Why Do Christianist Hate Straight Spouses?

Back in September I did a post about Gospel singer Ray Boltz's public announcement that he was gay. Like myself, Boltz married and had children, all the while falling victim to the ex-gay propaganda and trying to "cure" himself of his true sexual orientation. Younger gays may not understand fully why many of us in the older generation followed the path that we did. In my case, why did I stay in the closet and make myself and in varying ways everyone else miserable? The answer is simple: I honestly did not know what else to do other than to try to be what church and society told me I had to be, growing up as I did at a time when being gay was classified as a form of mental illness (I was in my last year of college that the APA changed that diagnosis). On top of that I had the ever loving Roman Catholic Church making pronouncements that gays are "inherently disordered" and perhaps even "evil." Why would I ever want to admit - even to myself - that I was gay?

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This church and societal enforced phenomenon has multiple victims besides the LGBT individual who is in the closet trying to convince himself/herself that they aren't really gay. First among those is the straight spouse - the other party to the closeted gay's marriage. These other victims appear NOWHERE on the radar screen of the ex-gay "ministries" or corrupt institutions such as the Catholic Church. It's all about spreading the myth that gays can change and leading them to marry believing the false message. When it all eventual falls apart, the Christianists, Catholic clergy, and other snake oil merchants of the myth are nowhere to be seen when it comes to supporting the straight spouse.

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I recently discovered that Ray Bolz's former wife has a blog that addresses some of her experiences. It is called My Heart Goes Out. . . and on the issue of gay marriage, here's what she has to say:

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Speaking up for gay marriage, it is my belief that besides all the reasons mentioned in this article, it would make more sense for gay people to marry gay people, than for them to marry straight ones.

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Carol Boltz also has some interesting reflections on the situations a straight spouse encounters in trying to deal with the fact that her marriage has collapsed and that her world will be changing forever. Here's a few highlights that I found telling:

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My perceptions were that it was impossible to be Christian AND gay. As I read and learned, I had a hard time, but I found many sources that say our sexual orientation is a given (and some people, I understand, have a more fluid sexual orientation). And I began to realize that there are people who believe that there ARE gay Christians.

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In the months following Ray's big reveal, I sought information. I did not go to the counseling office at our church. I knew what those "answers" would tell me - the same conclusions that had resulted in Ray's self-hating and condemning results. It was hard to be alone, anonymously calling mental health offices, asking, "Do you have experience dealing with marriages where one person is gay and another is straight?" I'd call from my cell phone, I didn't identify myself except by my first name.

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I began to understand something new: there is a difference in what I'd been told in church (gay and Christian cannot co-exist) and the fact that there are good Christians who believe in Jesus, hold to his teachings, and they live their lives with integrity, even though they are gay. What a shift in my thinking! I could not even wrap my mind around my fundamentalist mindset - it was a turning I had never considered. I'd go through stages where nothing I thought made sense, because to accept these new ideas meant that there was no hope that Ray and I could stay married. What an awful conclusion.

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Carol Boltz sounds like a wonderful woman and I intend to read more of her blog which I have linked to mine. The tragedy is that she, Ray, myself, my former wife and so many, many others all end going through such traumas all because the Christianists and prissy old queens at the Vatican cannot accept the fact that God deliberately made some of us LGBT. As for the "ex-gay" ministires, I can think of nothing more dishonest that peddling lies in order to demonize others and shake down money from the ignorant and vulnerable.

Boltz Coming Out Shocks Christian Community

Over the weekend I did a post about gospel singer, Ray Boltz, who came out after 33 years of marriage and fathering four children. Not surprisingly, the wingnut, Kool-Aid drinkers are foaming at the mouth and bleating about Boltz's "fall" and "decision to engage in homosexuality." Why let mental health and medical knowledge get in the way of of one's fraudulent, deranged myth that gays CHOOSE to be gay. These people are pathetic and I believe that on Judgment Day, they and not LGBT individuals are going to find a day of reckoning for all the lies, hate and intolerance they have caused. Here's a sampling of the disingenuous things being said about Boltz at the Christianist outlet OneNewsNow (the comments posted by readers are truly illustrative of how crazy these people can be):

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There is shock and sadness in the Christian community over word that famed Christian music singer Ray Boltz has publicly announced he’s living a homosexual lifestyle.

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When asked about Boltz's homosexuality, The Gospel Music Association -- the group which gives out the Dove Awards -- told the Blade, "We do not comment on the lifestyle choices of people in our community." According to Quinlan [who is now with the New Jersey Family Policy Council], by making such a statement the GMA seems to be "enabling a behavior that is totally inconsistent, incongruent with the message of the gospel."

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"I’m absolutely shocked. . . . We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality."

Gospel Singer Shares Coming Out Journey

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.

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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.””