Growg movement of gay Christians choosg celibacy

Contents:

• THE MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEG OF CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS
• HOW CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS DEAL WH DIRE
• THE STRANGE NOTN OF “GAY CELIBACY”
• LONELS AND THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIAN
• WHY CHOOSE CELIBACY? A GAY CATHOLIC SPEAKS OUT
• GAY CELIBACY IS WEIRD, AND THAT’S A GOOD THG
• GAY, CHRISTIAN AND … CELIBATE: THE CHANGG FACE OF THE HOMOSEXUALY BATE
• CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS: SEXUAL INTY AND RELIG BELIEFS AND PRACTIC
• 'SO MANY OF THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS ARE CEL'
• GROWG MOVEMENT OF GAY CHRISTIANS CHOOSG CELIBACY

THE MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEG OF CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS

” The terms origated nservative Christian circl the late 1990s on a webse lled Bridg Across the Divi, a discsn fom created to brg together Christians who “disagree about moral issu surroundg homosexualy, bisexualy and genr variance.

Some church and Christian anizatns that once promoted nversn therapy (to “turn” people om gay to straight) have now shifted away om , cludg Exod Internatnal, an anizatn of “ex-gays” (Christians who claim to no longer be gay, lbian or bisexual) that disband 2013. Th still n’t expla exactly what ma her tst the church’s teachgs on homosexualy but thks the charist, the sacrament which the bread and we is transformed to the body and blood of Christ, had a lot to do wh . At age 19, he me out as gay while attendg Try Wtern Universy (TWU), a private Christian school Brish Columbia that, until recently, mandated s stunts sign a pledge to not have gay sex.

HOW CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS DEAL WH DIRE

“The nversatn had progrsed far enough [on mp] that no one thought that havg homosexual sir or havg the sire to physilly alter your genr inty was sful, but actg on that sire was, ” he says.

“So I knew celibate gay Christians who were given rol as rince advisers, stunt learship rol, whereas male stunts who had boyiends were explicly told that they wouldn’t be given those posns. “There really is mory strs beg gay, pecially when you’re a nservative church, nstantly worryg about how you’re beg perceived, how you’re gog to f to suatns, if you’re safe or not.

THE STRANGE NOTN OF “GAY CELIBACY”

As time has passed, we have wnsed what might be thought of as a dimished ex-gay narrative and greater scty has been placed on those who attempt to rea om sexual behavur and live (not always perfectly) a life of celibacy.

LONELS AND THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIAN

While the shift foc om an ex-gay narrative to a life of celibacy may seem like a more ntemporary nversatn, is one that has some historil and broar ntemporary ntext, although most historil figur quoted wouldn’t have been thkg of the tegory of persons receivg scty today: celibate gay Christians. Another 66 participants were what we refer to as mixed-orientatn marriag or marriag between a person wh a homosexual or bisexual orientatn (gay or bi) and a heterosexual orientatn (straight).

They were what is sometim referred to as ‘Si B Gay Christians’ as they believed same-sex behavur is morally impermissible, ntrast to ‘Si A Gay Christians’ who believe that same-sex behavur may be morally permissible.

WHY CHOOSE CELIBACY? A GAY CATHOLIC SPEAKS OUT

5 Also, a separate study, we reported on the experienc of iends who functn as fay to celibate gay Christians and learned how important the daily rhythms of fay life are for celibate gay Christians, some of whom seek out upl or fai to be a more tentnal relatnship wh, eher livg close to or sometim livg together. When dawned on me a few years later that the very worst sults those boys would ll each other — gay, queer, fag — actually applied to me, I learned that even if there were words for how I felt, they were better left unspoken. I tried wrg, but when I took a posn cricizg the way many Catholics were treatg gay people on social media and person durg the firtorm surroundg the Supreme Court arguments on LGBT rights, the reactn my hometown was quick and strong.

But once I had gotten a cent grip on the language and found a kd of balance amidst the new muny where all my fellow volunteers knew I was gay and the kids had at least started to tst me, I got to work.

I thk there is a way forward for the Catholic Church as an stutn which may not volve overnight change, but do learn to listen to those of that have taken s prcriptns about our homosexualy serly. But bee they see actg on their orientatn as ungodly, they m to a life of, for the first time, a soclogist has taken an -pth look at what mak Si Bs tick, particularly how they navigate their same-sex sir and their awkward posn as stuck the middle of ex-gay groups and ntent gay Christians. (The origs of the "Si B" term are foggy, but the termology seems to e om the anizatn the Gay Christian Network, which labels gay Christians who do not see their sexualy as sful as "Si A" and those who do as "Si B.

GAY CELIBACY IS WEIRD, AND THAT’S A GOOD THG

" Numbers on ex-gay dividuals are hard to e by, but Exod Internatnal claims 3, 000 people worldwi attend one of s mistry events each terviewg people who had sought help om ex-gay groups and then left, Creek found two distct groups: Si As, who renciled their sexualy wh their relign and believe beg gay and Christian is not ntradictory; and Si Bs, who accept their orientatn but m to celibacy orr to rema le wh anti-homosexualy tes. "I tend to tegorize myself as a gay, celibate Christian, but I am very hant g that [scriptn] bee secular society, the word 'gay' means attracted to men, and Evangelil Christian subculture, means ‘sleeps wh everybody five days a week, ’" said one terviewee, lled "Jam" the report. Dealg wh the nnotatns of the term was often too much of a headache, Jam said, so he equently kept the rmatn to other tim, claimg a gay inty was a way to nnect wh other Christians, both gay and straight.

It is for this reason that I am grateful for the wise words wrten by then Cardal Ratzger 1986, when he said that “today, the Church provis a badly need ntext for the re of the human person when she ref to nsir the person as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual’ and sists that every person has a fundamental Inty: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life. As the 1986 Letter On The Pastoral Care of the Homosexual Person wisely tells me, “every one livg on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulti, but challeng to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well.

By llg myself gay, I reject my te sexual inty, and the sort of emotnal, physil and psychologil creature God ma me; To ll myself “celibate” when I haven’t taken vows of celibacy seems a willful rejectn of the potential will of God my life that he may sire to brg to me a woman wh whom I might realize my sexual plementary.

GAY, CHRISTIAN AND … CELIBATE: THE CHANGG FACE OF THE HOMOSEXUALY BATE

It would be hubris to close the door to the possibily that God is llg me to marriage, bee of choosg to intify as “a gay man, ” which therefore requir me to live a life of celibacy. My dissertatn, “Lonels and the Celibate, Gay Christian, ” lved to the liv of dividuals navigatg the tersectn of fah and same-sex sexualy, orr to unrstand their experience of celibacy, lonels, and pg. Some dividuals privately labeled themselv as “gay” to scribe their endurg same-sex attractns, but publicly intified as same-sex attracted or allowed others to assume heterosexualy.

Social impacts clud isolatn om others, dissatisfactn wh iendships or muny they do have, a perceived lack of belongg (“…I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere… I wasn’t straight, I wasn’t gay, I wasn’t married, I wasn’t…wasn’t…wasn’t”) and, nversely, perceived closens wh others, the event that lonels drove them to reach out for support. When me to helpful pg skills, there were general pg strategi (engagg enjoyable activi, readg, occupatn, volunteerg/service, physil activy/exercise, projects/chor, travel, Netflix, and creative exprsn through art, journalg, and poetry readg), gnive pg strategi (reamg circumstanc, g gratu to ll to md what they appreciate about life, focg on the prent moment, focg on the needs of those around them and servg others, and gag sight to triggers of lonels), social pg strategi (vtg iendships or pursug new iendships, group volvement through mistry groups or, as one person put , “…fd(g) your people…I teract wh people who are also gay/lbian/transgenr/nonbary and share their stggl…I try to make multiple muni, different thgs that I intify myself wh. Rourc were srce for a man stgglg wh homosexualy and tryg to rema fahful to the Church’s the terveng years, Catholics experiencg same-sex attractn have bee a more vol prence the the words “gay Catholic” and one of the top s to appear will be Gershom’s own blog, a blog wh the tagle: “Catholic, Gay, and Feelg Fe.

” There, the 30-somethg wrer nsirs his own experienc as a man stgglg wh same-sex attractn and tryg to live out the virtue of follows is an eded versn of a nversatn about everythg om homosexualy and Batman to poetry and football. I thk ’s immoral, for one reason, bee is trsilly closed to life and thereby distorts what the sexual act is meant to gets tricky is where we talk about the emotnal realy of homosexualy, bee some people ask me, ‘well, that’s fe if you thk that gay sex is wrong, but what about gay romance?

CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS: SEXUAL INTY AND RELIG BELIEFS AND PRACTIC

And the specific problem of silence is that if you grow up Catholic and gay, or at least if you did a few years ago when I was growg up, or before that, then the overwhelmg imprsn you get is not so much that you’re bad or evil, but ’s that you’re absolutely not allowed to talk about this.

Now the qutn is where that imprsn om and what n be done to rrect difficulty is: how n we overe and rrect that, whout, at the same time, givg ground on the moraly of homosexual actns? They should start by tellg somebody about , preferably a prit who is willg to talk wh them and help you thk pastors and others should do a better job of beg aware of what people are gog through regards to homosexualy? Like the Catechism says, the number of people wh ep-seated homosexual tennci is not negligible: this is a large segment of the populatn we’re talkg about, and ’s not a matter of a few ‘edge’ s.

'SO MANY OF THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS ARE CEL'

And that is exactly the sort of suatn I alt wh growg up, which is where was sort of standard to make jok, ‘ha ha, gay people’ bee nobody we know is gay – and of urse if you hear that sort of thg all the time, you beg to thk of yourself as outsi of the realm of normal human that how you felt growg up?

I only say that bee I’m thkg of a particular Evangelil iend of me who nstantly has to al wh – he’s gay, but believ basilly what the Catholic Church teach about homosexualy – he has to al nstantly wh people tellg him that for him to ll himself gay is for him to be embracg a s. The are people who say, ‘well, I might go around experiencg temptatns to adultery, but I don’t go around intifyg myself as an “adultero Christian, ” so why are you gog around intifyg yourself as a “gay Christian?

GROWG MOVEMENT OF GAY CHRISTIANS CHOOSG CELIBACY

Sce sexualy self is so eply tied to so many aspects of our personaly, and our experience as human begs, then homosexualy has very wi-reachg effects to almost every aspect of our liv, or at least as many aspects of our liv as sexualy Ameri, stereotyp on many levels associate gay men wh beg effemate. It's also te that eher many or most, or possibly all of gay men I've ever known have experienced some difficulty ftg wh other men, and very many of them have experienced what they feel is a lack of masculy themselv.

I thk the reason people are so terted homosexualy at all is bee people are profoundly terted how human begs relate to one another, and what sex has to do wh any of that – and nobody is really clear about any of those thgs right now. But sudnly, the qutn of homosexualy requir to thk clearly about those thgs, and a lot of are fdg out that we have no, everythg is nnsg to this one, huge weather system – I don't even know what's gog to happen. They are poems that exprs the ‘masculy’ of God and the ‘femy’ of God and we have to take them serly, which don't mean we n p down (exactly) what the poems are you thk a lot of the cultural nversatn gog on is not precisely about homosexualy, but about humany?

The reason I'm glad that everyone is talkg about homosexualy is that we are beg forced to nont all of the qutns, which we've need to do for a very long of me had imaged that after I me out, then there would be lots of people lg up to talk about my gayns, and that we would be talkg about all the time, and that everyone would talk about . I hate that kids who grow up gay and Christian are so often told they mt choose between lovg J and “beg gay, ” as if their mere sexual orientatn were enough to send God nng the oppose directn. But as groups like Exod have bee creasgly unpopular, Rodgers is among those who embrace a different mol: celibate gay Christians, who seek to be te to both their sexualy and their fah.