An LGBT Perspective: Losing One's Faith Trying to "Pray Away the Gay"

Tomorrow is Easter and I will not be going to church - not because churches are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic but because I largely lost my Catholic faith as I struggled to "pray away the gay," something I began to do around age twelve and continued for decades without success.  As a child, I loved Easter, especially at my grand parents' beautiful church pictured at left. That was, of course, before I realized god had made me gay.  Early posts on this blog look at my faith struggle and I talk about it from time to time, usually when I see religion being used to deliberately harm LGBT people.  A piece in an Irish LGBT publication struck a chord with me because the author's experience so closely parallels my own.  

Like me, the author left Catholicism and largely walked away from organized Christianity (I remain technically a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - they liberal Lutheran denomination).  Many in the LGBT community have had a similar experience once they shake off the self-hatred their religious upbringing had instilled in them as they come to comprehend the cruel lie that god supposedly loves you and made you in his image yet made you intrinsically disordered per Church dogma. I continue to worry about LGBT youth currently engaged in the fruitless struggle to pray away the gay, likely suffering from self-hate as a consequence.  Here are highlights of the piece which may help straight friends who remain churchgoers to understand why I find religion to be a harmful force for so many:  

I had a number of theories about my sexuality in my early years. At one point, I believed that God had made me gay as a challenge to see if I could overcome my same-sex desire. Later, about a year and a half into my efforts to pray myself straight, I thought that he might have just made some horrendous mistake. But even believing that was difficult, because I knew that God didn’t make mistakes. So, the theory I ultimately settled on was that my attraction to other boys was actually just a phase – it would pass in time and then, finally, I would be just like everybody else. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. 

Today, I am 26 years-old and I am openly and confidently gay. But I still look back on that teenager who so desperately wanted to change who he was and wonder: how did it get to that point? There were many reasons, of course; homophobic bullying, a hostile society – but my intense Catholic faith also played a big part in making me hate myself. My parents, while not exactly devout Catholics themselves, brought us to mass most weekends. We were cultural Catholics, but religion was also a big part of our lives. It was how we came together and it allowed us to connect to something bigger than ourselves. At 11 years-old, when most boys my age started having crushes on girls, I started having crushes on boys. By the time I was 12, my sexuality was in full swing – and I despised myself for it. I ventured onto Google and quickly established that being gay was not only socially unacceptable, but my church – the religion I cared so passionately about – strictly forbade it. I became increasingly aware of just how hated gay people were within Catholicism. It was an incredibly isolating and alienating feeling, to feel rejected from a place in which I had always felt so at home. I was too young to see the Catholic church’s anti-LGBT+ views for what they are: bigoted, normative, hateful. Instead, I told myself that I was the problem – that I needed to be fixed.

It was in that context that I started asking God to help me, to try to pray myself straight. My efforts were not without their complications; by that point, my faith was starting to crumble around me. I had backed myself into a theological corner, and it was patently clear that there was no easy way out of it. If God never makes mistakes, and makes us in his image, how could he have gone so far wrong with me? Why would he voluntarily create somebody who was intrinsically disordered when he makes everybody in his image? And if he truly loved me, as I had always been told he did, then why would he put me through this unbearable suffering? These questions did not have easy answers, and even while I continued to pray myself straight, they pushed me gently towards the exit door of atheism. 

When I was 13, I finally came up with a plan of action – I decided I would ask God to take this burden from me. To my dismay, my efforts to pray myself straight only made me more miserable. I felt utterly hopeless, and started to wonder if I would be better off dead. I contemplated suicide on numerous occasions as a teenager; whether to die or stay alive became a constant grappling point. I often wondered which would hurt my parents more: me dying or me coming out as gay.

Just before my 15th birthday, as I yet again tried to pray myself straight, I told God it would be the last time I would ask him to fix me. I told him I had had enough – I had tried hard enough to rid myself of these feelings. I asked him to rescue me – and he didn’t. That finally put an end to my belief in a higher power.

It is an intensely alienating feeling, standing in a beautiful Catholic church, remembering all the times I tried to pray myself straight, all the times I asked God, Jesus and the Virgin Mary to rescue me.

Today, I am firmly an atheist and the only masses I attend are the odd Catholic wedding. I’m not necessarily happy I’m an atheist, but I am happy that I’m no longer part of an organisation that is not just intolerant, but is actively hostile to LGBT+ people. I now understand that I, like all queer people, deserve so much better than what the Catholic church is prepared to offer us. I still hold out hope that one day, the church will change its teachings on LGBT+ issues, but that hope dims by the day. Every time it looks like Pope Francis is starting to move towards greater acceptance, he imminently throws more discrimination our way.

I no longer care what the Catholic church thinks of me. I keep my hope alive for all the other children growing up in that institution. It breaks my heart that they have to learn that they are not loved unconditionally like their straight and cisgender peers. I hope that one day, young queer people will no longer contemplate suicide because the church that was supposed to love them rejected them. I hope that they will be able to go to mass and won’t feel alienated in the way so many queer people do.

But right now, change looks a long way off. The Catholic church of today is an intensely backwards organisation that endeavours to keep people inside tiny boxes. But queer people cannot – and will not – thrive inside boxes.

 Unlike the author, I do not see myself as an atheist.  Rather, I am perhaps a deist like Jefferson and some of the other founding fathers.  There is a higher power - just not the god of the bible or the Roman Catholic Church.

How the Bible Belt Lost God and found Trump

This past week and through tomorrow, many self-styled evangelical Christians have been attending church services for Holy Week and tomorrow will be engaging in acts of outward piety and wearing their religiosity on their sleeves. Don't be fooled by the outward displays.  81% of these same people voted for a serial adultery and sexual aggressor, not to mention narcissist and pathological liar.  Just as telling, they support the GOP agenda to destroy the social safety net and throw millions off of health insurance. In short, they are the antithesis of the true Gospel message.  So why does the media continue to treat them with deference and undeserved respect?  A piece in the Financial Times looks at how evangelical Christians have basically discarded their faith other than outward trappings of church going and protestations of religiosity and piety.  In practice, these people make the Pharisees of the Bible look like upstanding, charity-filled philanthropists.  Here's the money quote on their hypocrisy:

A Pew Research Center study in 2015 found that evangelical Protestants in the US were more likely to be divorced or separated than Catholics, Jews, Muslims or atheists.

“Jesus says four times in four different places: do not divorce,” Flynt says. “Does divorce bother evangelicals? No, absolutely not. Does adultery bother evangelicals? No, not really, because if so they wouldn’t have voted for Donald Trump. So what bothers them? Abortion and same-sex marriage. Beyond that, there’s no longer an agenda.” 

Read the entire article which holds few punches.  As I have said often, I no longer call myself a Christian.  I want NOTHING to do with these foul and toxic hypocrites.  A third of Millennials seem similarly inclined as they have walked away from organized religion.  

The Forgotten History of Gay Marriage

Today is Easter Sunday.  It is also the day on which I will marry my boyfriend/partner/best friend (thoughts and reflections and photos will be posted later).  Some asked if we picked Easter Sunday to make a statement, but the reality is that it was the day that worked best to have those we wanted included to be present.  Given the animus toward gays held by many of the "godly folk" its worth looking at some of the forgotten history of same sex marriage in the early Christian church before the Church fathers rewrote history to fit their own agenda.  A piece in Care2 looks at this history.  Here are excerpts:

Republicans and other opponents of gay marriage often speak of marriage as being a 2,000 year old tradition (or even older). Quite apart from the fact that the definition of marriage has changed from when it was a business transaction, usually between men, there is ample evidence that within just Christian tradition, it has changed from the point where same-sex relationships were not just tolerated but celebrated.

In the famous St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai, there is an icon which shows two robed Christian saints getting married. Their ‘pronubus’ (official witness, or “best man”) is none other than Jesus Christ.

The happy couple are 4th Century Christian martyrs, Saint Serge and Saint Bacchus — both men.

Severus of Antioch in the sixth century explained that “we should not separate in speech [Serge and Bacchus] who were joined in life.” More bluntly, in the definitive 10th century Greek account of their lives, Saint Serge is described as the “sweet companion and lover (erastai)” of St. Bacchus.

Yale historian John Richard Boswell discovered this early Christian history and wrote about it nearly 20 years ago in “Same Sex Unions In Pre-Modern Europe“ (1994).

In ancient church liturgical documents, he found the existence of an “Office of Same Sex Union” (10th and 11th century Greek) and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century Slavonic).

He found many examples of:

A community gathered in a church

A blessing of the couple before the altar

Their right hands joined as at heterosexual marriages

The participation of a priest

The taking of the Eucharist

A wedding banquet afterwards

 

A 14th century Serbian Slavonic “Office of the Same Sex Union,” uniting two men or two women, had the couple having their right hands laid on the Gospel while having a cross placed in their left hands. Having kissed the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.

In late medieval France, a contract of “enbrotherment” (affrèrement) existed for men who pledged to live together sharing ‘un pain, un vin, et une bourse’ – one bread, one wine, and one purse.

Other religions, such as Hinduism and some native American religions, have respect for same-sex couples weaved into their history.

When right-wing evangelical Christians talk about “traditional marriage,” there is no such thing.

Easter Reflections

Today turned out to be a very pleasant day in many ways. The boyfriend and I had a leisurely morning and then went to church with his parents at Hampton Baptist Church in the old downtown area of Hampton. The service was very nice and ended with a flawless rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. The music brought back childhood memories of Easter and my mother's parents' home in upstate New York where we attended a magnificent Catholic Church (pictured at left) which was (and I assume still is) an amazing structure more akin to a small cathedral rather than what one would have expected in a relatively small town. The church was half a block from my grandparents' home and we typically had aunts, uncles and cousins staying at the house and we also would see other cousins who lived locally at church. As a child, the church seemed stupendous since our home parish was very small and anything but grandiose. The whole experience probably in retrospect helped draw me to religion early on even before I began my quest to "pray away the gay."

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The experience made me ponder whether I believe in God and, if so, in what form. The answer is that yes, I do believe in a God/Creator. Do I believe in all the details in the Bible? Probably not so much, especially the Old Testament which to me reflects a combination of the early Israelites' ignorant efforts to explain the unknown and their desire to be different and set themselves apart from other societies and ethnic groups. And the Resurrection story? Maybe yes, may be no. After all, the theme was well known before the Christians adopted the story line in the form of worship to Mithras and Isis among others. The basic message of Christ of charity and love of neighbor. Definitely, yes.

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After church, we took the in-laws and one of their elderly friends out to lunch and as always they proved a combination of entertaining and sincerely touching. I truly consider myself fortune to have such accepting and loving parents in-law if you will. Naturally, at the church service the boyfriend saw numerous clients who have likewise been most accepting of us as a gay couple whenever we attend church at that church.

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The rest of the day has been relaxing and I spoke with my mother, youngest daughter and left messages for other family members and friends. Weather wise, the day was exactly what one would want - clear, sunny and in the mid-70's. I even got to sit in the sun and read a book for a while overlooking the tidal creek behind the house.

Happy Easter!

I want to extend Happy Easter greetings to readers who celebrate the holiday. Today we will go to church with the boyfriends parents and then take them out to lunch. I'd rather attend a Lutheran service, but we will go to Hampton Baptist - which thank God is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention - since his parents have been active in that church for years.

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Yesterday, we spent the better part of the day moving things out of the storage unit and back into the house. The painting is not yet complete, so everything is staged in the center of the great room and will be moved to rooms as they are completed. The marble floors that are now throughout the first floor look gorgeous and the PVC wainscoting when painted will look elegant and at the same time be waterproof. Indeed, everything from three feet above floor level is non-water absorbent, including the insulation, concrete board that was used instead of sheet rock, and all of the shoe moulding and trim that is likewise made of PVC. If the house ever floods again, we will truly be able to hose it out.

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Once everything is back in place, we are going to have a party for friends and neighbors how have been so kind and supportive over the last five months. The boyfriend, a/k/a Martha Stewart, can't wait to have a full kitchen again after so many months.

Easter Eve Thoughts

I am visiting my mom in Charlottesville and have had a pleasant day hanging out with my mother and strolling around the University of Virginia grounds and the downtown mall. It was a gorgeous day and it was nice to be back at "The University" as the Wahoos/Cavaliers call it. For a city of approximately 45,000, Charlottesville is very progressive and the blend of history and modernity is amazing. Looking out my mom's living room window, I can see Montcello off in the near distance. All and all, it has been an exquisite day.

I hope each of my Christian readers have a wonderful Easter. I will try to post tommow, otherwise I will be back as usual on Monday.

Good Friday Thoughts

I have not been in an overly religious mode this Lent, although my church attendance has been more consistent. No doubt this is in part because the Lutheran Church is less obsessed with fasting, no meat on Fridays, etc., than the Catholic Church which likes to exercise power and control over its lay members. I will be visiting my mother for Easter – the roommates will baby sit the dog who HATES riding in the car – and am debating on whether or not I will submit myself to the torment of going to Catholic mass with my mother and my sister and her family. There is a gay affirming ELCA parish – St. Mark’s Lutheran - a few blocks from the Catholic parish my mother attends which has a service at the same time. Specifically, St. Mark's specifically affirms:

That gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons are beloved children of God

That gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, partners, and families are welcome to share in the full fellowship we all enjoy as brothers and sisters in Christ.

That gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, partners, and families are welcome to participate in all aspects of the life and ministry of St. Mark Lutheran Church as members of the congregation.

This obviously is quite different from the Roman Catholic Church's view of gays. Therefore, I may attend the ELCA service and then reconvene with the rest of the family afterwards. I simply find that when I am in a Catholic church, I have a very hard time overlooking the corruption and hypocrisy of the Church hierarchy. As a result, I have anything but Christian thoughts in my mind. Especially when I think about the way the Church continues to denigrate and describe gays as inherently disordered, thus fucking up countless young gays.

Other than not wanting to attend Catholic Church, the trip up should be fun. Easter dinner will be a relatively small affair at my sister’s house with her family and my mother and me. My oldest kids will spend the day with their mother and my youngest plans to remain at college, so I will see her Sunday evening on the way back to Norfolk. I talked to her today and she is excited about me seeing the house she and a group of friends will be leasing next year near the VCU campus. Since the university is only a few blocks off the Interstate, it is extremely convenient stopping off to see her.

My roommates are planning on going to church at my usual parish. Bother are Catholic but ceased attending Catholic church for reasons much like my own. Like many gays, they have simply not been going to church in light of the unwelcoming and condemning atmosphere of so many “Christian” denominations.