Confused child of God

Dear Confused:

Thanks for your letter and your honesty. I appreciate your dilemma. It brings up some fundamental questions: Does God love everyone, or is Her/His love conditional? If your childhood concept of God is a punishing one, why hold onto it? Easier said than done.

Luckily, you don’t have to tackle this alone. Metropolitan Community Church (Hillcrest), Unity Fellowship Church (North Park) and the Unitarian Universalist Churches (Hillcrest and Solano Beach) are San Diego churches that welcome GLBT members with open arms. You might call one of these churches and ask to have a talk with the minister/pastor. Get spiritual support from someone who knows what she/he is talking about. Don’t listen to ignorant religious extremists as you explore how to be a joyfully gay child of God. Go to people who have scholarly knowledge (of the Bible, Koran, etc.) and learn from them. In addition to churches themselves, there are LGBT groups like Dignity for gay Catholics. For more resources, look in the Gay & Lesbian Times, call The Center and use the Internet.

How do you keep your faith and drop the guilt? I strongly recommend the book Coming Out Spiritually by the brilliant Christian de la Huerta, who is the founder of Q-Spirit (www.qspirit.org), an international network of LGBT people of spirituality. In his book, de la Huerta explores spiritual roles/archetypes that LGBT people have often assumed and continue to enact today, e.g., creator of beauty, consciousness scout, mediator, shaman and healer. The book may open your eyes to the many possibilities that we as LGBT people have for spiritual happiness.

Consider the Gay Men’s Coming Out Group at The Center. You’ll likely find that you are not the only newly out gay man to experience the guilt of a God who allegedly hates you now because you’re a happy, loving homosexual. You’ve had 30 years of anti-gay conditioning; it will probably take you a while to “de-program” yourself of your internalized homophobia.

While I am not an overtly religious person, I am a gay man whose connection with God is important to me. My own experience is that being gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual is a GIFT from God… a blessing, a privilege and an honor. I don’t think God gives these gifts out haphazardly. My experience is that She/He bestows these gifts on souls that are ready to take them on and use them in this lifetime. The awareness, intelligence, sensitivity and strength that are born of being gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual are not known by most heterosexual folk. To quote gay literary icon Paul Monette: “Gay and lesbian people who have fought through their self-hatred and their self-recriminations have a capacity for empathy that is glorious and a capacity to find laughter in things that is like praising God. There is a kind of flagrant joy about us that goes very deep and is not available to most people.”

You might consider brief psychotherapy to help you with the guilt you experience after orgasm. Cognitive therapy could be useful in replacing the guilt-based thoughts with neutral or supportive thoughts… the logic here being that guilt is an emotion caused by distorted thinking. If you can change the thoughts you’re having during sex to something like, “God loves me and I love my boyfriend” or, “Loving my man is an expression of God’s love for me,” your guilt during orgasm is likely to dissipate fairly quickly.

Integrating your happy new life as a gay man with your previous religious conditioning can be seen as a troubling burden or as an amazing adventure. Because there are so few guidelines for living our lives as queer children of God, we get to make it up as we go along. Churches and organizations can be helpful, but, ultimately, it’s an individual decision how you choose to live your life: spiritually, sexually, etc. The possibilities are infinite… may you enjoy the journey.