This column represents the thoughts and opinions of Patrick Taylor. This is NOT the opinion of the Taylor Press.
“I think it may be the case that God calls some people to unbelief in order that faith can take new forms.”
— Christian Wiman on OnBeing
At a very early age, I knew that something was wrong. Something about how I expressed myself wasn’t like other boys my age. Little things that most adults didn’t even notice, but my peers certainly did. It was my first day in 6th grade, a group of boys came up to me and commented that I was still holding my books like a girl. Those boys soon put a name to my behavior, calling me ‘gay’ and ‘homo’.
I had never met a gay person. I’d never even seen one on TV. All I knew about homosexuals was that God hated them, and my church hated them. I immediately changed from being a child of God to being a child of questions: Why did God make me gay? What did I do to deserve this punishment? What can I do to prevent this? I certainly didn’t want to be gay.
I spent the rest of my childhood and early adult life trying to be what was considered “normal”. Convinced if I prayed hard enough, God would fix this mistake. I joined bible studies and church youth groups. I thought, maybe if I just tried harder to act like the other guys, I would eventually become like the other guys. My desperation led me to down any path that might make me straight, and not condemn me to hell. Yet, no amount of denying these feelings or behaviors made them go away, and each time those feelings persisted, I hated myself a little more.
The belief that God would create a gay child, like myself, only to be condemned was terribly destructive to my mental health and to my soul. The loneliness and misery of living in a world that didn’t want me was unbearable. My spirituality dropped from Christian to agnostic to atheist to anti-Christian, until the more Christians told me that God hated me, the more I hated God. When I finally
When I finally met another gay person, I was 24 years old. We shared our stories of surviving against judgement, bullying, and hatred. Eventually, as a community, we began fighting back. Slowly, the layers of my self-loathing and self-hate began to peel away. No longer was I unworthy; no longer was I unloved. I finally felt “normal” and free to just be me.
There were many marches and protests before there was ever a Pride, but that first Pride celebration was life changing. The Pride I felt for my friends and my community made me feel whole. Their Pride in me was filled with acceptance and love. We weren’t there to boast about our own self-importance. We were there to show support and love for one another. That is what Pride is about, loving one another.
Without judgement, without malice, without deceit, opening one’s heart to love another person was the true meaning of God’s Love. If this was God’s Love, then I could love God.
