The Cross in the Closet (7 page)

One of the great theological fundamentals, instilled in me for as long as I can remember, is that we are all born into this life with an albatross of sin hanging around our necks. This weight and pressure is designed to force a sense of spiritual immediacy and urgency as we live and share the Gospel of Jesus. It is a belief that says all of us are broken and unable to enjoy a relationship with our creator until we repent and turn away from our sinful selves.

Coupled with this idea that we are unable to know God until we repent is the idea that those “living in sin” are incapable to knowing salvation. For gays and lesbians, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been raised in church, love Jesus, and are fluent in the religious language; God’s truth will simply evade you until you turn away from your same-sex attraction and give your struggle to the Lord. That is, you cannot know God and be an unrepentant homosexual.

So I am surprised as I eavesdrop on a conversation at the bar. It is more of a religious debate, really, between a well-dressed man drinking a cranberry vodka and a bartender with both nipples pierced and wearing a spiked dog collar.

“I’m just telling you,” the businessman, a regular, says, “that I believe that what the Bible says is true. I don’t believe that we could evolve in trillions of years, much less billions. Randomness doesn’t allow for that kind of order.”

“Ben, get serious. I’m not saying the Bible isn’t a great book, I’m just saying that I don’t think Genesis 1 and 2 should be taken literally,” the bartender says. “Or much else, for that matter.”

“If you think it’s a great book, why can’t you have faith in it?”

“I’m not saying I don’t agree with a lot of it! Just saying that I think this planet has been around a helluva lot longer than six thousand years!”

Is this even possible? Are they actually debating young-earth creationism? The implications of this are overwhelming to me. I’m in a
gay bar
, for Christ’s sake! I wish my high school Bible teacher were here…though I doubt he would be listening. He used to refer to bars and lounges as “upholstered sewers.”

“I respect your opinion, don’t get me wrong,” Ben says. “I’ve just found that the evidence people cite for evolution doesn’t seem to hold much water.”

With each second that passes, I lose patience. It is the first time I have been at the bar and heard people speaking my language. I have to interrupt. “Excuse me, but are you guys actually talking about young-earth creationism?”

Both men turn towards me, and the bartender nods. “What do you think?” Ben asks me.

“That’s an irrelevant question, I think. I wasn’t there, so I don’t really know how everything came to be. I definitely believe in God, and I’d like to think the creation accounts are literal, but I don’t really know what I think, nor do I really care.” I was inundated with young-earth creationism in science and college at Liberty University. To believe in evolution was tantamount to being pagan. If the first two chapters of the Bible aren’t true, then how can anything else be? At least that’s what my teachers always said, coming from the perspective of biblical literalism.

“So you’re a Christian?” Ben looks at me, engaged and genuinely interested in what I might say. The bartender, sensing an opportunity to escape, moves towards another regular at the other end of the room.

“I am a follower of Jesus…But honestly, I don’t know what that means anymore.” This is the truth. Several weeks have already given me a sense of disillusionment, and I am overcome with doubt. If the people of God, who claim to know him better than anyone else, would treat me the way they have, it is hard for me allow myself to believe blindly what I have been taught by them.

“I completely understand. It sounds like you’re searching.” Ben smiles and moves to the stool next to me.

“You have no idea.”

“If you’re searching, you will find the answers. I’ll pray for you.”

It is the first time in weeks that
prayer
has come up without a deeper motive attached.

“Thank you, but…Would you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Not at all,” Ben says, sipping his drink.

“How can you be gay and still be so conservative in your faith? I was listening to your conversation and you sound, well, you sound like a Southern Baptist.”

Ben looks down thoughtfully before answering. “I’m fairly conservative in that I take most of the Bible literally, but I don’t believe the Bible addresses ‘gay’ as we know it. I guess I just try to follow the two great commandments above anything else. And yes, for the record, I do go to a Southern Baptist church.”

“So what would you say in defense of your being gay and being a Christian?”

“I believe God knows me more than I can even know myself, and I believe He loves me more than I can ever love myself. And if that’s true, what else is there to know?”

Ben’s humility is a breath of fresh air, and it takes me a second to remember I’m not talking to a typical believer. But is his faith really legitimate?

“Fair enough,” I say, fearful of the direction the conversation might take me. If it is possible that Ben actually has a relationship with God, then what the church has told me all along could be wrong—and the consequences of
that
are something I do not want to contemplate right now. I am not ready for it. I am still struggling to understand the effect of what I consider to be unrepentant sin on a relationship to God.

“I saw you talking to Will the other night. You guys old friends?”

“Yeah. We grew up together but have just reconnected,” I say.

“He’s a great guy. A total lover. He loves everyone who comes to this bar, and everyone loves him back.”

“That’s not hard to imagine.”

“So what’s your story? Are you new to Nashville?” Ben asks. His enthusiasm is contagious.

“No. I’ve lived here since I was two.”

“Why haven’t we met here before?” Ben probes innocently.

“Well, I just came out in January,” I reply nervously.

“
Really
?” Ben’s inquisitive expression turns into an all-out grin. “I’m so happy for you!” And before I can respond, he hugs me. Of the thousands of hugs I have had in my life, this one feels different. I feel a totality of acceptance, a sense of overwhelming support, and I feel valued. Ben isn’t just hugging me; he is sharing his heart with me, and I am ill equipped to respond. “Devon, get Tim here another beer. We are celebrating his coming out!”

“Seriously? This one is on the house.” The bartender pours me another Blue Moon and puts an orange slice on the edge of the glass. “Welcome to freedom,” he says, putting the beer in front of me.

“Cheers to your new life, your search for faith, and to gorgeous men!” Ben toasts and our glasses clunk together, spilling a few drops of beer on my thumb. I cannot help but laugh.

“Hell, yeah, to gorgeous men!” I say.

“Here here!” the bartender says.

After another hour of conversation, I’m convinced of two things. The first is that Ben is perhaps one of the most interesting men I have ever met. The second is that Ben defies most of the stereotypes I have ever held about the faith of an openly gay man. Until now, I had not met someone who claimed to believe the Bible literally and still openly referred to himself as gay. I was taught that gay Christians are Universalists (meaning that if there is indeed a Heaven, then everyone goes there, regardless of their deeds, beliefs, or sexual orientation); that they hold a non-literal view of the Bible (to hold a literal worldview would mean their sexuality is a sin); and they only attend churches whose parishioners are predominantly gay or lesbian. But Ben seems to be every bit as conservative as I am, and he goes to a run-of-the-mill Baptist church. Not only is he a young-earth creationist, he believes in the divinity of Jesus, the necessity of repentance in salvation, and, most surprising, he believes in a literal Hell.

But how can he reconcile his life and his orientation while living the life of a social and theological conservative? One thing is sure: I have lived my life in a bubble. The fact that there are men and women who share Ben’s beliefs demonstrates how broad the social spectrum is within the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. It is so broad that I hesitate to use the word
community
—a word that Ben explains negates the profound intricacies of the queer-associated populace.

Ben makes a point to introduce me to the regulars that he says I should be friends with, and one of them really makes an impression. Phil is in his forties, balding, and wears glasses. Phil is the epitome of soft spoken. Even his handshake is gentle and friendly, and I feel as though I will break his hand if my own handshake is too firm.

“Tim just came out of the closet,” Ben tells Phil.

“Oh, wow. Congratulations, Tim. How’s it been for you so far?” he asks, tilting his head down towards me. He speaks in a soft, almost inaudible voice, and his demeanor doesn’t leave any room for discomfort.

“I guess it has been pretty smooth. I’ve only lost a few of my friends…and the church I used to go to.”

“Bless your heart, hun.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and takes a deep breath.

It strikes me as interesting that I used to shun the touch of anyone I perceived to be gay, like they had some sort of disease I could catch. Additionally, if a man called me
babe
or
hun
, I would have been irrationally livid. But now it feels okay. Not only does it feel okay, it feels encouraging. It feels human.

“So, what’s your story?” I say. I’ve found myself asking about people’s stories a lot more lately.

“Well, I came out at thirty, and my parents weren’t too happy about it. But I don’t blame them. They were taught by people who were taught by people who didn’t understand that being gay isn’t a psychological malady. It really is easier for you younger folks nowadays.”

“Have they warmed up to it since then?” I ask.

“Well, my dad died four years ago, and my mother was absolutely devastated. She moved into my house with me and has been there ever since. She’s figured it out, but it has taken time. I don’t know if she ever would have, if my dad hadn’t passed.”

“I’m glad she’s figured things out.”
I wish I could.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No, but I’m happy. I don’t want to settle for someone that I’m not supposed to be with. I may never find someone, but that’s okay.” Phil speaks in such a way that I can see he’s reliving his life as he chooses the words to answer my questions, and I can tell he has made peace with the ghosts of his past. But saying that it would be okay not to have love in his life stirs something deep within me, and without thinking I speak.

“I hope you
do
find someone. It’d be such a waste if a beautiful man like you didn’t find love.” And what surprises me even more is that I actually mean what I am saying.

“Tim, I can tell you have a good heart, a gentle heart. Don’t let life make you cynical and take that away. Stay you no matter what, because I can see grace in you.” Phil doesn’t attempt to hide his emotion and hugs me.

Once again, I feel the same connection and sense of kinship that I did when Ben hugged me, a bond that I would not have anticipated with a stranger, much less a gay stranger. And I don’t know what surprises me more: the connection I feel with these two men, or how much I hope Phil
does
find someone. To wish that, after all, would mean I hope he remains homosexual—which in terms of my religion would be completely morally wrong and unnatural.

But is it? Both Ben and Phil are gay. There’s no sidestepping that, no sweeping it under the rug. It is confusing to feel fondness for two guys who are so different from what I was taught to expect. Nothing about their orientation feels unnatural. They aren’t at the bar on the prowl for a one-night stand—in fact, both are against casual sex—and neither has had more than two or three drinks. They are only at the bar to meet other empathetic souls, people who won’t judge them for who they are, and both seem to have looked inside me and validated who I am beneath the hardened dogma. Phil even tells me that he believes I’m gentle and hopes I never end up cynical. Maybe beneath all of the bullshit, I am. Maybe they can see what I cannot even see in myself. I hope so…otherwise how will I ever accomplish anything?

I say my goodbyes to Ben and Phil and drive home in silence, stunned by the gaping holes in my assumptions. I do not just feel ignorant; I feel cheated, like I have been held back from people that could have spoken hope to me all my life, but I was not allowed listen just because of their orientation. Tonight, I found friendship. I found camaraderie and kinship. Tonight, I found fellowship. Tonight, I found pain and loneliness, but also hope. Tonight, I found a part of myself in a gay bar on Church Street.

I wake up and see the signs of spring all around me: life, the smells of green and yellow and red, drifts into my window, just daring me to get out of bed. But I can’t. Last night I cried myself to sleep. I cried myself to sleep, and even now the wetness from those tears has left my pillow damp to the touch. The novelty of my experiment, if there was any to begin with, has worn off—but I am still here, left to question and live out a life that does not belong to me. I cried because I was alone, and I stay in bed because I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it another day.

The other night I was with family, watching sports. The game was at a pinnacle moment where the next team that scored would most likely win, and fortunately my team made the goal.

“
Jesus Christ,
that was a good play!” I yell.

My mom sighs and I can hear her frustration. She’s next to me on the couch, sitting Indian style with a pillow behind her neck, and her head leaned back.

“What?” I ask.

“Do you really have to say
Jesus Christ
like that, or is that just another sign that you’ve turned your back on God?”

It isn’t so much the words she speaks as much as the tone behind them, and the implication of what she is inferring crushes me. Until that moment, my mother has not only done her best to make me feel accepted, she treated me like the daughter she never had. But in the moment, in
that
moment, I realized it must have been a lie all along.

“Excuse me?” I was blindsided by her words.

“Where did my little boy go, the one who always wanted to be a pastor and have a family? Now you’re gay and sitting on my couch taking the Lord’s name in vain.” She had been bottling this up for weeks now, I could tell, and it was finally coming out. At least she was being honest. I was beginning to wonder if I had just imagined everything about my religious upbringing—the upbringing I had to be punished by in order to understand its true nature.

“If God is anything like the people who follow him, and I’m talking about you right now, mom, then yes, I’m proud to say that I’ve turned away from Him, and for good.” I didn’t wait around to see her reaction, or for my family to step in and mediate an argument. I stood and walked out of the room.

I meant what I said. I really did. If the God I claimed to serve was anything like the people I have encountered who had an adverse reaction to my being gay—like the me that probably would have said something very similar to what my mom just said—then I did not want to know Him. And if
He
was like
them
, then all of that love talk in the Bible was most assuredly bullshit, and one can only stomach so much bullshit in one’s life.

The front door slammed behind me and I walked down the stairs and up the short path to the driveway, trying to hold back tears. I was not so much upset by what she said; I was upset that she seemed to have hidden so much from me.

But maybe for a woman who believed her son had hidden so much from her, it was only fair.

After deciding that I have moped sufficiently enough for one day, I know it is time to get out of bed, pick myself up, and ignore the funk. I recently moved back into my dad’s house in west Nashville, and the transition has been difficult. I still have boxes to unpack, but those can wait. I don’t feel like unpacking. It is an odd thing to once again live in the house where I grew up. Unfortunately, the massive recession has given me no other option.

The move back to my dad’s house has been awkward but also somehow cathartic. He is gone most of the time, always with my step-mother-to-be, and so I am alone with only my memories to keep me company. I walk into the kitchen, make a pot of coffee, and watch shadows of my former self running through the house with Nerf guns chasing my brother, or kissing ex-girlfriends on the couch, or sitting at the dinner table with a mom and dad that are still together. The phantoms command my attention more than the mug of coffee I sip. The hot black liquid spills on my hand.
Damn it!
I turn on the faucet and run cold water over the wound, but the physical pain is only a fraction of the pain I feel inside, thinking about the past. And now I am here to dismantle even more of that past, living in the home where the youthful sponge I was became so weighed down with dogma that I was practically broken in half.

I would not be who I am if my family had not fallen apart. I know this. I would probably still be attending the church I was raised in. I try to see the good in the past, but it does not make anything easier. Nothing about life is easy, I’ve found, but that is okay. Twisted, but okay. I wonder what other phantoms my mind would chase in this house, if I had experienced more home, more normal, more opportunities to live in that blissful ignorance when I thought my parents infallible. It is hard not to dwell on these things now. I am living in the closet, cut off from a once-flourishing social life…and detoxing from the most potent drug I have ever known: estrogen.

My dad’s cat reminds me that he needs food. I set my coffee down to fill his dish. He’s a wonderful cat. He sits with me on the couch when I am watching a movie or surfing the internet, and he sleeps next to my computer while I write. He makes me smile. I walk over to the couch and log in to my email, not expecting to hear anything from anyone. My inbox is not remotely what it used to be when I was in church. I feel stranded, cut off, because most of the friends I called family have not reached out or even attempted to contact me since I came out as gay. I’m desperately lonely, and it has only been six weeks.

I see an unread message, and my interest is peaked. Jennifer has been a friend since I attended Liberty, and I have not heard from her since I came out. I brace myself for whatever the message will say and take a deep breath. It reads:

I stand up and start pacing. This is too much. One set of friends emails me saying they will not support my “decision to be gay” or even be friends until I “seek repentance,” and the rest have chosen to ignore me…But I never expected to hear from anyone actually living in the closet! Is
everyone
hiding who they are? Nothing I thought I knew about anyone is turning out to be true! Have I really been so blind and so oblivious? And worse, I feel that my lie about being gay might now hurt Jennifer, because she only confided in me because she believes I am gay. She probably wouldn’t have told me otherwise. I hope when she learns the truth about me, she won’t feel angry. I never understood how my decision would affect others.
Lord, help me…

I cannot get the line “I didn’t want to let you down” out of my head. Was I really that scary before, that religious zealot who abused my friends for anything I did not agree with? Am I completely different than I have always perceived myself to be? Sure, I know how to find Ecclesiastes at the sound of a whistle, and I know how to recite the books of the Bible in less than twenty-five seconds—but for what? My own friends do not believe I love them and even fear being honest with me! I feel like a monster.

A few hours later I drive to Tribe to meet up with Shawn. As usual I am early, but that is okay because more than anything I am out searching for pity, for an ear to listen and tell me how right I am for feeling so angry at my mom. It is comforting to be around people who don’t judge me, who understand what I am going through and accept me regardless of our differences. It is the way I always wished church could be.

After parking in my typical spot, I walk inside and see Will at the main bar. He’s shaking a martini for someone, and as soon as he finishes he comes over and gives me a hug.

“How’re you doing, bud?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s wrong?” he asks.

“The other night, my mom said some things that really hurt me.” He looks at me sympathetically, and I don’t wait for him to ask before saying, “I don’t know how to get past it. I just don’t understand her sometimes. I just don’t understand how my being gay would change how she sees me so radically.” Will hands me a beer and I take a sip.

“What is so hard to understand?” He pauses. “Tim, have you ever tried to think about it from her perspective?”

His words catch me off guard. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I’ve gone through, but what I haven’t told you is how I can accept and love my mom, even though she doesn’t accept me.” Will pulls out a dish towel and starts wiping down the bar. “Initially when I came out, I felt like you do now, like she didn’t love me because she doesn’t accept me. But it’s not that way. She loves me,
so
she’s trying to follow her beliefs about me. Even though I don’t agree with her, I can’t hold it against her. Some may call her a bigot for how she treats me, but I call it being my mom…And fortunately, I was raised in the church, so I know that her motivations aren’t evil. She isn’t trying to spite me or make me feel like a freak; she really is genuinely concerned. It sounds like your mom is, too.”

“How do you do it, though? I just can’t imagine being able to do that.”

“I just try to put myself in her shoes. If I believed what my mother believes, and I had a son come out as gay, I would be mortified because that would mean my blood, my offspring that I love unconditionally, was going to Hell. Now think about Hell from a conservative Christian’s perspective. Wouldn’t you do whatever you could to steer your child away from that path? It is simple enough for me. Her belief separates us, but her motivation helps me understand and accept her, even though it hurts me.” Will steps away for a second and makes a drink for another customer. He finishes and walks back over. “The other thing I do is try to think about what my orientation takes away from my mom. I think about what she’s lost.”

“What do you mean, you think about what she’s lost?”

“Tim, I’m my mom’s only son. Your mom only has two sons. Think about how much it must hurt them to know they won’t be able to go to our weddings or hold and babysit our biological children. It can’t be easy. And let’s be realistic: Our country probably won’t come around for a while. Our moms will never have the ‘normal’ life they dreamed of. We don’t have to agree with their beliefs, but we can sympathize with what they have to give up so that we can be ourselves.”

“So what you’re saying is that they care more about what they are losing than they do about us being gay?”

“Yes and no. Their spiritual beliefs about our lives and their personal sense of loss that is a result of our lives make them act this way. Try not to take it personally. I truly believe that it will get better for both of us, if we just give our mothers time.”

“I understand and agree with you, for the most part, but I still can’t help but feel gross that a religious belief would give someone ‘cause’ to treat me this way—especially my own mother.”

“We live in difficult times. Be angry at the belief all you want, but the second you stop seeing people as people and see them only for their beliefs, you become guilty, too. I’ve been through hell over the past few years, but that much I’ve learned. I’m not just ‘gay Will,’ and my mom isn’t just ‘uber-conservative Christian mom.”’

“So does that mean I have to interact with people who believe I’m abominable?” I ask.

“Hell, no! I’m just trying to say that if you come into contact with anyone who holds those negative spiritual beliefs about you, don’t forget to smile and show them the respect you wish you were shown. Karma, non-violence, the golden rule, and especially grace—these are all universal principles that will give you peace. Our families are captive to a more conservative way of thinking about things. That’s the unfortunate part of this whole thing. We really are slaves to an idea that hurts us.”

I came to Tribe to vent, and instead of blindly supporting me, my childhood friend is trying to help me think from a different perspective. He has shown me that we can empathize without budging on our worldview; and that if we do not empathize, we are as careless as the people whom we are at odds with.

Being a second-class citizen feels like being a tenth-class citizen. If I really were gay, I feel like my life would become such an issue for people that I would be constantly exhausted. Gays and lesbians are looked at as different, perverse, and the label alone seems to illicit an association with the lowest dregs of society, morally speaking. No one wants to be thought of that way! Is it really so unrealistic to let people’s actions speak for them rather than the stigmatized label?

Experiencing the other side of prejudice is more painful than I anticipated. Worse, I feel as though I am constantly being faced with my own face in the mirror: the image of a Pharisee who has not thought to look past labels and orientations to see people for who they really are. Had I not gone through with this experiment, I probably would have always believed the lie that I really am better than the other, and my life would have been characterized by a shallower understanding of humanity. At least now I can see what I really look like, and, Lord willing, I may yet change the image staring back at me.