Closeted gay men

When I first typed that sentence, it felt good. The more I looked at it on my screen, the less good it felt. Who knows, I might be your pastor. Or by tears from a powerless mother who would have been ashamed and repulsed to know about me. Words hurt. So has the closet.

Reflections from a Closeted Gay Pastor

Living in the closet convinced me that God loves me differently than He loves other believers, if He loves me at all. My rational mind rejects that theology and knows all the verses to throw at it. But they tell the truth. I lie. Living in the closet filled me with shame. After I learned that God cared about what we do sexually, I soon learned that He hated what I wanted so badly to do closet other guys.

To an adolescent theologian, feeling then that He hated me was not a far jump. I made the transition from reading that I was drawn to abominable acts to feeling that I was an abomination to God. Living these five decades in the closet have left me convinced. Living in the closet left me unknown to the dearest in my life.

Sometimes I dream about standing in closet of a church and telling them the truth. It turns into men kicked out. Should we ask the boys if…? I treasure men few relationships not tied into knots by my lies and deception. Only two are with believers. The one publishing this blogpost and an Episcopal priest who defines sin way differently than I do.

The other people who really know me are my therapist — an atheist who saved my life -- friends in a local artistic community where I have found some solace in writing fiction, my doctor, and a gay man my age who got divorced from his wife of almost forty years. Living in the closet kept me from having true accountability partners.

Gay years ago, when pastors in my denomination first began to separate gay accountability groups, admitting to being gay — even if I had no sinful gay act to confess — would have ended my career and would not have remained secret. We publish details about kicking pastors out in a book and try to sell one to all of us.

Surely things have changed, some would say. But within the past several weeks, I started a conversation with the pastors I know the best, pastors from my own denomination.