The Church Door Closed in My Face

 

Winter 1985

So much of my life, until then, had revolved around Evangelical Christianity and suddenly it was all gone, leaving an empty void of time and friendships. All of my social life had gone, over ninety percent of the people who called me friend had disowned me, I was on my own and I was nineteen years old. What was I to do?

I wasn’t thrown out of that church’s congregation, no one spoke the words and told me to leave, but they expressly made it clear I wasn’t welcome because I was homosexual. I had been outed to the church’s youth fellowship. They reacted by first trying to cast daemons out of me, one Sunday night, before disowning me. Suddenly, all the people who had called me their friend, turned their backs on me and would have nothing to do with me. It was terrifying. Being subjected to an exorcism, just because I was gay, by people who had said they cared about me, left me feeling confused and betrayed. I had turned to these people for help, I was so confused and afraid of my sexuality, and they had reacted as if I was possessed by the Devil himself. The disowning by the majority of my friends hurt the most. They rejected me solely because I’m gay.

I was hit over the head by their message, I wasn’t welcome in that church anymore. Reluctantly I left. Reluctantly because I had believed that being a member of that church was the right thing for me, where God wanted me to be, and leaving that church meant I had got that all wrong. But for my own health and sanity, I had to leave.

The people of that church had told me that Evangelical Christians, like them, were the only people who would care for me and accept me. Non-Christians, they said, would just use me and then cast me aside. I believed them because I had thought they were my friends and that they cared for me. I was wrong.

To my surprise, and then relief, I found people who weren’t Evangelical Christians not only welcomed me but also accepted me. Though it took so much strength to push myself forward to find a new life. Having all of my old life taken away from me was so hard and very isolating. Suddenly my whole social life and most of my circle of friends were gone, I had to start to rebuild all that and all over again. I was also so depressed by what had happened to me, had it all been my fault, why had I been so harshly rejected? I was beginning to accept my sexuality, finally admitting I couldn’t force it away, and then I was severely rejected for doing so. That took so much out of me.

But I didn’t know how to rebuild my life again. I was only nineteen and no one gave me a guide book how to do so, there was no internet then. I found my first entry into a new life in a newsagent, near to Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. On the top shelf, above the rows of magazines and newspapers, were the usual collection of porn magazines, and at the end of them were two gay lifestyle magazines, Gay Times and Gay Life. It was the 1980s and any gay lifestyle magazines were considered “adult reading”. Nervously I bought both those magazines, as I paid for them, the man behind the counter told me that Gay Life was a good read. He was right.

Gay Life was a Manchester based magazine but it also contained listings and details of Liverpool’s small gay scene, where I lived. In its Community Listings section there was a listing for the LGCM (Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement) Liverpool group. Nervously I contacted its convenor, Billy, and started to attend their meetings. I was still a Christian and this seemed the logical place to finally start coming out. I had tried the Evangelical Christian approach, the ex-gay gospel and to deny a large part of who I was, and that had failed completely. Maybe it was time to try and accept my sexuality? Did I have any other alternative?

The guys at the LGCM group were warm and welcoming, not a single “predatory homosexual”, as per the Evangelical Christian stereotype I had been previously been repeatedly told. These were men who befriended me, without trying to force their opinions and beliefs onto me. There was no condition to their friendship. It was a wonderful breath of fresh air.

I also started to attend a writers’ workshop in Liverpool, The Old Swan Writers. I wanted to be a writer, therefore I needed to get serious about being one, but I knew so little about it. The other writers there taught me so much, showed me were my writing worked and were it didn’t. It was through them that I learnt how and where to submit my writing, and I had my first pieces of writing published while I was a member there. I was also the youngest member by a long stretch. The other were middle-aged or older, but none of them seemed to have any problems with me or my writing, which was beginning to explore gay themes.

Next I started to attend Liverpool’s gay youth group, on the recommendation of one of the members of the LGCM group. At this group I met Tommy & Ashley, a pair of bright and lively friends, who quickly took me under their wing. They took me out clubbing in the few gay clubs there were in Liverpool. They introduced me to gay club life, taking away the mystery and apprehension too. And they were friends so there was no pressure, and that was what I needed then. The chance, every week or so, to dance and enjoy myself without any pressure.

Lastly, I joined Merseyside AIDS Support Group (MASG). This was 1985/86 and the AIDS panic was running high. Daily I saw the prejudice, ignorance and sheer homophobia around AIDS and it sickened me. This was my way of trying to fight that, so I joined MASG’s training course for their helpline. That training taught me so much, not just about HIV and AIDS, but it helped me look at myself. I also met some amazing people through it. Two nurses, a teacher, a HIV worker, gay men and women, a bisexual man, and straights. Different people but for all of them, being gay wasn’t a problem. I also met a man who I quietly looked up to, John Sam Jones. He’d been an Anglican minister, lived and worked in San Francisco, and was now back in Liverpool, working in HIV prevention. All through this he’d remained a Christian, and that was something I was trying to do but finding it such an uphill struggle.

I make this narrative sound so easy, I took step one, which led to step two and then steps three and four. But it wasn’t that easy. I was silently carrying the baggage from the True Freedom Trust (TFT)  and that Evangelical church. Most of the LGBT people I met in Liverpool, especially those I met through the LGCM group, knew of TFT and despised them. Rightly, they saw TFT as a dangerous and deeply homophobic organisation that only harmed LGBT people. Wrongly, I thought they would be angry at me too, for being involved with them. So I kept silent about that part of my past. I wish I hadn’t because I now know those people won’t have rejected me, they would have supported me. But the experience of being rejected by that Evangelical church was still sharp in my memory and I didn’t want to risk it happening again.

I also found making friends difficult and scary. The people at that Evangelical church had told me that they were my friends, better friends than any non-Christians would be, and yet they so quickly withdrew their friendship when they found out I was gay. Would that happen again? Again and again I met people, after leaving that church, who openly accepted me, but that fear wouldn’t go away. It nagged away at the back of my mind. During this time in Liverpool, I never had a boyfriend, I never even tried to find one, I stayed single and celibate. This wasn’t out of any religious belief but it was out of fear. Fear that I couldn’t get close to anyone, fear that my parents would find out I’m gay, I was living with them at the time and I didn’t know if I could hide a relationship from them, and resting at the back of my mind, was the fear that those Evangelical Christians were right and I would go to hell for being gay. It was completely irrational but I couldn’t shake it.

I had the realisation, slow at first but soon gathering speed, that the people at that Evangelical church had been lying to me. At first I noticed small lies but as time passed, I noticed bigger and nastier lies. The people at that Evangelical church told me I would never find “truer” friends than them, but those people rapidly withdrew their friendships when they found out I was gay. Their friendships were ultimately so shallow. Outside of that church, I found real friendships, people who didn’t reject me just because of my sexuality.

Being a member of MASG, I learnt so much that also opened my eyes. AIDS wasn’t the “judgement of God”, as I’d been repeatedly told at that Evangelical church. The evidence didn’t support all the homophobic lies I’d been told about it. It wasn’t caught via casual physical contact, though people at that Evangelical church had behaved as if it was, even though no one with AIDS had dared to cross its doorstep.

Then I met Nicholas & Robin, again. Nicholas had been the organist at that Evangelical church, until it was discovered Robin was his partner. Nicholas & Robin were rapidly and coldly thrown out of the church. I’d watched what had happened silently from the side-lines, terrified that that would be my fate. I was told Nicholas was not a Christian, he was only a member of the church for its social life, so it was right to throw him out of there, for being gay, because he wasn’t really a Christian. Then I met Nicholas & Robin, again. They were both Christians and very involved with a different church. I had been lied to, and to justify a very homophobic act. It left a very sour taste in my mouth.

That Evangelical church had told me that the “homosexual lifestyle” was a lonely, cold and sterile life, and I’d only find true friendships and happiness as an Evangelical Christian. But as one, my life was cold, empty and lonely. I was so unhappy, having to hide my sexuality and struggle silently trying to accept it. Only leaving that Evangelical church, saw me start to turn my life around, trying to turn away from a cold and empty existence.

My story doesn’t have a Hollywood ending, I didn’t walk away from that Evangelical church and straight into a much better life. It was a struggle and hard work to rebuild my life, especially as I was still haunted by what that Evangelical church said and did to me, causing me to be far from open with other people. I also had to come to terms with all the lies that that church told me, and how I foolishly believed them. It was a hard struggle, finding a new and honest life outside that church, but I am so glad I did. The alternative would have been unliveable.

Drew

 

Postscript: I have used the names these groups used back then in 1985/6. Groups called themselves “gay”, rather than Lesbian & Gay or LGBTQ+.

In 1995, Merseyside AIDS Support Group (MASG) and Mersey Body Positive (MBP) merged to form Sahir House

In 2017, LGCM changed its name to One Body One Faith, with a change in its focus.

When Denial Was My Only Option

 

(This is part of a continuing series about how I tried to come out as gay in an Evangelical Christian environment. If you haven’t read my other essays in this series, please find them here, they will put this essay into context)

Spring 1985

“I don’t believe you’re homosexual,” he said. “I believe you’re bisexual, mostly heterosexual, and this is a phase you are going through.”

I just nodded my agreement, what else could I do?

We were sat together in the tiny study of his house. He was the curate of the church I attended, in suburban Liverpool. It was an extremely Evangelical church, everything was right or wrong, no grey areas, from a very simplistic reading of the bible, but it was also the place I was desperately trying to belong to. I wanted to be accepted by this congregation, these people, because I believed they were my only chance at finding friendship. But there was a secret stain on my soul, I am gay, and back then Evangelical Christians saw it as a sin so bad it was only punishable by hell (I know many still believe that).

I was eighteen then and so deeply closeted. I had locked that closet door and wasn’t letting in a spark of light. No one could know I was gay, if they did I could risk losing all of my friends, and I was lonely enough. The thought of being friendless was terrifying. But my secret was eating away inside of me. There was the fear of being found out but there was also the isolation. There was no one I could talk to and be my real self with, I had to constantly monitor what I said, again and again I had to pretend to be straight, again and again I had to hide so much of myself.

I longed to be open with someone about my sexuality. (Deep down I longed for a boyfriend but that was too much to express. But I still believed that if I had gay sex, it would be a sin that would condemn me to hell forever). I was so deeply depressed, but back then I didn’t even recognise that, I found it was just my normal, melancholic personality.

Several months before that day I hit a watershed moment. I saw an advert for an organisation called the True Freedom Trust (TFT), in the back of my Christian youth magazine, they claimed to have an alternative to the “homosexual lifestyle” through Christianity. I had been seeing its founder, HM, since then for counselling. He said his belief was just being gay wasn’t a sin but any kind of gay sex was, the only “acceptable” lifestyle was that of celibacy. I jumped at that, when I first heard it, it was my fire escape from hell (Though as time passed, it proved nothing of the sort).

HM said that I needed to confide in someone, at my church, about my sexuality. He suggested my church’s curate. I was unsure but was convinced by HM. HM said he had met the curate and he was the right man to support me. I wasn’t sure but HM said this was the right thing to do.

The curate was a middle-aged man who had trained for the Anglican ministry after a life of low paid jobs and then a long time in adult education. He had deeply Evangelical beliefs, which he would talk about at any opportunity, especially his views on sex, which were just as Evangelical. He talked about masculine Christianity and for Christian leaders to be strong and real men.

I screwed up what little courage I had, this would only be the second person I told about my sexuality, and asked the curate if I could see him. There was something I needed to talk to him about.

On a weekday afternoon, I visited him, at his home, sat in his tiny study with him, and I told him I thought I was gay. I actually said I thought I was homosexual and that I’d been having homosexual feelings. That was when he told me he believed I wasn’t, that I was just a confused heterosexual.

I was stunned, this wasn’t the reaction I had been expecting, or even fearing, and I had no answer for him but to agree with him. How could I have argued? What could I have said? I didn’t have the strength, back then, to tell him that I don’t have a heterosexual bone in my body, which is what I would do now. I just agreed with him, because that was what I was sure he wanted me to say, and in that I wasn’t wrong.

Then he told me he’d had of vision of me, a vision given to him by God. He saw me dressed in a suit and tie, not wearing my glasses, with my hair short, neat and tidy, taking a girl out on a date to the cinema. If I followed this vision then I would truly find happiness and be the man God wanted me to be, he said.

I felt a terrible kick of fear. How could this be a vision from God, it was so wrong. Without my glasses I am very short-sighted, which makes most activities difficult, at best. My hair is thick and curly and in any style that is short, it rebels against it, sticking out at odd angles, it is never neat when short. I hate wearing a suit and tie, even then I did. Suit jackets show off my round shoulders, I’m never comfortable with a tie pushed up to my neck, and shirts never stay tucked into my trousers. My mother always complained about how badly suits hung off me, but I am just genetically unsuited to them. But taking a girl on a date, that was the most confusing part of his vision. Was he telling me to stay and follow the TFT’s ex-gay counselling? I was begging God, each night, to turn me straight, but that prayer went unanswered, every time. Did the curate’s vision mean I was failing? His words felt like a command, telling me the way I should be living, but a goal I was falling so far short of.

I didn’t argue with the curate, I didn’t tell him what he said was certainly a lie, when he called me heterosexual, but I couldn’t. I had such a negative view of myself, I hated so much of myself, that denying myself and agreeing with him was all I could think of to do.

As I left his study, and his home, I again agreed with him, he said I wasn’t gay, only a confused heterosexual. He was so wrong.

I felt so betrayed, after seeing him. I had gone to him for help and support but he’d denied me that by denying what I said to him. How could he have turned it into such a lie, something that was so untrue? (Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I realise that man was deeply homophobic. It was his homophobia that drove him to deny my sexuality and to come up with that ridiculous vision of me. But I didn’t know that, back then)

After that afternoon, the curate behaved as if I had never told him I was gay, he just ignored it as if I had never said a word to him. He carried on talking to me about me finding a girlfriend and his preaching, at church, got increasingly homophobic. I got the message though, he didn’t want to hear any more about me being gay.

The impression was made, did anyone at church want to know I’m gay? No they didn’t. I had to stay firmly closeted because being gay was something to be ashamed of. Not what I needed to hear at that moment.

 

Drew 

 

Find the next story in this series here