Children

During the spring and summer of 1983, my wife and I became heavily involved in children’s ministry within our denomination. I had perfected my puppetry skills and found out that my talents were much sought after.

Although “Lovey” was the actual credentialed minister, we tag-teamed. Sometimes I did puppetry, she sang, and spoke. Sometimes we both did puppetry, I sang and I spoke. We varied our routines to make them constantly fresh.

We found ourselves all over the area in churches within our denomination. Our faces graced the cover of some major church publications and I became a published author. Our reputation grew so that we got involved with other denominations as well. We also made television appearances.

Those were heady times for the gay married guy and his female minister wife!

Our time spent with so many kids started making a profound change within both of us. We found ourselves daydreaming about the day we would become parents.

So in late spring, and during the summer we worked to become pregnant.

Many gay friends of mine who have never been married don’t understand how I could get married and then actually have a relationship with a woman such that children could be conceived. I merely respond that several things were in my favor. First I was very young and healthy. Second of all, I had not had much gay experiences to fall back on. Third, I made myself perform. Remember, I was determined to cure myself.

So, in late September, “Lovey” purchased a home pregnancy kit. She had become suspicious of symptoms she was having. However, before she went to the doctor, she wanted to try the home test. By today’s standards the one we used was probably quite primitive. However, in the wee hours of that morning she screamed when she went into the bathroom and found out she was indeed “preggers.” We hugged in the bathroom and jumped up and down! (We had moved into an apartment by this time and were at another church.) We probably woke up the neighbors!

Her doctor later confirmed this finding. The date of delivery was going to be sometime in late May or mid-June.
On January 17, 1984, “Lovey” invited me to go with her to the doctor. She had been told that the daddy (that’s me) could come and see the sonogram image of our baby. We were so excited!

The doctor put us into a room. Lovey was put in a gown and told to lie down. A huge machine with a video monitor was wheeled close to her. They proceeded to apply the lubricant to her abdomen. The nurse turned out all the lights.

There in the glow of the monitor were fuzzy waves and images. The doctor finally got the sensor into the right position. He said,

“This little circle right here is your baby’s head. The little pulsing dot is its heart. These other things over here are arms and legs.”

“Is it a boy?” I asked eagerly.

“We can’t really tell at the moment because this little rascal is so active. If you come back with your wife to her next appointment, we might be able to tell you then.”

Both Lovey and I oohed and ahhed at our little one, who by this time was doing all sorts of uterine acrobatics.

The doctor then said, “It won’t be long before you have this little one with you, but now, we have to let you go. After all we have other patients.”

I thanked the doctor, as he was walking over to turn the machine off. He then tripped on the sensor's cable…. and paused and looked down at the screen.

“Wait a minute!” he said.

My heart jumped into my mouth!

“What’s wrong?” we both said in unison.

“What’s this, another head?” the doctor said.

My wife and I both traded concerned looks and said together, “a two headed baby?”

The doctor turned around and laughed.

“No,” he giggled. “Twins!

We giggled and laughed all the way to our car parked in the garage. Who cared what sex they were as long as they were healthy! We got into our car and "Lovey" wanted us to run by her parents' home to inform them of the news. They had already known we were expecting.

"Lovey" burst into her parents' home a breakneck pace with me at her heels.

"Mom! Dad! We've got something to tell you!"

We found them sitting at the kitchen table and "Lovey" said excitedly....."We're gonna have twins!"

Her mother and father were not happy. It sort of reminded me of the response of when we rushed to their house to tell them of our engagement.

"Im sorry," said Dad o'Lovey.

I couldn't believe my ears. "What did you say?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," Dad o'Lovey responded again.

"Well, I'm not." I retorted. "Lovey" seemed about to cry. Mom o'Lovey remained silent.

"You're just not thinking," Dad o'Lovey intoned.

I decided to let "Lovey" deal with her folks. After all, I needed to tell my parents. I telephoned them and they were simply excited beyond words!

The gay man, with the heterosexual female ministerial wife, was now the father of twins!

Probing Questions...

My spiritual life is very important to me. It defines a significant portion of who I am and how I live my life. Throughout my marriage and prior to that time, I’ve felt that God was with me and that He was my number one partner.

Many of you reading this are from many different religious backgrounds and faith traditions. In no way, is what I write here meant to denigrate or make light of your belief systems. I am only talking about MY experience.

As a married believer, who was betrothed to another spiritually minded believer, I was constantly troubled by the fact that at times, it seemed that I was in a contest – who could or who was the more spiritual partner. Frankly, I didn’t care because I was confident in what I believed and I was anchored in my relationship with God. To me, it was a personal relationship and one that I didn’t need to constantly beat my chest and tell the world about.

I believe that God can speak directly to a person. When He speaks, He tends to do so in a still, small voice and at those times, He tends to ask very pointed questions: questions that I could never dream up myself…questions that pierce the heart and drive directly into the bone…questions that at times are quite heavy and probing.

It took me many years to acknowledge the fact that I was gay. It took me many years more to arrive at the conclusion that God made me gay.

How do I know this you might ask?

Well, here are some of the things I concluded:

· There was no specific day where I was presented with a choice as to whether to proceed in life as straight…or to proceed in life as gay.

· If there was such a day, then why would I, want to make a choice to live a life that is fraught with danger. My goodness, I could die from AIDS, I could be bashed. I could be killed for goodness sakes.

· Why would I choose to go against the norm? Do I enjoy being made fun of? Do I enjoy being treated as second or in some instances third class?

I then thought, well if God created me gay, then why would he give me all these rules and reasons for not acting on it? Is he a sadist? Does He get His jollies from making individuals’ lives hell?

Nope, I answered myself. This is not the God that I know personally. He has loved me unconditionally for all these years. He has given me the attractions and the drives that I have as gifts. The homophobia and wrath come from people who don’t understand or who have issues that make them feel threatened when the topic shifts to homosexuality.

I felt a calm assurance that I was on the right path.

Then, God spoke.

“What if the way I have chosen for you is not the way you would choose for yourself?”

Then, silence.

As I continued to ponder that question, the familiar still, small voice said:

“What if the way I have chosen for you is not the way that others would choose for you?”

Like any other person, I wanted to know the answers to those questions and I wanted immediate clarification. They didn’t come then.

Here I am 11 years later. I am working to embrace my gayness. I am getting divorced. Things are slowly coming together for me in my life. And I remember those questions…those deep, probing questions.

Certainly, if I were mapping out my life I certainly would not have chosen this path. I dare say, that others who know me, had they had the opportunity would not have chosen this path for me either.

Yet, here I am on this journey. God is leading me and I feel my hand locked firmly in His.

Am I frightened by what the future may hold?

Yes.

But, in my mind, it doesn’t matter because I know the Being that holds the future.

Change?

Some of my gay friends ask me why I got married. I always respond that it was because I was trying desperately to change. I thought that it would fix me. I wanted to be straight…because this is what society and the church wanted.

On December 12, 1982 as we celebrated our first anniversary in the place we spent our honeymoon, I had a long conversation with “Lovey”.

“I think I’m gay,” I blurted out.

After a moment, “Lovey” said that as a team, we could fix this. We would pray. We would fast. We’d look into those ex-gay ministries.

So with renewed excitement we proceeded to enjoy our celebration of one year together.

Upon our return, I began the long and tortured process of trying to change. I soon found myself in the midst of an ex-gay ministry that practiced the 12 Steps of Homosexuals Anonymous.

Don’t laugh.

It is a real group. Now, over twenty something years later, the 12 steps have increased to 14

For years I carried the little card with me in my wallet and would recite the steps over and over again. It became my mantra.

Here they are…I’m reprinting all 14 steps from its current Web site:

· We admitted that we were powerless over our homosexuality and that our emotional lives were unmanageable.

· We came to believe the love of God, who forgave us and accepted us in spite of all that we are and have done.

· We learned to see purpose in our suffering, that our failed lives were under God's control, who is able to bring good out of trouble.

· We came to believe that God had already broken the power of homosexuality and that He could therefore restore our true personhood.

· We came to perceive that we had accepted a lie about ourselves, an illusion that had trapped us in a false identity.

· We learned to claim our true reality that as humankind, we are part of God's heterosexual creation and that God calls us to rediscover that identity in Him through Jesus Christ, as our faith perceives Him.

· We resolved to entrust our lives to our loving God and to live by faith, praising Him for our new unseen identity, confident that it would become visible to us in God's good time.

· As forgiven people free from condemnation, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, determined to root out fear, hidden hostility, and contempt for the world.

· We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs and humbly asked God to remove our defects of character.

· We willingly made direct amends wherever wise and possible to all people we had harmed.

· We determined to live no longer in fear of the world, believing that God's victorious control turns all that is against us into our favor, bringing advantage out of sorrow and order from disaster.

· We determined to mature in our relationships with men and women, learning the meaning of a partnership of equals, seeking neither dominance over people nor servile dependency on them.

· We sought thorough confident praying, and the wisdom of Scripture for an ongoing growth in our relationship with God and a humble acceptance of His guidance for our lives.

· Having had a spiritual awakening, we tried to carry this message to homosexual people with a love that demands nothing and to practice these steps in all our lives' activities, as far as lies within us. - copyright 2001 HA Fellowship

Although I did everything I could possibly do to “heal” myself from this “horrible” sin, I found that most of the meetings associated with this group I attended were more about how the folks “fell” during the previous time period and all the sexual encounters they had had that weren’t pleasing to God. So after a long while, it became apparent that these people weren’t really “changed”…they had merely learned to try to “repress” their feelings.

Please note, I'm only reporting from my own personal experience here and do not mean to portray this for every HA chapter.

After spending at least a year actively involved in this group, I began to slowly realize that I was as I was made: a normal, red-blooded gay American male.

It was time for me to leave this group.

A New Life Begins

Newly married life is exciting.

I remember during week #1 that I actually drove away from my office and left my carpooler stranded. She was a good sport…realizing that I was that newly married guy – the newly married gay guy!

Yes, in those early weeks, I worked through all of my fears. To myself I said, I can do this. My pastor even told me that as a man with gay inclinations, all I really had to do was to experience the love of a good woman.

“This experience will serve as a ‘reset button’ for your sexual development,” he said confidently. “You’ve just stalled out and need to be jump-started. You’ll see…you’ll be fine!”

He was much older than me. Gee, he has to know about these things. His gray hair told me that life had taught him much. On top of this, he was a minister!

He was wrong.

In our early days, “Lovey” was the church’s Day Care Director and its Minister of Christian Education. Our honeymoon lasted only two days. We were married on Saturday, and she had to be at work on Tuesday Morning….early!

We got home that Monday and went to her parents house to open wedding presents. It was like Christmas! Presents covered the piano and were neatly stacked all around it. It seemed to take hours to open everything. Then, we said our goodbyes and loaded everything into the old yellow corolla and headed back to our new house – the old church parsonage next door to the church. (The pastor lived across town in a much newer and more elegant parsonage.)

Our home was a house that when you looked at it from the street, it leaned. Really. When the cold winter winds blew, every curtain in the house moved.

Summer came and we went to the Caribbean. “Lovey” who was a credentialed minister, used this time to relax from her job, and to also preach at a host of meetings. One night she preached in a big revival tent, complete with tropical mosquitoes. If you’re old enough, picture Kathryn Kuhlman in a jungle.

Another day we preached at a house church and went home with the pastor for dinner. I saw a lake that looked nice to explore on the property. When I mentioned this to the pastor, he advised against going near it.

“Why?”, I inquired.

“Crocodiles,” was the answer.

On the way back to where we stayed that evening, we came upon some roadkill. A truck had killed a crocodile…and there it was….dead, beside the road.

I wasn’t used to any of this:

• married to a female minister;
• traveling to foreign lands;
• roadkill that happened to be reptillian; and,
• being a gay married man.

Yes, my life was going to be interesting.

What's It Like to be Gay?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be gay?

If you are gay you already know the answer to this question.

If you are from a fundamentalist religious background, (notice I say religious background. I purposely do not cite only one because they all appear to have rabidly anti-gay elements.) you would be demonized, bashed or probably killed if anyone were to find out depending on your culture!

My earliest recollections of feeling different go back to the age of 4. I remember vividly being transfixed by watching a man working in his cornfield from my bedroom window…for hours. He was a young man who would work bare-chested and in shorts. I always referred to him as “The Strong Man” because he had quite a physique and a hairy chest.

I suppose the main reason that I remember this is that as I would watch him, I would have an erection!

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson: if you are reading this, please explain how a four year-old, who doesn’t know why a penis gets erect in the first place, gets an erection at viewing a scantily clad male? When we went swimming at the municipal swimming pool, and I saw even more scantily clad females, why didn’t I have that same experience? It never happened!

As I reached my teens, I knew that other males lit up my switchboard. I didn’t know why or how. All I knew was it did!

The summer of 1970 was my summer from hell. You see, that was the time period that I graduated from the sixth grade and that fall I would begin junior high school. Everyone in sixth grade discussed their fears of going to a new school. Having only known elementary school and the thoughts of going to a strange new place concerned us all. However, one thing in particular caught my attention and caused me an insurmountable dread: group showers after physical education.

What would I do being surrounded by all that naked flesh?

How could I undress in front of my friends?

What happens if I get an erection in the locker room?

Will the coach be naked?

Will he see me naked?

What am I going to do?

I was determined to keep my secret. No matter what. My goal? I was going to condition myself to be dead from the waist down come September.

So, on the last day of sixth grade, the countdown to junior high began. Every day I would practice being naked. I would wander around my room or the house, if no one were around, practicing. I would practice walking around thinking about the weather…or vacation….or what I had for breakfast – anything to keep from growing a woody.

By September when my moment of truth came, I had conditioned myself. All my efforts paid off! In the showers, in the locker room, I was dead from the waist down!!

This was something that I consciously did every time I was naked among my peers, throughout the remaining years of junior high and my high school years.

What’s it like being gay?

Being gay teaches you to lie. It teaches you to become good at it. You learn to compartmentalize. You learn to not let your true nature show.

You learn to stay away from certain cliques like the jocks. You learn to stay away from the others that are made fun of. You learn to stay away from certain activities. You don’t go to the parties, the sock hops, and the dances or other socials. You learn to join in on all the stupid jokes. You join in on all the name calling of people who are perceived as "queer".

Most of all, you stay away from the opposite sex because you don’t have a clue as to how you're supposed to act.

You stay by yourself. You become a master architect: you build the highest and most inpenetrable walls. You become so isolated, people then think you are antisocial or god-forbid, strange. Your church tells you that you’re a sinner.

Your self-esteem crumbles. Although you make excellent grades and are labeled “the brain,” you feel like the ugly duckling -- an outcast. You're isolated. You're alone. The mind begins to make you feel like you're the only one like this.

Yes, when you’re a teen and your body is a boiling cauldron of hormonal urges, bodily changes, thoughts of things never comprehended previously; and lust....the hunger to connect with another person....the drive to experience passion.....affection; your heart races wildly at thoughts...at images....

Fear suddenly erupts into the mix. What if someone finds out you’re not like the other boys or begins to suspect your differences? What if your parents find out? What if you do something to slip up and the whole world knows? What if you are bashed? What if someone blackmails you?

You run to the safety and serenity of your closet. The deep, dark, silent closet. The closet that, over time, becomes stifling...the one that becomes scary.....the one that you lock yourself into, almost like a mausoleum. And, there you stay. You stay with your thoughts, you stay with your longings, you stay for years until you can’t handle it anymore...

The Big Day

December 12, 1981 dawned with a red sky on the horizon. The old saying “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” probably should have been heeded.

My parents stayed with me in my tiny one bedroom apartment. I slept on the couch.

I was frightened. A frightened gay male about to get married to a heterosexual woman, with her three very high-strung siblings, and her somewhat insecure father who was using this day to impress his friends.

My parents had spent the few days previously helping me to clean out the apartment and move my belongs to my new residence – the new residence with the new bride.

We spent that final day throwing stuff of my singleness away. The newspapers. The magazines. The old battered furniture that would do no one any good.

The Wedding was to begin at 2:00 p.m. in the church that I had been active in for over three years. My parents and I arrived at approximately 1:00 p.m. to get ready. My best man who had spent the previous night in the house next door, was already there dressed in his silver tuxedo. He handed me the white one. The one with the tails.

White. Pure. Virgin. Yes, from a straight perspective all those words described who I was.

I tried to hide the feelings I had. I was nearing the point of no return.

The rest of the preparations only remain in my mind as a blur. The final thing I remember of the ceremony is turning around during “Here Comes The Bride” and seeing “Lovey”, radiant and beautiful walking down the aisle on her father’s arm.

Yep, there she was, coming towards me. I was about to become her husband. Yeah, that gay guy - the frightened one in the white tuxedo with tails, standing there looking all heterosexual and proud.

About halfway down the aisle, I blanked out. My next memory is of us in the car headed toward the reception.

I assume we said our vows. I guess our musician did his part. I even suppose the minister did his thing. I do have a CD of the ceremony that I transferred from audio cassette. There we all are…reciting our vows. I heard us say that we would be together until death us do part.

Does this mean that now that we are separated that we’ve died? Sometimes it feels like something inside of me has died. I’ve certainly cried enough tears from pain. My friends say it is the grieving process.

Yes, most definitely something has died.

Affirmation

As I have slowly emerged from my closet and have begun to slowly take in the sights and sounds of my new gay life, it has occurred to me that living in the closet has been a very lonely and scary existence. It has also been stifling to any creativity that I had.

As a spiritual person, I find myself looking for affirmation in a host of ways. It may be that I am a rather insecure person, and still looking for those little pats on the head that say to me, "Atta boy Frank! You're gay and that's okay. You're on the right path!"

One of the first things that I learned as a gay man, is that appearance and attractiveness are VERY important. To be quite honest, I had a very awful self concept. Only now at 47 do I feel that perhaps I am somewhat attractive.

There are moments, however, that bring me back to earth and remind me that beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder.

As an example, at times in my journey I have explored the seamy underside of gay life: the sex clubs and the bathhouses. I found out quite early that I suffered the heartbreak of what I call the "roach effect."

What on earth is the "roach effect" you may wonder?

Let me explain it in another way. Have you ever lived in an apartment and gotten up in the middle of the night to get a glass of milk or something from the refrigerator? You trudge down the hallway and flip on the kitchen light and there before you is a literal army of roaches who...the minute the light comes on, scatter in 50 different directions.

Those experiences in the sex clubs or bathhouses have been much the same. I've wandered into the TV room and see all manner of guys sitting around and as soon as they look at me, I become the kitchen light and the area totally clears in a split second. I'm left...alone. Or at the proverbial bath house, I've walked up to one of those doors barely open, to see what was on the other side only to be dismissed with a wrinkled nose, and a hand waving me away.

I remember well the devestation of feeling rejected.

BUT, time and age have in a way helped me to realize that such rejection is not to be taken personally especially in those settings. A lot of guys, for whatever reason, have a porn star image of the type of guy they would most like to hook up with. God knows, I'm not porn star quality, but then, I don't attract flies either.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to dinner by two friends -- one was from out of town, and one lives here in the area... we went to a gay restaurant in the predominantly gay section of town. It was full of men...gay men....sitting and socializing. All ages, types....a virtual smorgasboard of testosterone laughing....talking...smoking and eating. The restaurant was comfortable....and safe.

We were shown to our table and we made ourselves cofortable. In the rush to get seated and to start looking at the menu, I didn't notice the waiter...the very young waiter, who began flirting wiith me...

I'm a bit slow..after all I am 47...but I caught on shortly thereafter.

This young, handsome and buff waiter was flirting with me.....the middle-aged 47-year-old! I couldn't believe it.

He told me his first name. He sat down next to me. He touched me. He caressed me. Finally I had to break the tension.

"You know, you sure are fun to look at!"

He smiled and blushed.

"No one has ever said that to me before!" he chuckled.

"Well," I continued. "Thank you for making this old guy's heart flutter."

He grinned and went back to work.

As my dinner mates and I continued with our conversation, the waiter would go by from time-to-time, and we'd lock eyes...and there was his smile. It lit up the room.

It was time to go. There he stood at the bar.

"Are you leaving me without a hug and kiss goodbye?"

I paused. Then I looked over at that killer smile and I melted. What the heck, I thought. So I timidly went in his direction. He grinned again, and came over to me and wrapped those buff arms around me and drew me to that muscular chest. Then, he looked into my eyes and pecked me sweetly on my left cheek.

Yes, affirmation comes in such sweet, silly ways!

Wedding Plans

My fate was sealed on September 27, 1981. That’s the day that I got up the nerve to propose marriage to this woman that I had come to love.

I had known “Lovey” since late summer 1979 to be exact. Puppetry had been my love and I spent a lot of my time doing this for the children’s ministry of my local church. She had seen some of my work and had come across a great puppet she believed would be a perfect addition to my collection. That summer evening, she introduced me to the new puppet over a glass of iced-tea on her parent’s porch.

As we sat there making small talk, her elderly grandmother – a bit stoop shouldered – came creeping onto the deck and joined us.

“Is this your new feller?” she asked with a wicked smile.

“No Grandma,” Lovey responded. “He’s just a church friend that I have given this puppet to.”

“Oh,” Grandma said sounding quite disappointed.

Time passed and in the early part of 1980, “Lovey” began attending my church regularly. We spent time together going out to dinner and doing things that friends normally do. By February 1981, it was apparent that things were becoming a bit more serious on her side of the relationship.

I was concerned because I didn’t feel sexually attracted to her or to any woman for that matter.

Even then I knew.

Being a part of a fundamentalist denomination, one doesn’t talk about being gay….or thinking you’re gay.

You try to repress.

You try to change.

You have people anoint you with oil, pray for you, but never tell them why.

You have demons cast out of you.

You bargain with God.

Then you cry – a lot.

But you never tell people why.

September 27, 1981 came and I knew I must marry this woman. It was the right thing to do. She would help me to become the man that God wanted me to be.

On the playground, next door to our church, in adjoining swings, I asked her to be my wife. She said yes!

It only took a few moments. Then it was finished.

Phone calls to siblings followed. Her baby sister had become engaged the very same day! We then paid a visit to her parents. They were underwhelmed. I guess they didn’t see me as the best “catch” for their eldest daughter.

The flurry began. Wedding dress purchased. Color schemes selected. Reception planned. Musicians hired. Tuxedos rented. Minister selected. Church reserved. Guests invited.

…and one petrified gay groom-to-be.

Beginnings . . .

I’ve always loved writing and marveled at how thoughts, ideas, and words move from one’s brain to the printed page. So often I have worked to journal, but not had the discipline to keep it up. However, as I have worked to handle the mish-mash of emotion that has welled up from me since my wife’s pronouncement of “Divorce!” I’ve found that writing has helped me to identify feelings and come to terms with a plethora of issues that seemed to have lurked just below the surface of my day-to-day existence.

I’m Frank. I’m 47 years old. I have been married for 24 years. I am the father of three children: twin daughters who will be 22 shortly and a son who just turned 20. I own a house…or should I say, I co-own my house with my bank. I currently own three vehicles and a dog.

I am also gay.

There…I’ve said it! I’ve committed it to paper. It’s on the same page as my name and where all my major worldly possessions are listed.

It wasn’t so long ago that I couldn’t say those four words. I AM ALSO GAY. As I reread those four words it’s curious how they appear on this page…. It sounds as if I have said it as an afterthought….or as if I almost forgot to tell you this important fact that “I am also gay.”
Those of you who may thump your Bibles periodically may think evil of me. You may think it evil that I chose to be gay or that I molest children or make small furry creatures do strange things to me…

I did not choose to be gay.

I do not molest children.

I do not make small furry creatures do strange things to me.

I am just a middle aged man who is desperately trying to sort out my life from the debris at hand….24 years of marital debris……47 years of personal debris….and nine months of pain…..nine months of heartbreak…..nine months of profound sadness…….nine months of resentment……nine months of adjusting…..

You see on June 9, 2005 at bedtime my wife announced that she was in pain -- not physical, but emotional pain.

“Raw,” she said. “I am raw inside. I am no longer happy. I no longer love you. I no longer want to be married to you. I want a divorce!”

It hurt me to hear those words….all 28 of them.

All I could do was to nod and say “Okay.”

After 24 years of marriage to “Lovey” and after 23 years of her knowing about my being gay and after my 47 years of being gay I knew about these words. They didn’t surprise me. But, when they are said through so much pain and after so much time the only energy left for me is to say, “Okay.”

Was it really December 12, 1981 that I married this woman? Oh the dreams we had! The excitement of building a new life together was so strong anyone who knew Lovey and I could piggyback onto it.