Yesterday's Washington Blade carried a story about gospel singer, Ray Boltz's coming out saga. There are many things that Boltz relates - he was married 33 years and has four children - with which I identify very strongly based on my own experience. Living a lie and trying to be straight ultimately becomes so exhausting. Like me, Boltz finally reached a point where he simply could not go on denying who he was and had to face up to it. I hope he finds the peace and self-acceptance I have found after so many years of unhappiness.*
Not surprisingly, there are a few nasty comments posted on the article by wingnut "Christians" who are so terribly threatened by the fact that just maybe the Bible doesn't have all the facts correct when it comes to sexual orientation or other issues. To me, those who fear homosexuality have a weak, simplistic faith that is all too easily threatened by anything less than a literal reading of 2000+ year old writings written by scientifically ignorant, tribal authors. I applaud Boltz's courage for finally admitting who he is. Here are some story highlights (I recommend a full read of the article):
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Ray Boltz was tired of living a lie. He’d gotten to a point nearly three years before where he couldn’t continue down the road his life had gone. His 33-year marriage to ex-wife Carol was, he says, largely a happy one. It produced four children — three daughters and a son who are now between 22 and 32 — but family life and going through the motions of being straight had grown so wearying to Boltz, he was in a serious depression, had been in therapy for years, was on Prozac and other anti-depressants and had been, for a time, suicidal.
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Continuing to pretend, Boltz says, was no longer an option. “I’d denied it ever since I was a kid. I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. I know I am.’ And I just got to the place where I couldn’t take it anymore … when I was going through all this darkness, I thought, ‘Just end this.’”
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“You get to be 50-some years old and you go, ‘This isn’t changing.’ I still feel the same way. I am the same way. I just can’t do it anymore.’”There was some exploration of “ex-gay” therapy though Boltz never attended an “ex-gay” camp or formal seminar.“I basically lived an ‘ex-gay’ life — I read every book, I read all the scriptures they use, I did everything to try and change.”
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His physical relationship with his wife hadn’t been torturous. He says it helped that he felt genuine affection for her, if not sexual desire.“Sex was based on the fact that we loved each other and I wanted to make her happy,” he says. “I had sexual drives as well. You know, it’s like I never had to talk myself into having a relationship with her or that I was going, ‘Oh God, here we’re going to bed again’ — it wasn’t that. I loved her and we had a very full life; it’s just that inside, deep inside, it really wasn’t who I was.” Aside from sex, Boltz says this eventually took a toll on the couple’s intimacy.
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His faith was in transition — tenants he’d adhered to all his life suddenly were up for reconsideration, but there was a peace he hadn’t felt before.“I had a lot of questions [about faith], but at the bottom of everything was a feeling that I didn’t hate myself anymore, so in that sense I felt closer to God."
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He doesn’t want to get into debates about scripture and has no plans to “go into First Baptist or an Assembly of God church and run in there and say, ‘I’m gay and you need to love me anyway.’”For him, the decision to come out is much more personal.“This is what it really comes down to,” he says. “If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I’m going to live. It’s not like God made me this way and he’ll send me to hell if I am who he created me to be … I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself.””
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