“No Easy Victory” by Anonymous, Christianity Today, March 11, 2002.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
Here, for the first time ever, the major magazine of American evangelicalism is running the testimony of an anonymous Christian homosexual who acknowledges “the fact that I’m still homosexual.” He’s “tried to change, tried to become heterosexual, tried just about everything to do so! Counseling, therapy, prayer, healing – you name it. But for all my trying, all I’ve managed to do is control the behavioral manifestations of my sexual orientation.”
How, one might ask, does this long-overdue honesty get into print in homophobic Evangelicaland? Undoubtedly because its twist is still a spin. In the very first sentence, he calls himself a “happily married man for more than 25 years, and proud father of a couple of teenagers.” This will do it nicely.
But his is, as he admits, “no easy victory.” In fact, given what he says about his “daily battle,” the word “victory” is pathetic. He concludes by “claim[ing] victory nonetheless.”
And what does his being “happily married” feel like? “There are times when maintaining this dichotomous life is nearly overwhelming. Over the years I’ve continued to struggle with emotional attractions and attachments to other men that have torn away at my insides and eroded my confidence in myself and in God. I continue to struggle from time to time with thoughts that my wife and sons would be better off if they didn’t have to deal with such a moody husband and father – especially his recurring bouts of almost suicidal depression.” He grants that his “victory [is] one that comes at considerable psychological cost to me and to my family” – an understatement. He’s “sometimes angry about the effort required, and I am frequently angry that I have had to do this on my own, without the support of friends or of a caring Christian community” (he’s his congregation’s president and youth-group leader – closeted, of course). He’s angry that fellow Christians so easily wink at heterosexual missteps (“hormones, you know”) while calling his “abomination.” He’s angry that heterosexual Christians either push an ineffectual “fix” or urge that he “accept and live out” his homosexual orientation. He sees that he and many others “who actually are homosexual” are left out, “misunderstood, marginalized, and ignored.” This hard and lonely life, he says, is the “reality shared by many more than just me, but disclosed by few.”
With all his acknowledged and understandable anger and frustration, why does he put up with a marriage mismatched by something so basic to marriage as sexual orientation? Because it is his “fervent belief that God intends us to live in heterosexual and monogamous fidelity.” But is his marriage heterosexual in any sense other than anatomical? Real marriage is far more intimate than anatomical correctness. And what is the “testimony” of the wife and sons, living with such a constantly frustrated, tempted, angry, moody, depressed and isolated husband and father? How can any honest CT reader actually believe he’s a “happily married” man or that this is a “happy” family? And how can Golden Rule readers in marriages that fit in terms of sexual orientation, not sense complicity in this poor family’s predicament? Would a heterosexual be “happy” in a “marriage” with a person of the same gender? Would heterosexual readers wish such a mismatch for their children? If they can grasp even a hint of the injustice of this situation, how can they read of it – even if they bother to do so – and then go on about their business as though this man and his family are not having to continue to contend with all the daily consequences of an ill-conceived coupling in the name of Christian virtue? Yet just such a counter-productive arrangement is one of the “expanded alternatives” proposed for gay Christians by heterosexual Christian counselors who must admit that sexual orientation doesn’t really change.
Of course, an unhappy life is not an unknown calling for a people who worship the Christ of the cross. But sexual hardship itself is hardly the calling – especially when forced on others by those who won’t bear it themselves. Some of his unhappiness may stem from overrating what he thinks he’s missing. But being in a mismatched marriage is a hardship for all involved. Divorce – evidently a recurring thought – is also a hardship. And unless he’d change his “fervent belief” about homosexuality, he’d still be miserable. But Christians have changed their minds about sexuality for centuries. The earliest Christians championed marital mutuality over against a cultural misogyny. In the Middle Ages, Christians led the way against arranged marriages and promoted romantic choice – and ran afoul of parents and state. After the Reformation, Christians renounced the second-class status of marriage vis a vis celibacy. Later Christians recognized the injustice of laws against interracial marriage. Christians today have more realistic views on birth control. We’ve taken a more pastoral approach to masturbation and even divorce. Meanwhile, people who never asked for their homosexual orientation and cannot change it are still forced to live a lie. Why? For the sake of “what the Bible says” according to a self-serving heterosexual establishment.