Sorry for the second ‘personal’ diary in a week 🙂 and for the second cross-post with dailkos (in the process of shifting :), but I think Zack’s story needs to get out and the truth that these groups (FRC, CC, AFA) are hate groups needs to be further shown. Be forewarned its personal and long. It does have a larger political and social point… but isn’t personal political?
Republic of T has been keeping us up-to-date on the story of Zach, a young gay man who has been forced by his into a ‘reeducation’ camp run by fundamentalist Christians to ‘scare straight’. I can empathize what the poor kid is going through, and we’ll find out more when he is freed in the next couple days. This whole episode has brought back the memories of something I went through as a young gay man, and I need to relate it. It will be long, forgive me. Read it if you wish, I’m writing for me, for my soulmate, for my child and for every boy and girl who finds themselves ‘not normal’.
I was a teenager in the late 70’s. There was an further awakening then of GLBT people, Stonewall had occurred, Harvey Milk, two men attempting to marry in Colorado, and more. I knew I was ‘gay’, or at least I knew I was romantically and sexually attracted to men. I had known since I was, well, since I can remember being attracted to anyone in that way.
I even had a friend, a male friend, who today I would call a boyfriend, but then called my best friend. We did everything together and were inseparable. We loved each other and expressed it to each other every day. We expressed it in words and intimately. We knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, off in some Alaskan cabin where people would leave us alone. He was the center of my universe.
There was a another center of my life then too. Faith. I had always been a seeker. I went to church services of local Catholic, Baptist, Buddhist and Quaker places of worship. I asked everyone and anyone who would answer about faith and belief. I had a set prayer I would ask every day “Help me find truth” were my last words every night before I went to bed. Eventually, when I was 17, I found the Mormon faith. Much of it (the universality of salvation, the mother goddess, the word of God not restricted in space or time) rang so extremely true to me. I converted in days. It became a center of my universe.
Two centers pulling at and pushing each other away. I could not reconcile my love for my soulmate and my love of my faith in God.
My boyhood love temporarily solved that problem for me the day he took his own life when we were 18. The day I found my first love dying before me, the day he died, that day haunts me still. It was the day the center of my universe vanished.
But that is not what this entry is about, it is about how i dealt with the other new and growing center, my faith and what it told me of my sexuality. My faith become my center. And my faith told me that the sin of homosexuality was next to murder in seriousness. It was a plain and simple declaration in church meetings. I could not have committed any worse sin unless I killed him with my own hands. It was a heavy burden to bear.
And I made every effort to rid myself of the burden. For did not Jesus say,
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ( Matthew 11:28-30 )
I had a lot of things to contend with (I was not allowed either to ‘hold the priesthood’ because of my ‘black blood’.. a long story for another day), but this was my greatest battle. I prayed everyday, I beseeched God, I read the scriptures, I did good works, I accepted Jesus’ burden, I even went on a mission.
I knew God would change me if I devoted my life to Him. I would be freed of the burden. So I went on a mission. I spent two years of my young life ministering to deaf children and adults. I taught them how to cook, how to read and write Korean. I taught them about the gospel and the beauty I saw in it. And I did change. For two years my life was devoted to someone else, to my fellow man and God. I had no room in my heart or mind for anything else. I rarely gave my sexuality or any sexuality a thought, I didn’t become ‘heterosexual’, and occasionally my ‘homosexual’ feelings would return, but it wasn’t a burden. It was a blissful two years filled with service and one of the most intense spiritual experiences of my life.
But then I returned home and so did the burden. Ten fold. Devoting my life to God did not make me heterosexual. If anything, it only made me realize even more that I wasn’t. I went to Brigham Young University, and as a relatively intelligent, not ugly :), returned missionary, I was good marriage material. i started dating hoping that would change me. It wasn’t working. So I sought help from my Bishop.
One of the greatest mistakes of my life. My Bishop reaffirmed to me that this was a grevious sin that I need to repent of and change. He referred me to the department in the Kimball Tower where I could get therapy. I started with individual therapy where I was told that I am and receive what I ‘want’, what i truly ‘want’ and if you are not that and don’t have that, you haven’t truly ‘wanted’ it. I graduated to group therapy in addition. But after a couple semesters all the therapy got me no where but hating myself more.
It was then another therapy was suggested. I would try anything at that point, to be lifted of the burden. It turned out to be ‘aversion therapy’, though not electroshock, it was as insidious. Photos of gorgeous men would be shown, near pornographic and then I was given a substance to drink (I assume it was syrup of ipecac, but am not sure then or now) that would induce vomiting. I was then forced to smell it. I was then shown photos of women, on another occasion, this time the room smelled sweet and I was given water or juice. Repeat over and over again.
Pain, suffering, hatred of myself for not changing and hatred of my Church which was quickly changing to hatred of God. That is what the therapy gave me. My cries to God got louder and more insistent. Why was I given a burden that was going to make me hate God?
The semester ended. It was the summer of 1983. My parents had moved to Seattle so I spent the summer with them. I arrived a destroyed man. I now knew that God hated me, the Church hated me, I hated me, I hated myself with a passion. I might as well have been a murderer. I could be no worse than I was. My mother and stepfather noticed the change. I was in a serious depression and it showed. I wanted to do nothing and talk to no one. This was the young man who before was interested in everyone and everything, who loved life and all the amazing things in it. My step-father attempted to intervene. He did not know at the time what was destroying me, but he knew I was seriously in trouble. We had a talk alone one day. I wanted so much to tell him, to tell him all the horrid things that happened to me, how much I hated myself, how much God hated me and that is why I was so depressed. But I did not. I don’t remember what I said to him, only that it would work itself out.
The next weekend I even went to a gay bar to ‘see’ for myself what ‘being gay’ was like. I hated myself even more. The bar was nothing special, just a restaurant and bar with a few good looking men in it, but the very fact that I was willing to go…
It was then I decided the only solution was my teenage love’s solution. He was right. It was the only way out of the pain and hatred. I found a place in the cascade mountains that had spectacular cliffs. I resolved to go camping, but not for the views. And I did. I told my family that I needed some time to think and wanted to go backpacking (which I did a lot). I gathered my things and planned. I made sure that I would be there on a weekday, when there were few other campers.
I arrived at the site, a spectacular cliff overlooking a river, forests and mountains in the background. I arrived with the determination to jump off that cliff. I was not scared, I was strangely at peace with what i was about to do. Now I would be free of pain and hatred, and maybe for a brief glimpse I could see my love again. It seemed so right.
I went to the edge, took off my backpack. I planned it out. I would pray and then sing a hymn and jump. I prayed, a long prayer of accusations and complaints. I told God He was cruel and hateful and I did not wish to live with Him. In the same breath I begged for forgiveness. I was a weak child and after years still could not find the answer, could not lift the burden. I cursed God again for not lifting the burden.
And then I sang the hymn that was supposed to take me off the cliff. It was How Great Thou Art. i am not sure why I chose that song, I guess it was because it was one of my favorites.
It changed my life. When I got to the second verse
“When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
something happened. Perhaps it was real, perhaps it was from inside me, it does not matter, for that day I could hear everything singing with me. The trees, the birds, the rocks and the water. They were singing the hymn. I could turn to the trees and hear them sing, I could turn to the boulder next to me and hear it sing. The world was singing with me.
And I burst into the most violent and enduring sob of my life.
In all honesty, I can not explain now, nor then, what it meant. What the message was supposed to be, if any. I could not explain. If it was my heightened state or God or the actual world singing, I can not tell you.
But I can tell you the effect it had. Because after my hours long sobbing, when all my strength was gone and I then slept on that rock through the night. I got up and went home.
I was not happy. My problems were not solved.
But it was the turning point of my life, for from that day foward I pulled myself out of my self-hate. From that day forward I regained my love of God. From that day forward I regained my faith. I eventually was pushed and excommunicated from the Church, eventually stopped therapy (though I would go through therapy for another 6 years, though a much more benign therapy).
I look at my life now, with a family that loves me, a soulmate who is my companion and love, a daughter who I cherish with a love I didn’t know I could have, a life filled with friends and that is wonderful and sweet, and most of all a growing and deep spirituality and love of God.
And I compare that to that young man 20some years ago who had little but fear, and hate and sorrow and I marvel. That journey from self-hate inducing therapy and ‘faith’ to today was a long and ardous one. And I am blessed to have had people in my life who held my hand along the way, my parents, my siblings, my friends and even strangers. My souImate and my daughter. I could not have made it alone. It was their true Christ-like love that guided me to this place of joy and strength. In them I have found God.
It is why we must help young men and women like Zack, so they also can free themselves from that hate that some call love and find their way to what happiness and love our. My story is what makes me hopeful and sad. Hopeful that lives can change, sad that so many would have us live in hate and fear.
Please, keep informed and go help Zack, and all other other young men and women who suffer from what other people erroneously call ‘love’.
