I’m not afraid of being out. I’ve gotten over it, moved past it. When I first came out, I was afraid for anyone to know. Hell, I was afraid that I knew myself. It just seemed like too much power, too much self-knowledge, and way too foreign. I didn’t want my friends to know, but I eventually told them (and more or less asked for forgiveness while doing so). I didn’t want my roommate to know, causing me to literally run away after telling her. I certainly never wanted my parents to know, but my sense of honesty and honor is far higher than I give it credit for, and I convinced myself that this was somehow “doing right by my girlfriend.” Believe it or not, I actually didn’t want to tell my now ex-girlfriend (she, not being stupid, knew, and later revealed that she had known even before I did), but I did, and thank goodness for that. A year later, I even did the unthinkable and came out to my boss, which is a bigger feat when you realize that I work in a church. Slowly but surely (and mostly discreetly), I’ve come out to my congregation. At this point in time, either you know or you should know. If you haven’t figured it out yet, then tough, but I don’t care and I’m not apologizing for it. I’m over it, I’m not afraid. Except when it comes to my future. That absolutely terrifies me. You see, I want a job with the church. As in I’m considering going into ministry. Welcome to my worst nightmare.
I can see your face right now. It’s twisted. You’re judging me. Minister means church. Church means fire and brimstone and homophobia. What on earth is wrong with me? Seriously, not every church is like that. There’s an entire church dedicated to being GLBTQ and Christian. A lot of the major mainline denominations are also super gay friendly or have gay friendly strains. That’s what I grew up in; my church is pretty liberal and loves me just the way I am. Of all the people I’ve come out to, my boss has had the most positive reaction. I talk to her about relationship issues, about being single, about gay life in general, with greater ease than I talk to my own mother. I have lost track of the number of people in church who have tried to convince me to go to seminary (and these are the people that I know know). So, as far as I’m concerned, this shouldn’t be an issue. God made me who I am, God loves me the way I am, and I can do God’s work the way I am. If I feel called, this shouldn’t be an issue, right?
Wrong.
I chaperoned a retreat this weekend up at the local camp associated with my church. It was a middle school retreat, which meant lots of adolescents running around, learning how to be better people, to trust in themselves, their mentors, and God. For the most part, it was a blast. While not a 100% nature girl (I hate spiders and showering in the woods), I do enjoy being outdoors, and I enjoy communing with God, so all in all, a good time. I didn’t even mind the blatant heteronormativity of everything (“Girls, you’ll like this Bible story, because it’s about how to get a guy!” one pastor said) as it was a church event, and those tend to stray towards the conservative side and seriously, who talks about the joys of homosexuality at middle school church camp? What got to me, however, was an otherwise mundane conversation as we walked out to the zipline and rope course. One of the other leaders, a mother of two, chatted with me and one of my girls. The girl, tired of walking on the rocky terrain, exclaimed that she was going to die. “You’re not going to die,” I said, “and even if you do, we’ll send you to Seattle Grace and Dr. McDreamy will save you.” “Which one is that? The one from ‘Enchanted’?” she asked. “He’s hot!” “Agreed,” I replied. “I love that show!” the other lead exclaimed. “Except, I don’t like what they did with the change. They didn’t have to make Callie gay.”
Now, normally, if someone said that, I would quickly reply that it’s so much more realistic for there to be queer people on the show, that people discover new things about their sexuality all the time, and that Callie isn’t even gay, Arizona is; Callie is bi, which makes her story that much more realistic. I would completely lay out the validity of bisexuality and go on about how Calzona is my favorite couple on the show, and that the scene where (spoiler alert) they tell each other “I love you” made me giggle like a school girl. Of course, this was, as I said, church camp, and she had more or less indicated that she didn’t approve, so all I could force out was a “Well, I mean, it happens,” before we changed the subject to the now deceased George. As a Grey’s Anatomy fan, I do miss George and I did love him, so it was fine, but as a queer person, I was, well, a coward. Even when I’m confident everywhere else, in this one area, I’m afraid.
Why does this scare me? I feel like God is calling me to do work, shouldn’t that be enough? Shouldn’t knowing that I try my best to be a good person be all that matters, not my sexuality. Who I do what with shouldn’t make a difference, and more importantly, I shouldn’t let it. I should be able to stand up for what’s right. So, when a bunch of kids are all walking and talking about the gays and lesbians and the “normal” people, I should be able to tell them that there is no such thing as “normal,” just like I always do. For some reason, though, fear just got in the way. I couldn’t say a word. I was verbally paralyzed. I believe that’s what we call “regression.”
Perhaps I’m not being fair. After all, the only thing she said was that she didn’t like that they made Callie gay. She never said why. There could’ve been a number of reasons. She could’ve felt it was out of character for her. She could’ve liked Callie better in a previous pairing. Maybe she just thought it didn’t feel authentic. She never said the problem was a general dislike of gay people. I mapped that onto the situation specifically because we were at church camp. Still, that’s almost beside the point. I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t even state an opinion. Regardless of what I assumed her opinion was or what it was in actuality, I didn’t even dare try to find out. I didn’t risk having her explain, I didn’t risk the chance that I was going to be told about how inappropriate her liking girls is, as it could get translated into how inappropriate me liking girls is. In trying to defeat invalidation, I defeated myself.
What people think of me, their opinions on my lifestyle, their approval or disapproval, I tend to categorize those as “worldly matters.” According to the Bible, I shouldn’t be concerned with “worldly matters.” My relationship with God is what moves me and makes me, so that should be my focus. If I want to go to seminary, if I want to testify as a witness to the word of the Lord, then God should be the one telling me whether or not I am unfit to do so, not people. Yet, people are exactly the ones who make this decision and, because I fear their limits and judgments, I listen to them. I don’t often think about what the Bible says about homosexuality. That’s because I don’t really care what the Bible says about homosexuality. People can argue until they’re blue in the face over how to interpret the so-called clobber passages that have been used to oppress gay people, but what it comes down to for me is this: I know I didn’t pick this. I didn’t choose to be this way, I didn’t choose to like who I like, and the fact that I like women has never hurt anyone. Ever. I can name many times where me being selfish hurt someone, where being dishonest hurt someone, where even me trying to be nice hurt someone, but never me liking women. So, no, I don’t care what the Bible says about that.
What I do care about is the fact that I let other people put a divide between God and myself because of who I am. What happens if I go to seminary? I get my spiritual education, I come out ready to serve. What happens if I become a pastor? I get to teach people the word of God, to lead them and to serve them. I get to find true spiritual fulfillment. My big fear is at what cost? Do I have to lie about who I am? I can’t do that, it would be a dishonor to myself and to God. Do I remain completely honest and open? I may never get ordained. Do I remain single and chaste? I want to have kids someday, and I don’t much like being alone. Do I marry the woman of my dreams? The church won’t recognize it, so if we do anything, it’s either a breaking of church vows or involves lying, which, as I’ve already stated, I can’t do. Do I marry the man of my dreams? Well, then I’m a bit of a hypocrite if I do anything, as I’m hiding under the guise of heterosexuality. It’s all so complicated, and really, I just want to learn about God.
The one thing that gives me hope is children. I’ve mentioned before that coming out to kids scares the living daylights out of me, mostly because, once again, I’m terrified of the consequences. Still, some of the most relaxed reactions I’ve gotten to coming out have been from kids. During the retreat, a boy mentioned that another boy said he was bi. This caused an uproarious laughter, which I quickly silenced and explained “You wouldn’t like it if someone made fun of you for your hair color, would you? You shouldn’t laugh at the way people are.” The boy quickly apologized, and I felt a little bad. He seemed to take my reaction more to heart than I had meant. I figured I had two options: awkwardly explain what I had meant or just come out to the boy. Even on a church trip, I just didn’t care enough not to tell him the truth, so I did. He looked at me with his serious face and said “Oh, ok, whatever. Everybody is kinda like that.” I smiled. I know that I need to change, to be stronger, to not be afraid of this last frontier, but it helps to know that, when I do change, the world will change as well. Kids like him are the future, and if he becomes as good of an adult as he is a kid, he’s going to go far and be a really good friend to a lot of people. As for me, well, I’ll pray on it.
