There is a lot of speculation today about whether homosexuality is genetically or environmentally influenced - I would likely say it is the result of both - with a genetically predisposed individual acting and reacting with his or her environment in the development of the total person. I've been asked to participate in this Continuing Education program because of my background…..I am a minister, I am an ex-husband, I am a son - but I'm also a father, AND…. I am a gay man….

From my earliest recollections - around 3 or 4 years of age - I had a sense of being different. I grew up with the knowledge that I was not like other boys. Even though I played with trucks and tanks and army soldiers I knew I didn`t relate to males and females the way others seemed to. Over the years this fact became more and more clear as I
made my journey through childhood, teen years, young adult and finally, as a middleaged man made the painful decision to "come out".

Someone once made the comment in our presence (actually a member of this church) that the Methodist Church is supportive of homosexuals as long as they are not "practicing homosexuals". I thought about that comment for a moment and decided that I didn`t need to practice, I`ve always been gay as far back as I have memory - it just comes
naturally.

Today, (at age 48) after 23 years of marriage and two wonderful children, I can, however, identify the exact moment I decided to become a "practicing heterosexual". It was the first time someone called me a "queer" - probably 5th or 6th grade. I decided then that who I really was, and who I would allow people to see would have to be two different people.

Junior High and High School were very painful times for me. I hated gym class because I had to tolerate the barbs that were shot my way. Since I had chronic asthma as a child, I couldn`t participate in sports so everyone called me a "sissy", "queer" or "faggot". I`m not sure what their criteria were for identifying these "outcasts" (queers & faggots), but I was certain I must have all the characteristics. If I was to succeed I had to practice being something I was not.

I tried desperately to fit in - at school, at church, among my peers. (I should add that in retrospect I probably wasn't unlike other kids at all). It is significant to me that this was mostly a spiritual battle for me. My perceptions of sexual taboos were formed strictly by the church. I thought the church SPOKE for God! My parents never discussed anything of a sexual nature with me and never attended church with me until I was grown. Our church youth leaders and camp counselors had more impact on some of us than anyone else. At church youth camp I was the first one to the altar and the last one to leave - trying to convince God that I wanted change but was powerless to execute it.

As a teenager I was depressed most of the time. I had the first mental breakdown and suicide attempt at the age of 16 - and ended up in the psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Hospital in Huntington, WV. It was pretty frightening experience for a 16 year old. All I could do was sit and stare through the bars on the windows and try to figure out why I was such a terrible person. At no time did I feel that God rejected me, but that my "church" family would reject me if they knew. I vacillated between moments of weakness and moments of "faith" in fighting my spiritual battle!

By the time I was a young adult and in the first year of college I had a relationship with another young man who happened to be from my church, but not without a good deal of quilt, fear, anger, and confusion. Our relationship seemed natural to me, but the church and society said it was wrong and so it must be. AND I knew I wanted to go into the ministry - I practiced harder!(at being heterosexual). I refused to acknowledge my identity as a gay male. I dated a few girls, actually did fall in love with a young woman and with the pressure of the church, peers, small southern town influences, (but primarily the church) I got married. I will honestly say that I loved this young woman with all my heart…..but…..

I soon realized that marriage was not the cure - I again had bouts of severe depression. Eleven months after we were married our first child was born - I was a "father". I didn`t need to rehearse for that role. As a gay male, fortunately, nurturing was part of my make-up. It was easy to care for my wife and new daughter. I loved my wife - we were close in every respect. I had shared with her about my sexuality early in our marriage and we agreed to work on it together.

We made contracts - agreements - whenever I became depressed I was to tell her I was dealing with "IT" (my sexuality) and we would pray and try to get through it together. Only it wasn`t working. I was struggling to stay above depression and she was struggling to compete with my depression.

We both loved God and we both wanted to serve in the ministry. As I studied for the ministry I realized there was no place for people like me - the real me. But, I found security in my marriage, my wife and daughter. I could be respected and accepted. I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear - that was NOT my motivation for getting married, but it was a perk. I honestly felt that all I had to do was "ignore" who I was really and just live my life as others expected me to and someday "God would deliver me!" for good behavior, if for no other reason. At one point during our ministry, I developed a habit of going away routinely (once every 4 to 6 weeks) to a motel room to pray and fast and seek God for "healing" or "deliverance" or "whatever" term was in vogue at the time. I could not understand WHY God would ignore my pleas. I did not realize at the time that God didn't heal what wasn't sick!

The church denomination I grew up in and eventually pastored in believed in "divine healing". They practiced "laying on of hands and anointing with oil as described in scripture as a means of exercising faith in healing". Over a period of 20 years, I was in more prayer lines, prayers meetings, and deliverance services than I care to remember. If God could provide healing through the atonement of Christ for any other mental or physical malady - WHY WOULD HE NOT HEAL ME!?!? Because I wasn`t sick.

Of course I would continue to "practice"….being a heterosexual. I guarded every aspect of speech - tone, or inflection in an effort to keep my speech patterns from "sounding" gay (basing that on all the stereotypes I`d been exposed to or heard criticized). In the pulpit I monitored every movement, every gesture, the way I stood, the way I walked. I literally lived in fear that someone would question my sexuality or discover my secret - not that I was involved in some affair with another man, but simply that "I was gay"!!

I was uncomfortable around other men because I didn't relate to things the way they seemed to….I hated sports (since growing up with asthma kept me from about every sport their was) but I pretended to enjoy it in order to fit in at the men`s fellowship breakfasts or retreats. I avoided close personal relationships with other men. I didn`t want the men in my congregation thinking their pastor was "light in the loafers". I even bought books to study the rules and tried desperately to remember who played what position. I was still "practicing" to be a heterosexual - and I thought hating "sports" was part of the problem!!!

My second breakdown came at age 26. I collapsed in church on a Sunday morning. I couldn`t control the shaking and weeping. This was the second of three, the third being the most devastating. This time I went to a Christian psychologist who mainly avoided issues of my sexuality and focused more on what I needed to do as a husband and father.

Over the years my wife and I enjoyed a successful ministry. We enjoyed the fellowship of many other ministers in our denominations. We were often in a position of counseling other ministers and their wives. We started and/or built several churches that are all still flourishing today. But success did not change anything for me.

My third breakdown came at age 36. I had taken a sabbatical from my church to return to school. My first year was wonderful…no pressures of pastoring, no counseling, no budgets to balance - I could focus on studying and spending time with my family. At the end of my first year, I began to find depression once again forcing its way to the surface - without the focus of studies over the summer break, I once again was waging a full-scale war - between my "practicing heterosexual" self and the real me. This time I literally lost 6 months of my life. I began my second year, attended classes, did my teaching labs, but cannot remember most of that period. I was depressed to the point that I was tired of the same old battle. I rationalized that taking my own life was better for my wife and children. I`d come to a place where I didn`t care what the church said, what the Christian Right, or Christian Coalition said, and God had been strangely silent on the matter for 30+ years - I
had come to the end.

I remember making my way out to a bridge over the Arkansas River in Tulsa, OK when a female police officer approached me and forced me to the ground. I was frisked for a weapon and put in a squad car with a male police officer. He said my wife, who was worried that I was suicidal, had notified them. She had no idea where in the city I was, but somehow they found me. He wanted to know what was so bad in my marriage that I wanted to take my life. I just told him he wouldn`t understand. I didn`t realize at the time that my daughter was in the back seat. I don`t remember much after that for several months. At some point my wife talked to me one day and said, "I love you, but I don`t want to see you go through this anymore…I don`t want to go through this and I don`t want the kids to go through this. We need to come to a decision. If this was a choice and you could change this, I know beyond any shadow of doubt that you would choose me and the children."

That day in 1987 was the beginning of my acceptance of myself as a gay man. I did complete my second year and graduated. My wife and I moved forward, moving to NC and continuing in some area of ministry, maintaining our marriage until our son was a senior in high school. During those 5 or 6 years we both hoped for change still. But it did not come. I didn`t have to deal with depression any longer, but grieved deeply for our marriage - we grieved together. During our last autumn together, we made our yearly trip to the mountains and visited our old favorite spots - one last time. We drove for hours up and down the Blue Ridge Parkway and held hands and wept uncontrollably for hours…realizing this would be our last time together. I still experience the pangs of grief as if it was yesterday whenever I think about it. Somtimes when Jim and I visit places I used to go with my wife, I still weep. He just holds me and allows me to face the pain, deal with it and go on.

And our lives do go on. We have both grown through our experiences. We will both tell you that we neither regret our 23 years together. Do I have regrets that it could not go on -YES! But God has brought wonderful people to us both. Molly is remarried and will has just celebratee their 1st anniversary. Jim and I have just celebrated our 4th, curiously 1 day apart. Our children are a part of both families, spending time with Jim and me, and Molly and her husband. We are still a "family" and spent time together about 2 weeks ago. Jim and I recently had lunch with Molly and her husband, my daughter and my son. We enjoyed a wonderful time of fellowship and I am thankful for what God has done in our lives - we are truly blessed. At last I can accept myself with confidence knowing that God is above the judgments of men who purport to speak on His behalf. I'm thankful for the opportunity to stand before you without a façade or mask, but for who I am.

In a recent news article in the N&O, Bishop Marion Edwards of the NC Conference was quoted as saying, "What we cannot condone is the homosexual lifestyle," Edwards said. "That does not mean we do not reach out with God's grace and acceptance to all people who struggle with those issues." For me, those issues would never have existed had it not been for the church.

I would just like to close by saying, as a gay man I haven't found that "lifestyle" Bishop Edwards is talking about. I am amazed at how we tend to lump all peoples into stereotypical groups and make judgments about them. My spouse and I have just built a home. We do laundry and clean house. We shop for groceries. We have family vacations and outings with the children. We have dinner parties. We mow the grass and recycle and take out the trash like any other family. What about that "constitutes" a homosexual lifestyle!? What about your daily living constitutes a "heterosexual lifestyle"? Is it something
you chose, or is it just what takes place as you live your lives with the people you love and cherish?

God bless you and thank you for your time.