So June was Pride month and it was the most colorful, exciting, fun time of the year.
Pride month is all about individuality and self-love, but we often forget about the people
that don’t have an easy time coming out.
So I couldn’t help but wonder, what is it like being within a certain faith group and
also within the LGBTQ community.
First I wanted to talk to my friend Elisa about her experience.
She identifies as a lesbian and grew up in the Catholic church.
So talk to me a little bit about your spiritual or religious upbringing.
I was involved in the church from age about 5 to 17.
I kind of loved going to church.
I went Saturday nights because I was a cantor; I went Sunday mornings because I was in the
choir.
I just loved the music and the harmonies and I love madrigals and yeah I was there for
the singing and the performance.
Not so much the religion.
But I definitely think it seeped into my identity.
Ultimately, I left because it felt disingenuous to my identity as a critical-thinking
feminist and queer woman.
How about the greater religious community?
How did they react to you being gay?
So yeah, I never really “came out” in the church, but through the power of Facebook
and Instagram people knew my identity and I think that they were accepting and welcoming.
I never received any hatred or anything.
But I also never went back to that community to look for their support or guidance.
I never looked to them to be included.
I never made an announcement that I was having sex with men,
so why would I make an announcement to this community that I was having sex with women?
What is your advice to someone who’s struggling with coming to terms with being in a religious
community and identifying in a certain way?
I think religions, all throughout history — you’ve gotta take from it what you can
get and what’s helpful for you and leave the rest at the door.
Having a faith and being a feminist, having a faith and being queer is a hard thing to
reconcile and to reckon with, so it makes sense that that is difficult.
I just think it’s super important for people to take what works
for them and leave the rest.
Although Elisa seemed really confident about her decision to leave the church, I knew it
wasn’t as easy for everyone to just disown a part of their identity and leave a place
that they grew up in.
I wanted to talk to my friend Josh who was raised in a Christian household, which really
shaped his sense of self.
So tell me about your religious upbringing.
I basically grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian upbringing in suburbs of Phoenix,
Arizona.
And I was at school every single day of the week and then I had
to go to church maybe two to three times.
You know, Wednesday nights, Sunday nights, Sunday mornings.
So it was just full immersion.
Things were really strict, things were really sheltered.
Everyone loved me because I was this perfect Christian.
So a lot of it was me trying so hard to be, this perfect Christian in other people’s
eyes.
What was the view about homosexuaity growing up?
There wasn’t really any talk about it.
I do remember one time when I was five, asking my dad if men could marry men, and if women
could marry women.
And he said “No, that’s disgusting.
Those people are worse than pigs.”
My summer going into sophomore year of high school when I just felt this really huge need
weighing down on me to tell anyone, you know, because I was just so afraid of going to hell,
of not being able to change this because I always felt like it was something that I could
change on my own.
My dad was like, you know, he handled it in a very “dad” way, you know, freaking out,
kinda just being like “What?
Why would you like that?”
It was kind of a three way decision that we would all, that I would go to conversion therapy.
So for those that don’t know, what does conversion therapy mean?
Yeah so conversion therapy is any means, method to try and make someone who is queer, not
queer.
It can range from, you know, talk therapy, or to the most extremes where they use electro
convulsion and stuff like that.
I went for about two years, like once a week.
Mine was, thank god, on the lighter side, it was mostly talk therapy.
The main thing was that they thought that they could change that and that wasn’t the
truth.
How did the treatment of your parents change when they found out that you were gay, and
then what happened?
So they took away computer, they took away my phone.
I couldn’t hang out with friends, especially my male friends at the time.
So it was just really hard; it was a lot of isolation.
How did this experience impact your faith?
When you’re in such a good, loving Christian environment you feel so warm and connected.
And so, not being able to have that kind of communion with other people, it can be so
challenging because you just feel really, cut off from everything.
What advice would you have for someone who was maybe was raised
in your community that wants to come out and — or any gay people in general?
I would tell them not to give up on a faith system, or any type of spirituality.
High school is not that long.
You can get out and you can start living your own life, and it’s only just a matter of
time so just don’t give up, and don’t give up on the people that are around you,
because they’re really going to be the ones who are your life support.
Similarly to Josh, my friend Auden also faced judgement for being gay within his
religious community.
I’m from a wee little town outside of Dubai named Al Ain.
It’s a hyper conservative version of Dubai, I would say.
I was raised conservative Muslim, kind of Orthodox style.
Having to pray 5 times a day, do all the five pillars of Islam.
I would always kind of distance myself from it, and I was always very scared of it.
For a while I was just like “Oh my god, god’s gonna send an angel and it’s gonna
topple a mountain over me.”
Did that scare you?
Engaging in homosexual acts shakes the throne of God, which is like, to a child, I mean
I remember the first time I heard that was when I was twelve, so I remember just being
like “Oh my god, god himself?
His throne is shaking just because two people of the same gender are engaging in acts of
love?”
How were you wrestling with that?
How did you, how do you come out?
My first realization of my gay identity or my sexual identity
really came about when I started doing theatre.
I, when I went to college I was like, “You know what?
I’m—
Done.
“I’m done.
I can’t do this anymore.”
And it was because I didn’t really feel like what I was doing was in par with how
I viewed my religion or at least how I wanted to view my religion.
You know?
Now do you attend a mosque or did you leave the community you’re a part of?
I can’t, and I refuse actually, to detach from my religion or my, that identity or whatever.
People back home are not being provided and I,
It’s my responsibility to at least try.
You know?
Auden continues to face criticism for practicing his faith as a gay man, but I know that there’s
places where acceptance does exist.
That’s why I wanted to talk to my friend Gabriel who’s a part of the Jewish community
and who had a more positive experience coming out.
Tell me about your spiritual background, how you were raised.
I was raised Jewish.
It’s been a really strong cultural identity for me.
My mother is actually a rabbi and was a professional Jew leading up to that, so I received a
fairly comprehensive Jewish education and it was always ingrained in me as a large part
of my identity.
How did that relate to your sexual preference and identity?
Everyone knew I was gay, including my family, and everyone was spending time pushing me
in that direction because everyone was very eager for me to come out, so I actually gave
my D'var Torah, which is basically an analysis that you do of the Torah portion of that week
that for your bar mitzvah — it was the story of Jonathan and David which is widely considered
to be a story of two gay lovers.
I remember the minute that I said the word “homosexuality” I watched
a thousand people just lift their heads up simultaneously and then they listened to the
rest of it.
So for the most part you feel like you were accepted within your community?
I think that my experience is probably more common than not, but there is obviously
a diversity of the experiences.
If I grew up in a more traditional Orthodox Jewish family I don’t think that it would
have been the exact same story for me.
Jews do not have the same intense sodomy, “Adam and
Eve not Adam and Steve” thing that I think is more of a predominant rhetoric in Christianity
than in Judaism.
What can religions do to make people feel more comfortable about coming out?
I think a lot of homophobia comes from lack of exposure.
And I think that once you actually meet and interact with people who are, you know, being
themselves openly, I think it’s a lot easier to have these, you know, various identities
exist alongside each other.
And in order to you know stay relevant and continue, you know, giving positive benefits
to people in their lives, I think religion needs to evolve.
After hearing from Gabe, Elisa, Auden, and Josh, it became clear to me that being a part
of the LGBT community and within a place of worship is complicated.
Reform Jews are openly accepting gay couples and transgender men and women are being recognized
by Islamic cultures all around the world.
We still have a long way to go but if we continue to live with the intention of loving our neighbors
then faith will become more accessible to us all.