Category: Sexuality

I’ve been struggling the past week and a half with how to respond to the news of the election. I’m disheartened to say the least, appalled and outraged to say the most. I’ve been struggling with the words to express my disappointment in fellow Christians who voted for Donald Trump. I’ve been struggling to express the sheer lack of moral judgment that our new President-elect has shown, and how a group of people so damn set on morality could throw it out the door because ‘he might get the economy on track again’ or some other lame excuse for allowing xenophobic, homophobic, sexist, and racist comments to win this election and be our representative to the world. I’ve been struggling with how to cry out, “How have we come to this, the United States of America?!” Donald Trump wants to ‘Make America Great Again.’ When was it great? When it was enslaving African Americans for economic gain and killing Native Americans by the thousands as they marched across their own lands to be confined and designated an artifact of the new burgeoning empire? When was it great? When it was ignoring the Aids epidemic of the 80s and thousands of LGBTQ people were dying around this country? When was it great? When it was supporting tyrannical governments around the world since the early 1900s?

I must disagree with you, Mr. President-Elect. Our country is on its way to greatness the more it listens to and benefits all of the people who live here. I believe in the diversity of this country. I believe that our greatest strength is the many voices that are to be heard, listened to with charity and empathy, to be taken seriously for the betterment of our nation.  I believe that our country is coming the closest it ever has to greatness because it is finally hearing the voices of trans people, that their voices are being lifted up, even when so many are still trying to cast them down. It is coming the closest to greatness it ever has because our nasty rape culture is coming to light and so many people are intent upon changing this. It is coming the closest to greatness it ever has because black and brown bodies are standing up and saying, “Enough is enough. We will not tolerate the killing of our children anymore. We will not tolerate the unease of mind we have when going out in public for fear of racist remarks, actions, subtleties, or even incarceration for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” And some of us are listening. Some of us are working to change ourselves and the system. Our country is on its way to greatness because I have married the man I love and we can show the world that love does indeed win, Mr. Trump. So, if I don’t have a whole post to write about the disastrous nature of your election, please forgive me because I have too much loving to do since you’ve given license to far too many radical supporters of yours to speak and act with hate that is, frankly, unAmerican.

So, in the midst of our mourning and our shock and our fighting back against hate, I’ll give you the end to my gay and Christian series, a little hope to make your day brighter. The ending of this series isn’t really an ending at all because Reed and I are just beginning this beautiful journey called marriage. While there were some people who didn’t respond kindly to our wedding invitations, we for the most part had a pleasant, usually down-right excited, response from people. Our wedding day was filled with people we love dearly, good food, excellent wine, and donuts. Always and forever donuts. I had a family friend tell me later that it was one of the best weddings he’d been to because we had beer and donuts. I couldn’t agree more! We had friends and family surround us as we made our vows, as we were pronounced Mr. and Mr. Burge-Lape, and as Reed leapt towards me and gave me a big, passionate kiss. We sang hymns, served communion (because what sort of seminary student would I be if we didn’t take communion at our wedding?!), and heard an excellent homily by our dear friend Amelia that I still remember today.

We picked the Colossians text on clothing yourselves with kindness, gentleness, patience, etc., and Amelia reminded us to always remember to put on our clothes of kindness in the morning, our clothes of patience, even when we didn’t want to. It’s an excellent reminder for me when I feel irritable, when I feel like lashing out because I’m tired or frustrated or hurt to put on my clothes of kindness and compassion and humility. All of these things are greatly needed in doing life with another human full-time. It’s hard enough to be a decent human when you’re going about your day and others are rude or mean, but then to come home and share a space with someone else (whom you love more than anyone else) can sometimes be challenging and difficult. But, I am ever reminded about clothing myself, especially with kindness and humility. I think those are the clothes I attempt to put on the most frequently.

A lot of life was pointing me in this direction. I believe that God was readying me for marriage to a man, that God was pushing, shaping, prodding me in the direction of loving myself in a way that allowed me to be an out and proud gay man of faith. While my sexuality and my faith are rarely the first things I tell people, I do take pride in saying, ‘husband.’ I cherish the sound on my lips, that so many saints have gone before me, fighting for my ability to use that word. I am forever grateful to the queer people before me who have fought and died for my freedom as a gay man. And I also love, just a little bit, the confusion that comes over people when I tell them I have my Masters of Divinity (partly because half the population has no idea what that degree is) and that I might want to work in a church some day.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by people at work, who take it in stride that I’m married to a man. I have had a middle-aged woman say, “Did you say you have a husband? I’ve never met a man who had a husband. That’s so cool!” And people ask about my husband, what he does, how long we’ve been together, etc. But, I’ve also had a woman ask what my wife’s name was and I told her I was married to a man and his name was Reed. She then said, in what I think was an attempt to sound like she was okay with my sexuality, “Well, that’s still like your wife.” I just smiled and kind of nodded, thinking to myself, “It’s actually not. He’s a man and thousands before me have fought for me to be able to say husband.”

All in all, coming out gets easier and easier. The longer Reed and I are married, the more authority I feel to be open, to be myself, to hold hands in public or display our affection (to an appropriate amount) in public. It’s still hard when we’re around family we know aren’t supportive to be as affectionate, to put a hand on each other’s back or call each other ‘babe.’ Sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes we don’t fully notice when we’re changing our behavior to make others more comfortable with our presence, but we’re slowly trying to change that. We’re slowly trying to ease/urge people into being okay with us, our shared life, the love that grows between us steadily each day. It’s a long process, to overcome twenty years of self-denial and at times, self-hate, but if we choose to let Love win in both big and small things, to let Love win in ourselves and for ourselves, we cannot help but let Love win for others.

If you’re someone who has been reading most or all of my blog posts, especially on this topic, I thank you. If you’re someone who’s just stumbled upon this, I thank you too. I encourage you to keep reading things by LGBTQ people. I’ve compiled a list below, separated into things I have read and things I haven’t, of books and essays I think would be helpful in learning more about LGBTQ people. We must keep learning and we must keep educating ourselves if we want a better world for ourselves and the generations to come after us. It is imperative and we keep learning how to better love one another because while sometimes love is deeply innate, it is oftentimes a learned skill. So, let us love each other more fully.

Books I’ve read that have had a profound effect on me:

Homosexuality and Christian Faith edited by Walter Wink – The first book I read that allowed me to think about same-sex marriage and Christianity not being conflictual. A book filled with small essays covering numerous topics.

Struggling with Scripture by Blount, Brueggemann, and Placher – A small book by Presbyterian leaders speaking to their denomination on same-sex marriage. Excellent read and quick.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell – The first book I ever read with two of the main characters being gay. It’s young adult fiction, but it’s forever engrained upon my heart.

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan – A young adult fiction that made me think more about all the queer people who have come before me and fought for my ability to be married to the man I love.

The God Box by Alex Sanchez – A young adult fiction work that intimately captures the struggle of a young evangelical boy struggling with his faith and sexuality.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeannette Winterson – A book about a woman in England raised by a strict evangelical mother who comes to realize that men aren’t for her.

Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin – This is about transgender teens sharing their stories. It’s spectacular.

How to Gender by Colleen Toole – http://bit.ly/1ZoOfjN – A helpful guide to inclusion of queer people in the church, written by a friend from Seminary. They’re brilliant and this guide is essential for people working in the church or people just wanted to learn how to be sensitive and inclusive.

Reimagining God by Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos – An excellent book on the way Scripture conceives of God as feminine.

Books I haven’t read, but I believe to be helpful:

A Time to Embrace by William Stacy Johnson – For more mainline Protestants who want to read about LGBTQ people in the church.

Love is an Orientation by Andrew Marin – My mom read this and loved it. It’s for people who don’t agree with same-sex marriage or aren’t sure where they stand, but believe God calls us to love and to have empathy for others.

God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines – A definite read for any evangelical who is looking for a Scriptural account of sexuality.

Torn by Justin Lee – An evangelical read for those looking to bridge the gap between people who are on different sides of this issue.

There’s a lot here. But also do your own research. Look up authors who think differently than you, read them, and give them consideration. Look up authors who are different from you; trans authors, black authors, women authors, Muslim authors. Read and listen. Read and listen. You will be amazed at how listening to another human’s story will transform you.

Kissing a boy for the first time was electric, magic, divine. Kissing a boy told me that I was certainly gay. Kissing a boy told me that all I ever wanted out of a love life was to kiss another man for the rest of my life (granted, it still took me a year or two after my first boy-kiss to fully accept my sexuality). Kissing a boy opened up a world that had only ever existed in my mind. Kissing a boy showed me that God had made me good, like in the beginning kind of good. Kissing a boy for the first time at the age of nineteen made all of it worth the wait. Kissing a boy made kissing a girl pale in comparison, and it had nothing to do with the particular girl I kissed and everything to do with the fact that she was a girl and I was a boy who was insanely attracted to other boys.

I remember the night it happened, some parts fuzzy, but most parts clear as day. I remember the hand in my pocket, the excitement of what it could possibly mean and what would ensue.  I can distinctly feel his gaze on me when I wasn’t looking; it was his give-away. The gaze is always the give-away with a gay man. I wasn’t experienced in boys, in dating, in going out with friends and finding someone that I might end the night with. At that age, I didn’t know that the guy was gay, but I thought he might be, and soon learned it when his hand snaked its way around my waist. I didn’t know what would happen, where things would go. It was all too exciting.

I remember the first embrace, the first kiss, the feeling of two bodies next to one another that ached for the touch of another boy. It was magical and it was dizzying and it was electrifying. It was everything a first kiss with someone of the same-sex should be for any gay person who had waited nineteen years to experience it. The night that I first kissed a boy will be forever etched into my mind, forever a pact with myself deep down that boys were the right answer. That night went by in a whirl. It all happened so quickly and yet we stayed up into the early morning hours exploring our bodies and kissing until our lips were sore. But as he fell asleep, I found myself coming out of my stupor. Whether it was God or my conscience or my conservative upbringing, I became utterly aware that I had messed around with someone I had met that same evening. I didn’t know this person. I didn’t have a relationship with him, and this sent off warning signals in my head.

I sometimes think these warning signals were a detriment to me, and yet for the most part, they were exactly what I needed. I enveloped myself in study of my faith, in growing my knowledge of God, of Scripture, of what it means for humans to love. I explored my sexual ethic, my ethic of war, my ethic of eating and the way I treated my body, who Jesus is and who Scripture claims Jesus is. I explored myself, learning more and more about the person I was and the person I was becoming. Who knew that the act of kissing another boy could explode in me a ferocious hunger to know myself, to know the world, and to know God? Who knew that the act of kissing another boy would lead me to Seminary, lead me to desire God more, even in the midst of liking that I kissed a boy?

Sophomore and Junior year happened quickly for me. I busied myself with classes and jobs and planning collegiate events. I spent a lot of time talking with friends, discovering myself in the context of loving community. I found that the more I grew to know myself, the more I found that I liked myself, that I loved myself and that myself, as a gay man, was acceptable. It wasn’t quite in college that I came to love myself for my sexuality, but I came to a place of loving myself in spite of my sexuality. It’s a big difference, but Seminary helped me transition from the ‘in spite of’ to the ‘because of.’

The boy that I first kissed asked me out on a date after our first encounter, but I declined and made some excuse about not being ready. In all reality, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know a damn thing about being in a relationship or about toting my sexuality around in the form of another human attached by the hand. I wasn’t ready to be ‘out.’ I wasn’t ready to admit it and claim it and live it and broadcast it. Granted, I don’t know if we LGBTQ folk are ever fully ready to engage the world head on when so much of the world still doesn’t even want to tolerate us. But we do it in the name of love and we do it for those less able to be out. A part of me regrets turning him down. I wonder how much I would have learned from that experience, how much I might have grown from being thrown into that world a year or two sooner. I shudder to think how I would have navigated that and being in leadership at a college where the administration wouldn’t condone it. But, a part of me doesn’t regret it and I know that regardless, I learned those things in time. I learned them as I became ready to learn them. I began stepping out of the closet one toe at a time, and eventually I saw the light streaming through the window panes.

I thank God for that boy, for that kiss, for that night. I thank God that I finally discovered the confirmation I needed to let me know that I was definitely attracted to men in a way that I was not attracted to women. I thank God for those experiences, for the ability to find myself and to unlock the closet door myself. I’m ever grateful for those professors and those friends and those authors who helped me find my way out. I want to encourage those who are questioning their sexuality to give yourself the space to find out. Give yourself the permission to kiss someone of the same-sex. Know that the difference between that kiss and the next kiss I had was a relationship. The excitement of a first kiss with a boy and the nervous-wreck, excitement of a first kiss with someone you like and are dating is a huge difference. Kissing someone where there are feelings involved is completely (and almost unbearably) vulnerable and also, utterly intoxicating. Kissing someone you like and eventually kissing someone you love is extraordinary. Kissing the boy or the girl that you love is a gift, a beautifully human-shaped, lip-shaped, awkward and wonderful gift. May you find your gift and be grateful for it, for kisses are to be cherished and the freedom to kiss whom you desire is a gift from God.

It’s been over a month since I’ve written a post for my Gay and Christian series. I’ve been struggling to finish strong with the series, I think in part because so much happened in college that I’m not sure I could do it justice in one post. And as a good friend pointed out, I could turn this series into a book if I wanted, which is something to think about in the future. But for now I’ll attempt to do justice to the topic as a blog series. I had, in fact, already written a post about college, but decided it wasn’t on the same level as previous posts. It was too general, too much of an overview. I didn’t get into any of the nitty grittiness of my college years. So, I’ve shown up to write again and hope something of worth comes forward. Here’s to being a freshman in college and finding a way where there often seems to be no way.

As I look back upon those angsty freshman months that defined the start of my collegiate journey, I see a few moments, as if frozen in time, that I have turned over in my hands time and time again, looking for the keys to unlock the mystery of my story. I look for the how, the why, the where of things changing, turning, progressing. And I’ve come to find that there might be some defining moments, but in general, numerous things are colliding and working themselves into the fabric of my life at any given moment. To give you a linear progression of the events of freshman year would not do justice to the emotions, the knowledge, the faith, the absence of faith, the boy, the girl, the decisions, and the consequences. So, I’ll just have to give you the pieces and you can join me in the writing process in putting them together.

Second semester, I took an Intro to Christian Thought and Life class because I was at a small Christian, liberal arts school. I didn’t want to, but I soon found it was the strawberry jam of life; that is, it was spectacular. The professor who taught the class was wise beyond her years. Even though she wore her hair long and graying, her eyes said she knew the sacred space of questioning that some of us would soon be entering. And she made herself available to us, to our questions, to our doubts and to our seeing Christianity anew.

Growing up evangelical and conservative, my faith consisted of a personal relationship with Jesus. Wasn’t that what faith was all about? Believing that Jesus had died on the cross to save me from my sins. What a rote, easy way to enter into faith. But it came with unintended consequences. It told me that Christianity only cared about the state of my ‘heart,’ not that it cared about people being killed by violence, being locked up in prisons, those living without a home, those starving on the streets. Those people only mattered because our hearts were to be giving, not because Jesus gives preferential care to those most vulnerable and oppressed. This faith given to me from my parents and my church and the youth conferences I attended on a regular basis groomed me to believe that God only loved me because I felt something. (I don’t think this was intended, but, nevertheless, it was an outcome of that faith.) Mountain top experiences were to be brought into everyday life. We weren’t supposed to leave Jesus on the mountain of our good feelings. No, Jesus was to bring the good feelings and attitudes no matter where we were.

My professor introduced me to a Christianity that could be studied academically, that could be known instead of felt. I engaged my thoughts about God and the world. I was able to acknowledge that maybe God loved me even if I didn’t feel it. I could know God’s constancy instead of feeling God’s erratic behavior (i.e. relying on my emotions to tell me of God’s love). What little faith I had left was being transformed that semester, learning God and Christianity anew. And in the midst of this, I let go of my high school crush, as much as anyone can really be over a first crush, for they will always occupy heart space no matter how much you want to steal it back. I messaged him to apologize if I had made things awkward between us, this being my parting piece, my acknowledgment that I was choosing to move on.

I told a friend about moving on from my high school crush and we talked late into the night. This particular friend eventually let on that she thought about the two of us together, dating. That night and the next we talked the night away, exploring our thoughts and feelings, and eventually exploring an arm around the shoulder, hands around each other, and kissing. And as the ever-cautious, thinking after doing, mostly-closeted gay man that I was, I freaked out. I told her the next day that I couldn’t give dating a try. (Because if I went on a date with her, then I’d have to go out with her. And if I went out with her, I’d have to propose. And if I proposed, I’d have to marry her. And if I married her, I’d be stuck forever with someone just because I told them I might like them and went on a date with them.) I know, I didn’t have commitment issues at all, perfectly normal.

Through it all, though, I greatly damaged our friendship. It took a lot of time and an apology and choosing to mend our friendship, but we did eventually become friends again. A part of me wishes that I could go back in time and tell 18 year old me to not kiss her, to not even entertain the idea. But, if I wouldn’t have kissed her, I wouldn’t have an experience to compare kissing a boy to. I wouldn’t have gone through the confusion, the hurt, the realizing that I needed to be more careful. I learned from that experience that which I would not have learned otherwise.

Most of those things happened second semester. But, it was the first semester of building friendships, of working too much, or pulling four or five all-nighters to get homework done that brought me to the collision point. It was the love of God drawing me in all sorts of different ways, stretching me and molding me, guiding me in a way that would allow me the space to accept my sexuality. My first kiss was with a girl and it was good. But it was not the electricity that ignited in me when I kissed a boy for the first time just a year later. While I can’t say that our damaged friendship was God’s work, I do believe that God met both of us in our pain, our confusion, our hurt and helped us walk through it, to get to the better side of it all.  I’m thankful for that girl’s friendship, for her kindness before and her kindness in the years to come. I’m thankful for that professor, who I’m proud to call a friend now, and for her persistence in showing up and living a Gospel life that indeed inspired me to do likewise. My prayer for anyone going through the confusion of coming out, of accepting one’s own sexuality is that they may know they are deeply loved and that they have people and experiences that will help guide them to their own acceptance and knowledge of their belovedness.

High school might take me two posts to do any sort of justice to the drama and trauma of being a teenager with a changing body, a blossoming sexuality, and a rigid faith. Freshman through Junior year are very different in my mind than my senior year. Before I say more, let me point out that just as much as I hated it and hated myself in high school, I also loved my time in high school and had so much fun with friends. And it is precisely those friendships and my family’s love that kept me from harming myself beyond repair.

I struggled a lot with self-hatred in high school. I’m sure that plenty of people struggle with self-image, with self-loathing, with figuring out who they are. My struggle, however, was rooted in my inability and my surrounding culture’s inability to accept myself as God had created me to be: gay and Christian. As many young curious teenagers do, I surfed the internet attempting to find out what sex was, specifically what sex with another man would be like. It was confirmed for me that men turned me on and women did not. Pornography became an outlet for me to experience my sexuality, to give release to the building sexual tension that occurs in most young people. (I am not condoning pornography because I don’t think it’s our healthiest option most of the time, but I do think that it served a purpose during that time.)

The problem with pornography is that I was raised in a conservative non-denominational (evangelical) church. We didn’t talk much about sex in church, except that it was bad for teenagers and it was bad for anyone not married. The only and best way to experience sex was in a married relationship. So, naturally I chose to hide it all. And I punished myself for it. I had already struggled with self-image, with hating my red hair, my freckles, my chubby-ness, my lack of muscle definition. And then I began struggling emotionally and spiritually. I chose physical ways of expressing the emotional turmoil brewing in me. I chose binging and purging, eating because food numbed the pain and purging because I was convinced food was my enemy, keeping me from looking a specific way. Binging was a way of expressing the lack of control I felt and purging was my attempt to combat that lack of control. It was how I attempted to gain control of my entire life, though it rarely, if ever, actually works. It just made me feel even shittier because I felt as though I couldn’t get my life together.

Besides expressing the emotional death happening in me through food, I also chose to express it through cutting. Running a scissors across my arm allowed me to transfer my emotional pain into something physical, something tangible. I could understand physical pain. I had been taught and I learned how to deal with physical pain. I had not been taught how to deal with emotional pain, especially as a boy. I wasn’t supposed to cry about my emotional pain. I wasn’t supposed to express my emotional pain to others. To express emotions as a man in the United States, specifically the rural Midwest, is to admit weakness, to admit to being a ‘lesser man’ (which is somehow the ultimate low of a male’s life). This notion of masculinity, of what it means to be a man is toxic. It is literally toxic when it convinces a young boy that the best way to handle his emotions is to attempt to bleed them out of himself. It is toxic when it convinces a young boy that he cannot share his inner turmoil for fear of being shamed and ridiculed. It is death-dealing when it has the potential to convince a young man that his life is not worth living if he has to endure same-sex attractions one more day (because he’ll go to hell forever if he does). Our notion of what it means to be a man is skewed and warped, and it is no help to young men struggling with their sexuality. The reverse can also be said about our notion of what it means to be a woman or a young woman struggling with her sexuality.

Through those first three years of high school, I attended church and youth group on a regular basis. I prayed and prayed and then prayed some more for God to take this attraction, this lust, from me. I hated myself for the lust and the attractions I had and I was convinced that even though God loved me, I would end up in hell if I couldn’t kick it, if I couldn’t get rid of them. And I was convinced that if I tried hard enough, believed enough, prayed enough, trusted God enough that God would change my sexual attraction. (I don’t use orientation because at that point in my life I didn’t believe orientation was a thing – because I believed it could be changed.)

I went through periods of reading the Bible every morning and periods of intensive amounts of time spent in prayer. I attended Bible studies, youth group every Wednesday, church every Sunday, mission trips during the summers, and other church related events. I was considered a leader of the youth group in spiritual or faith matters. I focused on my heart, because isn’t so much of Evangelical Christianity a ‘heart problem.’ (I have some dear Evangelical friends who don’t use this language anymore and I’m thankful for that.) I focused on my body and subduing it into action, because the realm of Christianity I grew up in taught me not to trust my body. I was taught that the body had desires that were not holy. They were not given by God, but that we were too often given over to our bodily desires because we didn’t follow God properly. We weren’t given tools to help us love our bodies or ourselves because we were despicable sinners who were at the mercy of God. And when we went to heaven, we would leave these bodies and these bodily desires behind.

This is a warped Christianity. To say that something is a ‘heart problem,’ but not acknowledge the body that is involved, has strayed from Jesus. Christianity is rooted in Jesus’ body and blood. It is rooted in the physical life that Jesus lived and his living ministry. It is rooted in the way he taught us to live. It is also rooted in his death and in his resurrection. Death is a bodily action. It is not a metaphor (though we often use it as one because it must be understood both literally and metaphorically). His body died and his body rose. He died and he rose. Those two statements are the same. We cannot separate ourselves from our bodies.

And it is in this notion that I realize the damage Christianity did to me those first three years of high school. I recognize the harm I did myself in the name of Jesus. I harmed myself, my body, in order to control my body. I could not control the sexual attraction I felt for other men and so I attempted to gain control in other ways. Now I know that the only way to gain control is to learn to accept your body as yourself. To admit that you and your body are one in the same and that to love yourself means to love and accept your body. It means that young people must learn to accept their sexuality and to love themselves precisely because God created them with that particular sexuality. It means that we need to stop divorcing our bodies from our spiritual lives because it will only cause more harm. A Christianity without the loving of bodies does not seem like the Christianity I read about in Scripture, particularly from the Gospels. It is not the Christianity I have come to know and love. May we all, gay, bisexual, or straight, cis, trans, or anywhere on the spectrum of gender identity and sexual orientation learn to love ourselves, to love our bodies, for we were all created in the Image of God.

Previous posts in this series: Gay and Christian [Surviving Middle School], Gay and Christian [The Early Years]

I’m taking a break from my series about growing up gay and Christian to write a piece concerning Orlando. I’ve had a lot on my heart and mind since the attack at Pulse, a gay nightclub, in Orlando, Florida. I know it’s been a few weeks, but that first week or two I was feeling so many strong feelings I wasn’t sure I knew what to say or how to say it. I could hardly write about anything because I felt so weighed down by grief and anger. What I wanted to say, so many other people had already been saying on Facebook, and so, I even wonder how my words right now will be much different. But, I feel the weight lifting as I write, and I believe that means this is what I should be writing about.

People had many opinions about the shooting that took 49 lives and wounded over 50 more. Many were quick to call it terrorism because the shooter affiliated himself with Daesh (more commonly known as ISIS) immediately prior to entering the club. Others were quick to call it a hate crime because it was committed against minority groups (LGBTQ+, as well as Latinx and African Americans). There were those just as quick to condemn assault rifles as those claiming “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” While much has been said, I have a few things of my own to share.

Yes, dear 2nd amendment clingers, guns don’t kill people. People kill people. But guns sure help when a person can kill 49 people in a matter of seconds or minutes. By immediately jumping to this response, I believe that you are saying that the lives of those who were murdered are less important than your right to own a particular type of gun. You are saying that my life and my safety as an LGBTQ+ person is less valuable than your right to own any type of gun you’d like. That’s frankly unbelievable to me. And it’s utterly unChristian. If you don’t claim the Christian label, then I have nothing to say except that my life and my safety are more important than your right to own any type of gun.

If you are a Christian, then it is time to put your fear away and let go of your right to own any particular gun you wish. For life is more important than clinging to our fear, than clinging to our rights. Choosing safety for others is more important than rights to a specific type of gun, or at least your right to get one so easily. The way of Christ has never been one of violence. It has always been the way of the Cross, the way that exposes violence for its atrocities. Let us always remember that violence is not the answer, and guns are not an answer and guns are not more important than my life and my safety and my soundness of mind.

Now, to the note of terror and hate. The act is not terrorism because the shooter is Muslim and claimed affiliation with Daesh, but it is terrorism because it struck fear and terror into the hearts of LGBTQ+ people around this country. It is terror because it made us afraid, made us question going to Pride this year, made us realize that it could have been any of us. The media in our country likes to portray Muslims as terrorists, and this is slander against the mass majority of those who practice Islam. For terrorism comes from the acts of all different kinds of people committing all kinds of heinous crimes; a white man killing 9 black people in a church in Charleston, a Muslim shooting 49 LGTBQ+ people in a gay nightclub, a police officer shooting Tamir Rice, a 12 year old black boy, over a fake gun he was holding. Terror comes in many forms and we would be dishonest if we labeled Muslims as a whole terrorists and not straight, cisgender, white men and not police. We commit a dreadful sin against a people when we deem most or all of them as terrorists. Let us repent of that stereotyping, of that sin.

It is also a hate crime, because it was committed against a specific community of people, LGBTQ+ people. The shooter had also expressed vehemence towards LGBTQ+ people previously when seeing two men kissing. His homophobia was not a secret. His homophobia was not an isolated feeling and therefore, his actions were not an isolated event. Homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia is a real thing in this country. It is alive and well and breathing down our necks from every new law that bans transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice to each law that allows people to deny service to LGBTQ+ people. It is alive in every church that refuses to allow LGBTQ+ people full inclusion in the life of the church, from allowing them to marry to ordaining them. Yes, every church that participates in some form of exclusion of LGBTQ+ people is participating in homophobia and is contributing to the chain of events that led to the Orlando shooting.

Yes, dearly beloved Church, you are responsible. You are as culpable as the shooter himself in creating this atmosphere of homophobia, of perpetuating the lie that LGBTQ+ lives are less valuable that straight, cisgender lives. Yes, it is time for you (and me because even though I am a gay man, I still consider myself a Christian and part of the church) to own up to our complicity in the taking of these lives. I do not want your apologies and your condolences if you are not affirming of LGBTQ+ people and if you do not celebrate our lives. I do not want your mourning if I cannot have your celebrating. As Beth Watkins (a fellow undergraduate alum) put it, “If you didn’t show up to the wedding, don’t invite yourself to the funeral.” I could not say it any better. Christians are supposed to mourn and celebrate with people. I am sick with grief and anger over your petty beliefs about the rightness and wrongness of my life and the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

Dear Church, it is time you began to practice the love you preach. It is time for you to confront your homophobia and your xenophobia and your fear of other religions. It is time for you to confront yourselves and the harm you have caused and continue to cause to people of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as those of the Latinx and African American communities and the Muslim community. It is time for us, as a whole Church to learn that the action of love is far more important than any belief we hold, for Jesus models that in Scripture time after time. It is far past time for us to learn that love is far more the Gospel message than fear, than hate, than judging others before we understand and know them. Dear friends and dear Church, perfect love casts out all fear. I pray that we may all choose love each day over fear and hate, that love will win out. I pray that as a Church, we will take responsibility for our wrongs and for the harm we have caused LGBTQ+ people and the harm that we cause the Muslim community. And may the terror struck in our hearts by mass shooters and by hate crimes be driven out by love and joy and hope. And I pray for the victims of Orlando and all their families that they may find some semblance of peace and joy after their grief and anger and guilt have subsided, for those are heavy burdens to bear.

I’ve been home this past weekend for our little town’s Homecoming. It’s a big to-do with a parade, a carnival, and the most important part, the beer pavilion. Ordering a Summer Shandy for only $2.50 – what a deal! Seeing all the people who only remember me as ‘Little Timmy’ – what a nightmare! But, I go for the cheap Summer Shandy and the ten friends I still enjoy spending time with. But this year feels a little different to me. It’s the first year that I’m officially married. And I’m married to a man. Something small town Illinois doesn’t always understand or look fondly upon. I’ve gained a new sense of confidence over the past 9 months of marriage and I felt more ready than usual to talk to acquaintances, to friends’ parents, and to not be awkward or uncomfortable introducing my husband to people.

A part of this confidence comes from simply being married and growing our lives together. To be ashamed or awkward or uncomfortable about introducing my husband would mean being ashamed or awkward or uncomfortable about a part of myself. And I am not. Thank God. The other part of this confidence comes from reading a lot of young adult fiction lately with gay protagonists, who are usually in junior high or high school and are going through much of the things that I went through, internally and externally. They’ve been making me think a lot about my experience growing up, which has also inspired me to write this series.

In my last post Gay and Christian [The Early Years], I wrote about my early years, probably mostly around five and six years old. I have scattered memories from that point until junior high. But let me tell you something about junior high. It’s the worst! Bodies are changing and hormones are wreaking havoc on unsuspecting victims. I myself was a late bloomer. Puberty didn’t hit me until freshman year of high school, and even then, it took a few years for my body to grow into itself. So, junior high meant other guys getting stronger and faster, while I got pudgy. I got lapped in the mile almost every single track meet (by one or two of my own team members). My closest friends were mostly girls, and they hid pads in my lunch box that they had colored red and teepeed my locker when they had after-school practice for sports (you know who you are!).

My sexuality came to me in middle school through curiosity and insecurity. I started to notice other boys in the locker room when I was in 6th grade. It was then I began to wonder what it would feel like for another guy to wrap his arms around me, to feel that physically close with another male. I also became curious about the changes happening to them and why they weren’t happening to me. I remember feeling afraid, at times, that something was wrong with me. Other times, I just felt mad I wasn’t developing as quickly. 

Junior high became a time for me to try on different hats, have different friends, see what parts of my personality would come through and stick. I tried on cursing for a time, saying those words under my breath with friends, thinking we were real badasses. I tried friendship with both boys and girls, but my friendships with boys dwindled as I progressed through those middle school years. I ‘dated’ a girl in 7th grade for about three days. I asked her out through a note that I gave to her cousin and he gave to her. She passed a note back to me through him and I made her a Valentine’s gift that night. She broke up with me a few days after that. Real tragic, I know.

As far as faith goes, I went to church and participated in youth group. We had some great youth leaders who knew how to connect with junior high kids. I thought they were really cool and we would sit in a circle singing CCM (contemporary Christian music) songs about Jesus while one of them played the guitar. I think those Sunday nights were when I started to feel something when it came to God. I had always memorized Scripture and known ‘all the answers.’ But, that was the first time something stirred in me for the Divine, for something greater than what I had yet experienced. Whether it was the guitar or Evangelicalism or my naturally emotional self, I don’t know. But, something was coming alive in me that had apparently been brewing for quite some time.

I don’t remember much besides that about church and faith through my middle school years. The awkwardness of those few years at school in my friendships and relationships with classmates seems far more clear and vivid and important in my mind. Those were the worries of my junior high self. I think I felt rebellious for cursing in 7th or 8th grade. But, I don’t remember thinking much about my sexuality and faith. Granted, I barely understood what sexuality even meant at that point in life. I’m not even really sure I knew that much about homosexuality at that point either, except that it was a ‘bad thing.’ I’m not quite sure I equated my thoughts about boys or wanting to feel the warmth of their bodies close to mine as being gay or homoerotic.

Discovering one’s sexuality is never an easy task, especially in a church and society that tells you sexuality is something to be quenched, stifled, taken control of before it takes control of you. Coming to terms with your desires for men while being pressured to talk to girls and ask them out can be more than difficult. It can feel near impossible at times. It’s funny to think I have journals still, that I kept from that time where I wrote about all the girls I liked. I had many crushes, but I never wondered about the warm embrace of another girl. I never dreamt of a girl holding me tight and kissing me. Those dreams were reserved for boys, and boys alone.

I have found one of the greater trials in life is to bring our inner lives and our outer lives into each other more fully. It can be a daunting task to bring yourself out of the closet and into the light, letting people know you for who you are. It can feel exhausting at times to lift the demands of our culture and especially the culture of the church off our shoulders and say to them, “Enough is enough.” While it is a difficult task, it is one of the most rewarding. To be authentic with friends and family and the rest of the world is both terrifying and remarkably beautiful. Thank goodness I wasn’t meant to have it all figured out in that awkward junior high phase. And thank God I didn’t stay in junior high forever.