two traits being ones that Jesus portrayed, hmm.) Oh, but for the "Gay Christian" who feels he/she is "choosing Jesus" over his/her "sin!" They choose "celibacy" which can work for some who agree with St. Paul that marriage is only a way to stay sexually moral, or sadly they choose to be straight in effort to be loved by their church family, blood family, God, and themselves and end up locking a piece of themselves-of their identity-into the dungeon of their self loathing while their partner and children wonder why they are not fully capable of loving and being loved.
    So, here is my question to the ones who have experienced the "Gay Christian" brain mush sequence, and to my homosexual brothers and sisters who love Jesus, but want to be free to romantically LOVE a person they are naturally attracted to: Why can't there be another way? Can we not find the middle road? Can we not LOVE Jesus and LOVE a same sex partner? Can we not live the way Jesus taught us to live and love "1 Corinthians 13" style our same sex partner? Why not? Does it really bother the God of the Universe who needs nothing and is all powerful and LOVING for us to LOVE who we feel led to love? Are we really all that different from our straight Christian brothers and sisters when it comes to how we model our relationships? No my friends, we are not. Praise God that we have similar marital/financial/emotional/physical struggles, successes, and failures on this side of eternity. Praise God that we ALL have the capacity to LOVE the way God has taught us to LOVE: through his Son Christ Jesus. Praise God that God's divine love resonates in and through us all.

True Love Unveiled

What is true love anyway? Until we get married or choose to commit to a long term or life time relationship, true love exists in the realm of imagination. Whether the imagination is our own, or accumulated from the talented minds of the television, movie, and/or book industry, the idea of true love floats through our emotions and thoughts in the safe place of our subjective universe. We decide our fantasies, and our preferences are always met. We always get what the romantic side of our collective self wants in our true love imaginings. We are always appreciated, we are always held when we want to be, we go on the perfect dates, we are told we are beautiful, strong, wanted, and/or needed. When we date in the world outside of our imagination, our imagination becomes our veil we throw onto our new love interests true selves. We are then shocked by how perfect they then seem "at first" as we gush to our friends how wonderful our veil is, I mean how wonderful THEY are...little do we know, our veils make them seem so perfect. After a few dates, their true forms melt parts of our veils and we find they either really do fit some of our imaginings, or they do not and we decide to keep going on the romantic road together, or to go our separate ways. When we get married, or decide to commit to each other without marriage labels, our poor romantic imagination veils are unraveled. Our veils just cannot exist outside of our heads for long. So here we are, two people committed to each other, veils gone, and BOOM we exist in our entirety: passions, fears, desires, dreams, concerns, etc. We have each separately accumulated potentially different coping skills (or not), hobbies, likes, dislikes, depending on where our roads took us before our roads crossed. We stand before each other completely and utterly naked: mind, body, and soul. In this way, we sometimes wait for the one who's supposed to love us most in the world to judge us. Sometimes, we wait in eager expectation to hear those sweet words, "I love you no matter what." Sometimes, the most rare I think, loving our own emotional, physical, and spiritual selves enough to look at our equally naked lover in his or her eyes and simply exist together, one day at a time, constantly embracing the reality of the power of unconditional love shared.

When You Know, You Know

   When I was single in high school, I remember asking my married lady mentors, "how did you know that he was 'the one'?" The answer I was always given was, "when you know, you just know." This vague answer was extrememly frustrating to my angsty, longing to be romanced, and idealistic teenage self. However, it was the feeling I always sought in all of my romantic relationships. My first three years of college I was still trying to fit in and be straight. I dated some incredible Christian men before I came out as gay. I was convinced I was going to marry one in paticular. He was the kindest, most gentle, patient, and God loving man I have ever met. We talked about getting married during the romantic season of Christmas. We were going to have poinsettas everywhere because they are my favorite nostalgic plant, and our wedding colors were going to be red, black, and white. He knew I was "struggling with homosexuality" so black was symbolizing my "homosexual sin," red was to symbolize "Christ's redemption," and white was to symbolize "my new purity," because of our marriage. Being gay was "a choice" right? I was choosing to live "the way God wanted me to live" right? Our relationship was pefect on paper, but I couldn't make myself feel that "when you know, you know" feeling. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and everything I thought I wanted, but I could not feel physically attracted to him. I kept trying to justify this feeling by saying to myself, "but that doesn't matter as long as I love him right?" Oh, my heart was indeed troubled. Underneath all of the dreamy feelings many women have who dream about getting married, there was that nagging feeling that something was not right. My intuition screamed at me "WRONG WAY" like a car traveling the wrong way on the interstate. Thankfully, my Aunt had an unexpected conversation with me about the importance of having that "spark," that physical attraction, because that was indeed very important for a marriage. God interceded for me and my almost fiance' that day. I would have broken that incredible man's heart day after day, year after year, because I would not have been able to give him what he wanted, needed, and deserved as a married Christian man. Since I chose to end our romantic relationship, his heart only had to break once. We both felt the shatter of love lost and had to depend on God to put us back together. I still sometimes find myself mourning how much I hurt him, but I did not have that "when you know, you know" feeling that is one of the essential pieces of a lifetime commitment.
   I understand this feeling now, because I feel it with my wife. It feels like intuition, so it is subtle. It is the quiet and calm kind of beautiful, like a lavander butterfly that can be easily missed in our big world of distractions. It is like the small smile of a stranger who passes our way on the street. It is like a warm, waft of wind on a cold winter day. This feeling lingers when we argue, when we are angry with each other, or when I am angry at myself or circumstances outside of my control and I take it out on her. It lingers when we are annoyed by each others differing preferences. No matter how heated our arguments get, or how much I shut her out, I know deep in my heart that we will ALWAYS be together. The "when you know, you know" feeling is the essential piece I was missing in all of my other relationships. Because this feeling is not tangible, it is hard to describe, but I hope all of you beautiful unmarried people out there will be comforted by the existance of this "when you know, you know" feeling. I hope you will open yourselves up to trusting it when it happens to you. I hope you will refuse to settle as well as have the courage and self knowledge to feel it and embrace it when you have found "the one."