Coming Out Anniversary

Seventeen years ago this week my life changed forever.

While I had questioned my sexuality for years, my church taught me no one is born gay. We believed that, failing other options, Satan tempts some, like me, with gay thoughts into believing we are gay. We believed we must pray for strength to overcome his lies.

In years past I had discussed this with my pastor and my youth leader. My pastor assured me I would never actually act on any of it. So, for the longest time, I believed that; in my small and very conservative town it was unlikely—if not dangerous—anything was ever going to happen.

So, I created an elaborate scheme to convince myself I was straight that was agonizing to maintain. There was lots of this-doesn’t-mean-this-it-means-that. I constantly questioned my inner turmoil and bore the abuse of a faith tradition with its head in the sand.

Then, seventeen years ago this week I was on a Florida beach with my family on Spring Break. As they played and sunned I walked—fairly innocently—along the beach until I saw the hottest sight I had ever seen, a guy in a black thong. Always before it had been too dangerous even to betray that I was looking but this day I customarily sat down and watched. I knew I was obvious—though in a more tasteful manner than stalking—and, considering the little show he put on, he knew I was enchanted with him. Sitting there—savoring the sight—I knew I had crossed a line. Other than watching, nothing happened but I could no longer lie to myself that I wouldn’t go further… if my family hadn’t been just up the beach.

But I was not going to let my closet fall down around me in a moment of indiscretion as had happened with a Pentecostal leader I admired. I admitted to myself that I was indeed gay and I vowed I would deal with—and dismantle—my closet on my own terms.

It meant changes in my life. I wasn’t always prepared and I had to venture alone and scorned out of my Pentecostal world but I live a life of honesty, to myself and others. And somewhere on a Florida beach is a neatly placed stack of dismantled closet.