AboutMichelle Expertise I can answer/explore questions regarding: coming out; conflicts of faith for both the gay/lesbian person accepting their own sexuality as well as friends/family accepting the sexuality of someone they care about; coming out to your children; talking to your teens about being gay; coming out of a long term opposite sex marriage; history of marriage; legal recognition of same gender marriages; how ultra-conservative religious training/upbringing affects gays, lesbians, bi, trans people--especially teens; why living “out” is the hardest best thing a person can do; current dynamics of religious/political issues.
Experience I was raised in a conservative Christian church, and still am a Christian. From my earliest memories, I always had "crushes" on girls/women, but because of my background and training, believed homosexuality was a "sin" and that I was an abomination. I believed it was a "choice" and was determined to choose heterosexuality. I married a man (claimed to be a Christian, ended up being abusive), had three kids, and was married for 20 years. I attended a Christian college (had devastating crushes there) and at the age of 26 started writing and speaking for Christian groups across the United States and Canada. After fifteen years of teaching others to "remove the masks" I finally peeled away my last mask. I lost my church, my oldest friend, my career, and quite a few people I trusted and loved--but I gained my soul. You can't fool God. I used my experience and twenty-five years of biblical studies to understand how scriptures have been misused. I am now married to a woman (seven years) and active in the gay/lesbian community. I have made myself an expert on same gender marriage issues and legal cases. I am very active in local, state, and national politics
Organizations HRC
Equal Rights Washington
Legal Marriage Alliance
PFLAG
Publications AGLOW Western Horseman
Publisher's Weekly
Two books and hundreds of articles for Christian publishers
Education/Credentials 2.5 years undergraduate
25 years professional writer/speaker (fifteen for religious publishers)
10 years of seminars & workshops
Expert: Michelle Date: 6/3/2008 Subject: Choose God or Life?
Question Hi, I actually wrote yesterday but I've since spent the entire day reading your previous answers. In particular, a few entries in February to a 16 year old girl who's parents are devout christians. Your answers have been wonderful, and in depth enough for me to start my own self-study. It will take time though, and even then, I dont know if I will be able to change my mindset although I know youre right. I have been raised with fundamentalist teachings all my life - I was taught to embrace it as pure truth, and the more I studied the Bible, the more convicted I was that my feelings for the same sex is wrong. From then on (I must have been 15) and for the next 13 years, I have been on this cycle of repentance for what my heart wants, but my spirit wont gratify. Believe me, self flaggelation wouldnt be as painful.
I have let love pass me by, and I live in half shadows of guilt. I always feel unfulfilled and lonely, despite having so many friends. I've been asked out by countless guys, but I'm simply not interested. I date anyway, thinking maybe God will send me someone who will "make me straight" and I can go on with life, not disappointing God or my family by being "the abnormal one". I mask things by talking about and dating men, and playing the clean, Christian straight girl with my friends. I have no gay friends, which doesnt help. I try to extend my social circles but it seems I'm the only one, all my other friends are married, or straight and seemingly happy. I feel like I cant talk to anyone.
So I sit with nothing but a journal to scribble furiously into. Only my journal knows the truth. I am normally a fighter but this is one battle I dont know how to fight. God or life. Michelle, how did you eventually undo the years of wrong teaching? Not a single person knows my true orientation. Only Jesus...and God knows I love Him. I've professed to love Him more than life, and that is why I resigned myself to choosing God or life. I chose God. I serve faithfully in church. Inside, I feel like such a fake.
Only now am I beginning to slightly question things, as it feels so horribly wrong to live in such emptiness. I dont know how long this journey will take or if I'll ever reconcile things within me. Any suggestions?
Answer Hi Susan, I did see the feedback you left with your response to the first letter I sent you so I know that you are starting to open up a little more to the idea that maybe, just maybe, God loves you just the way you are. I understand so well how hard it is to grasp, how hard it is to undo some of the inadvertantly harmful teachings we have ingrained in our minds and yes, on our hearts. It is hard. And I honestly don't think that the people who teach this are malicious, or evil minded...it is the human way. It is the human condition. We need simple explanations for the things that we "don't get", and honestly, a lot of people just don't get how a woman can fall in love with a woman, or be attracted to women. Or a a man can fall in love with a man, and be attracted to men. So, as humans, they project this failure to "get it" as "it must be wrong. And surely God never intended it...but how do we explain that virtually ever species on earth has been observed to have a certain percentage of homosexual members of their species? Even butterflies! There is an almost funny account by a Christian zoologist that clear back in the 1930's made a written observation about some homosexual butterflies...and he was quite clearly disgusted. LOL
There is a passage in the Old Testament that teaches that a woman who does not bleed the first time she has sexual intercourse with her husband, he is to take her back to her father, make the accusation of adultery. The parents are given the opportunity to inspect the bed sheets, and if they find no blood, the father, the husband, and the townsmen are to stone the "guilty" woman to death on her father's doorstep.
With our current medical knowledge, knowledge they didn't have a couple thousand years ago, we know that not all women do not bleed the first time they have sex. So we know that we can't assume whether or not someone is a virgin based on blood on the sheets. Wouldn't our Creator know that? Surely He did. And if you asked any evangelical minister how the Bible, if it is inspired word for word by God, could get it so wrong, how innocent women could have been put to death for something they didn't do, that minister would say, "we have to allow for time, culture, extent of medical knowledge..." But GOD would know, and on something as important as a woman's life, wouldn't God make sure the writer got it right? Wouldn't that be pretty important?
There are many other examples, but they all point to the same thing. Evangelicals DO understand that we cannot and do not take the Bible literally word for word the way we have it today. We understand that time, culture, knowledge, all play a part. And we have to keep things in context.
A very important context, for example, that we were taught in Theology 101 is to understand the author, the writer of each book in order to have a context in terms of their mindset, knowledge, etc. Paul (the author of Romans, the most often used verse in anti-gay rhetoric) is a very interesting guy when you study about him a bit. We know he was single, but a lot of people don't know much more than that and that he was the guy that went blind on the road to Damascus. What many don't know is that the sect of Christians that Paul belonged to considered sex to be dirty, base, and "unnatural." Heterosexual or otherwise. It is why, in 1 Corinthians 7 (and I have yet to hear a sermon in any evangelical church on this part of Paul's writings) Paul says it is better "for a man not to marry" and goes on to say that women shouldn't either...it is better to be single...because it is easier to serve God completely. The only reason Paul gives for someone to marry is if they can't control their lusts--then, to keep from "burning" they should marry. Not for love. Not forming some spiritual triangle between God, Man, Wife...but to keep from burning with lust. When we understand this about Paul, that he didn't even "get" it about heterosexuals, so it is pretty understandable that he didn't "get it" about relationships in general. Straight or gay. And when we also realize that the Bible does not represent the entirety of scriptures that were written, but only the three hundred texts that Caesar Augustus and his hand-picked canonical selecters decided agreed with what they believed was true and Holy, (these were the same guys who later put Capernicus to death for his heretical round earth theory) then we start to understand that maybe we have never been allowed to see the whole picture.
The point I reached at 38, was a crisis not only in my emotions and my hearts, but in my soul. I love God with all my heart and soul. I gave my heart to Jesus when I was twelve, and I have served Him ever since. I came to the crossroads after literally throwing myself on my face for years, begging God to change me, wanting to change, BELIEVING that He could make me straight. And yes, I was absolutely certain I was the only Christian to go through this. I couldn't figure it out...I didn't know any gay people, church was my life, and if I knew anyone who was gay they were as deep in the Holy Closet as I was. So no one "turned" me gay. I didn't watch porn or read it. There simply was no exposure...how could I be gay??? Especially if it was a "choice"...I spent 20 years "choosing" to be straight. I figured when my ex asked me to marry him, that was God FINALLY answering my prayers. I had dated several men, but I actually liked this one, so maybe, maybe this was God's answer. Besides, it came when I was trying to get over my crush on my college roomie. :) I can't tell you how much I hated myself for that crush.
I reached a point then, that I believed one of two things was true...either God was a sadistic monster who COULD change me but just decided not to and then to condemn me to hell for not changing...OR, God never meant for me to change. I was His Creation, and it was "good." I couldn't bring me to believe in a sadistic God, so I started asking, "did God make me this way?"
How long will your journey take? It is lifelong. Always remember that you have been trained for a long time to think and believe certain things. Ever wonder how people can strap on bombs and kill themselves and others for Allah? Because they have been trained and taught since birth to believe that this is what God wants. It is a powerful thing, and difficult to question, much less move away from. Know that some days it is easier to understand and work through than others. Start examining any beliefs you just accepted without study and see which ones can withstand logical and reasonable scrutiny.
It's a tough process, but a good one. It stretches you, it helps you grow. You also will be able to understand the perspectives of both sides of the issue.
One of the best things I figured out along the way is that we are actually in pretty good company. You will have people who tell you there is just no way you can be a Christian and be gay. That they love you, but sorry, you are going to hell. The Bible tells them so. Of course, the Bible also tells southern baptists that Catholics are going to hell. It tells Catholics that protestants are going to hell. In our Nazarene bible studies, we studied the Bible to understand why mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists were all going to hell--while they were all learning that the rest of us are going to hell. Do a web search sometime on Billy Graham...just his name, and scroll down through the different websites. You will find massive ones that are dedicated strictly to why Billy Graham is a heretic, a liar, and why he will burn in hell for all eternity.
Leave it up to us humans, and nobody gets in because we all think we know what the Bible says and everyone who doesn't agree with our interpretation is doomed to hell. Other Christians have ALWAYS claimed I was going to hell...long before I came out as gay. It was just harder when they were from my own church after I came out. But really, it was nothing new.
We human beings are interesting creatures. Good thing God didn't leave the keys to Heaven with us...
I'm glad this is helping Susan. Believe me, I do understand your torment. And if I can help your heart not to go through it as long as mine did...then I feel like God has blessed me today.
