Facing the Music (26 page)

Julie's act touched on the one secret that I still carried in my heart. In public, I could still claim to be a person of faith, because it was true. I was. Yet I still feared that Julie was right in that I no longer had the right to describe my spiritual experience as Christian.

Like so many other Christians of my time, I couldn't see how to describe my faith as
Christian
without attaching so many of the beliefs that were demanded by the church and my peers in Evangelical culture. A Christian had always been described to me as a person of belief, and that the measure of one's faith was evidenced by the ability to believe in the unbelievable.

For every fact I failed to swallow whole, for every doubt and question I had about the story and theologies that had been handed down to me, I could not, for the life of me, go without exploring for myself. I
followed
because, at times, my struggle was with unbelief.

I don't know that
what
I believed about Jesus had actually changed as much as my willingness to confess that I had no idea
how
to believe any more. I could no longer tick the box that said
Christian
without feeling as though I had failed the test of my religious experience. I wasn't willing to relinquish my spiritual experience with Christ. My life had been transformed by faith, and Christianity was my native tongue. The Julies could try, but there was no sending it back or erasing it, even if I found myself in a new struggle of explaining my experience to others in a way that they might understand.

INSIDE OF TEN
days of my national coming out, a very public, fever-pitch debate about the legitimacy of gay Christians had brewed into a big enough storm that CNN's
Larry King Live
decided to use my life as the lightning rod.

When I agreed to the taping, I did so naively thinking that I was simply to be extending the narrative of my own journey. I anticipated that my faith would be a portion of the conversation, but hardly the headline. I was still underestimating how offensive homosexuality can be to the core beliefs held by many conservative Christians.

As counterpoint to my story, CNN invited a Southern Californian Evangelical pastor, Bob Botsford, to represent the conservative Christian voice. Pastor Bob held the predictable line that deemed homosexuality a poor “lifestyle choice.” He cited scripture after scripture as evidence, finite and complete for his side of the argument, but I had nothing more than my own lived experience. I had no smart retort or Biblical reference to justify my being gay; I just was. When called to answer Pastor Bob's assertion that I couldn't be gay and Christian, all I had to offer was the simple request to be respected as a human being.

“I am comfortable with the parts of me that you don't understand,” was all I could manage. The simplicity of it seemed too mundane to be sufficient a defense against Pastor Bob's arguments to the Godly order of things. What more could I do but ask to be acknowledged for being present and accepted for who I was and not judged to be less than a credible human being, regardless of my sexual preference?

The question of so-called homosexual choice made its expected appearance, and I found myself floundering to answer the age-old quandary. I'm attracted to a woman—what else is there to say? I just
knew
I was gay.

Pastor Bob insisted that being gay was a choice, but Larry posed the obvious question I had never thought to ask.

“How did you know you liked women?” Larry asked, catching him off guard. “How did you know you didn't like boys . . .
romantically
?” Of course the query was meant to unsettle him but, at the same time, Pastor Bob might have done well to understand this was just the same kind of implied insult that I and gay people everywhere experience almost daily.

Bob stammered and fidgeted, unable to find the words that helped him describe his own sexual awareness without a Biblical quote, the same as I had. It's not easy, but sometimes the answer is as simple as considering your own experience.

The conversation deteriorated for Bob from there. All he could say was that was the way God made everyone and then he said it . . . the worst and most tired cliché of them all: “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” His hands started to shake and his face went pale. He had been rigid and proud before, but now he seemed to have lost his zeal.

It wasn't surprising that Bob couldn't describe his assurance of his sexual orientation. He'd never truly been asked to explain his attractions before that moment. One could argue that he was safe, because he never had to defend his straight sexual orientation to a greater majority.

Under the hot lights and on national television was hardly the place to expect him to reach any epiphany. I had had seven years to formulate my own convincing defense of sexual orienta
tion, and still needed Ted Haggard and Larry King to come rescue me.

We ended in an impasse, as these so-called public debates often do. Pastor Bob had done little more than make it clear that his church was for straight people, and that I was only welcome if I repented. Behind the scenes, Bob kept insisting that he and the two beefy strong men he brought with him were only there because they loved me. He let me know that he was praying for my life to have peace.

To my surprise, I was finding that I was actually feeling more peaceful, but probably not in the way that he had imagined. I ­actually found that the anger I had toward his theology was easing and, instead, was just feeling sorry for him. He really was a nice guy and I truly think he meant well, but his choice to be ­religious had usurped his heart. It was like he'd never actually met a gay person who wasn't broken to pieces by being gay. It didn't make sense in his world because all he had ever experienced were gay people who disappeared from his church. After what I had seen, it was no surprise that he had probably never seen any come back. I was the same—unable to walk back into his world because I wasn't able to be who he wanted me to be. Yet, here I was, somewhere out in the margins, still holding on.

“Bob, I didn't lose my faith when I realized I was gay, but it took a lot of faith to tell the truth. All I ask is that you be the kind of guy who gives me the space to sort it all out safely,” I said. Maybe no one had ever asked him that before, to step back and agree to disagree. Maybe he'd never been in a place in which he was outnumbered and left feeling alienated.

Only he has the right to tell his story, as I have the right to tell mine. Who knows what his takeaway was, but mine was one
of feeling uninvited to his party. I didn't want him to feel the same. I invited him to come to my show later that night. I told him I would put him on the guest list so that he could come see and hear for himself the kids who were showing up at my concerts battered by the so-called love he was offering.

“Please know that you are welcome to come. Stand beside me and listen. There are a lot of gay people who still share the same faith that you have. Maybe you would like to meet and hear from some of them?”

He never came.

twenty-four

I
t was disappointing that Pastor Bob couldn't show his intended love for me in a way that would have really made a personal impact. He could have met me in a place where I lived and prospered. He could have listened and opened himself up to an invitation to see the world where music was cultivating hope in my life and in the lives of others. I could have talked until I was blue in the face about how I was the same person as I ever was, even though he now knew I was gay, but nothing replaces showing up and seeing for oneself what is actually happening. Instead, we parted ways, and haven't spoken since.

I can't sit here and judge only him, though. I had been just as complicit in the segregation between my old life and the new. Despite the fact that there were many churches asking me to play, I couldn't see a way to feel safe there anymore. Christian fundamentalism had left me so fragile and defensive that the last place I wanted to be was in a position to have to explain, justify, or exonerate my faith to a crowd of witnesses.

I couldn't play every Christian song I had ever written, but I had reclaimed a few. If people wanted to hear them, I insisted, it would have to be in bars, theaters, and coffeehouses, but there was no way I could walk into a church. It didn't matter that there were many faith communities that called me, wanting to show
their support by gladly offering me a place to play. I continued to deny their invitations, embarrassed that I couldn't share my faith the way I once had.

I answered every Christian's request for a concert with as gracious and honest a reply as I had: “I'm sorry, but I'm not playing churches anymore.” I needed a break from the public pressure to explain my faith and orientation. Really, I just wanted to focus on my music career. “Thank you for the appreciation and support. Truly. I hope you'll come out and join me on the road!”

The thing that I didn't yet comprehend was the fact that there were some churches that simply wanted to be a part of helping me get back on my feet. They were aware of how hard it was for an LGBT person to come out in this world, never mind the devastating experience that so many have had when religion was in play.

Despite many requests from faith communities that hoped for a full evolution of my return, I continued to resist. Beyond the solidarity of coming out, I felt I had nothing left to offer the church.

It was easy to take part in the kinds of conversations that I had at my shows outside the church walls. Outside the earshot of those who saw fit to correct every misstep and doubt, I found many people who were just as bewildered, yet eager, to process their own spiritual journeys. So, why was I so adamant that it wasn't possible for me to do the same in churches that were inviting me to bring that conversation to their neighborhoods? I began to wonder if I was rejecting genuine gifts of hospitality when churches asked me to come and play. Perhaps I was limiting the potential of LGBT faith by failing to offer some portion of my own experience to those who asked me to share it?

Part of what changed my willingness to engage was an encounter I had with Pastor Mark Tidd of Highlands Church in Denver.

Highlands was preparing to host a small local conference bluntly called “The Church and Homosexuality,” and they were calling in speakers capable of adding to the conversation. Initially, I turned up my nose at the idea that I had anything to contribute. I was well on my way to severing what few remaining ties I had with organized religion, and was looking forward to the peace and quiet of less religious rhetoric in my life.

As, usual, I fobbed off their requests on my management team, reiterating my lack of interest in playing any music inside the church. The last thing I wanted to be was the subject of another unresolvable public debate over Scripture, outdated church traditions, and theology. Enough eloquent, biblically examined cases have been made by scholars and clergy alike that suggest homosexuality is neither sickness nor sin. I'd read so many books on both sides of the aisle only to be left feeling as though my lesbian arms had spread between the two and my life was being used as a tug-of-war rope.

I couldn't see how yet another debate was going to break the impasse enough to heal the wounds that I or any of my LGBT friends carried. The assumption that Tidd and his church wanted to wade through the quagmire was less than appealing.

Pastor Tidd was insistent though, and kept calling. After several emails and phone calls to my camp, it was clear that Highlands wasn't going to go away. I decided to speak with Mark directly, hoping to appeal to his pastoral side. Perhaps after a personal conversation, he could hear my voice and understand I wasn't the person that he was looking for any more than he or his church was what I was interested in.

We ended up chatting for over an hour. I listened as Mark shared with me the background of how Highlands came to be. How along the way he had personally experienced revocation of his ordination by openly supporting his LGBT members. How he and his church were rebuilding after they theologically came out, having lost the support of their parent denomination and funding. He spoke of how his own journey and the lives of the people in his community had been hurt through adverse judgments and theologies that sought to separate LGBT people and their allies from spiritual community. It wasn't that Highlands was a gay church, though there are many members who happen to be.

“These guys are serious about their faith,” Mark explained. “We just want to be a place where everyone knows they are welcome to be who they are.” The fact that sexual orientation was a recurring theme among the damaged Christians walking into Highlands encouraged Mark to want to listen more and speak less.

Pastor Tidd seemed to express a desire to be a part of a community that helped people discover the joys of a spiritual life and all that comes with it, rather than be the enforcer of by-the-Book Christianity, if there is such a thing.

Mark asked me if I was willing to share a picture of the journey I had experienced in my life. He released me from any obligation to have a neat and tidy explanation of where I stood. He didn't ask me to define my faith, instead he asked me to tell the real story of the adventure. In fact, what he hoped I would be brave enough to share was the doubt and the insecurities—the unpolished truth of my Christian experience.

“What has that been like for you? Tell me in your words. If
you come, I'll take responsibility for making a safe place for you to tell it. You don't have to be a Christian if you're not there anymore. You can be angry, cuss, cry—it doesn't matter. Just tell it like it is,” Mark offered, “I hope it can be a gift for you to share what you've been through.” He hoped that maybe, in doing so, we'd all find the ways in which we relate and could share our faith rather than argue about how we are different or who was right.

Mark's invitation finally sunk in. He wasn't asking me to do a gig or incite a particular school of thought; he and Highlands were simply interested in hearing my story. They were offering hospitality, not debate.

“I do hope you will come. We would love to be a friend,” Mark humbly appealed.

Truth was, I hadn't been to a church in years and was intimidated by the thought of standing in a sanctuary. All the communal praise and worship music, Jesus talk, and prayer, was a welcome distant memory. For years, I'd adopted the “where two or more are gathered” idea of church, where a strong beer and long buzzy night of hashing out my faith experience with friends in a bar was much more rewarding than feeling like a Sunday morning disappointment. I imagined myself to have moved beyond such trivial expressions of spirituality and traditional practices, but I was also curious. I wondered if it was still possible for a church to be a community that served its people's spiritual needs before serving denominational politics. Mark said he thought that might actually be happening in Denver, but I'd have to come for a visit to find out.

And so, I went.

Most conferences of this sort have a habit of only inviting well-practiced and skilled speakers who are there to help solidify
some sort of finite conclusion or ideal for the cause. This is especially true when it comes to Christian meetings, where there is typically a great deal of effort in securing the talents of those who uphold a particular religious teaching and who also have the charisma to inspire those listening to walk out clutching certainty rather than doubt. Highlands took a different approach.

Instead of building a curriculum that prescribed what all who attended
should
believe after the event, it was presented more as an opportunity for everyone involved to contemplate and consider how the ramifications of our beliefs, traditions, and theologies actually played out in the world around us. The topic this weekend happened to be centered around the church and homosexuality. Rather than defining what the outcome should be, they wanted to compile the realities—the lived stories—of those who had been experiencing this complicated dynamic. Rather than a school of instruction, the symposium was more like a story-­telling convention where those who shared did so by telling the story of their personal journey through the maze. The rules were relatively simple and elegant. Speak to share, not to preach. Listen to hear and not to judge.

Though I arrived ready to participate and prepared to be a focal point, I soon found myself in need of listening far more than speaking. I listened as one woman told the story of how her religion-inspired rejection of her lesbian daughter ended in the tragedy of suicide. An African-American pastor spoke of how his coming out shaped not only others' perceptions of his faith and cultural identity, but how that experience affected how he saw his own life. There was a passionate lesbian, who was finishing divinity school, and wondered aloud where her passion for serving God and the church would lead when her truth was fully re
vealed. Rounding them out was an ex-gay reparative therapy survivor and one former Christian music rock star . . . all of us with tales of paradoxical joy and suffering at having found ourselves to be people of faith in an environment that had worked hard to silence the telling.

I listened to others tell of their experiences, and I was struck by one statement that would resonate with me for months and years to come. It came from the gay pastor's coming-out story of how he was confronted by one of his church board members. Upon his revelation, the board had convened and reached the conclusion that a gay pastor was no kind of pastor for their church, and he was asked to resign. All involved began to mourn the supposed fall of their beloved leader. After the decision had been reached and each went their own way, a man approached the now-discarded pastor and said, “Pastor, we all knew that you were gay, but why did you have to come out?”

I teared up when I heard those words. I recognized them from the many angry letters, returned CDs and, uncomfortably public blogs aimed in my direction. So many words of admonishment, disappointment, and disgust, but I had never heard it put so plainly to the point. In essence, we can only accept gifts from people who are straight or have yet to declare.

Yes, it's incredibly sad that a gay man lost his job and his spiritual community. Tragic, even. But what stands out to me is not the argument as to whether it is religiously acceptable to be gay, but rather that when the time came for a community to share in the journey of one of its members, the answer was, “No. We would prefer your silence rather than consider how we can rise to the challenge of loving you as you are.”

So much of the story of LGBT people living in the shadows
of religious bias is that the story has been so one-sided. The religious conservatives have had plenty of face time to describe their views. We've heard so much rhetoric as to the Biblical grounds that justify marginalizing nonheterosexual people, but we've heard so little about the deeply spiritual, soul-searching experience of those who have been victimized because of it. As a gay person, I've experienced others' attempts to pressure, shame, and preach me into silence. The end result was that, in my absence, I let others tell my story for me. That story was that gay people lose their faith and disappear in the shadows.

I had spent enough years in silence to come to a place where I could no longer ignore the voice inside me that longed to be heard. I had tried to convince myself of what others had alluded to, that it would be better for me to be quiet and fade into obscurity than to rock the boat. Yet, in doing so, I had only stifled my own passions. I lost sight of what I was made to do, what I longed to do, in singing, writing, and sharing my experience with others. I lost community. I lost connection. The gifts that I had to offer others lay rotting on the ground, unwanted and wasted. I had wasted enough. I was ready to live and tell the tales of my adventures.

What earthly good was my life if I was not out, living in the world, connecting, and sharing my story with others? By hiding any portion of my experience, I was sacrificing the opportunity to connect joyfully with others. When I finally opened the door, got dressed, and walked out, I may have found difficulty, but I also found support, love, and connection. When I dared to share a little of my journey with others, the story grew. I began to realize that my story didn't happen in a vacuum. It was alive and growing. That when I shared it, others joined in by sharing their own
experiences. By hiding my story away, I was not only shortchanging my own experience, but I was also keeping others from finding a place out of their own silence.

We each long for some kind of community. We long for connection. For though we each have our own individual lives and experiences, it is not until we share those experiences with others that we begin to develop the wholeness of our story. We need witness and friendship to our being. To lock a portion of ourselves away, to cut ourselves off from spiritual contemplation, or to be ostracized and rejected is truly the most violent act against another human being that we can think of. It is why the idea of solitary confinement is so utterly devastating. To be shut into a black box, silenced and forgotten, is to be rendered into nothingness. To set the story free, to be heard, and allow it to be retold is the essence of our humanity—to know and be known.