I receive a lot of questions about getting out of the gay lifestyle; well, it’s easy to get into, but very difficult to get out. For, over the years, I never knew one person, heavily into the scene, who suddenly had an epiphany, or an intellectual awakening, or a gradual realization that something was morally wrong. Like Saul, you tend to trudge along – oblivious to everything and everyone around you until that fateful day when you literally get knocked onto your arse. With gay men: this usually occurs when someone dies, you get a disease (typically an STD), or you mentally can’t stand the break-neck pace of none-stop homosexual hook-ups. Then, you collapse; like me, at that point, few know what to do next. In my era, most of my friends who came to this dark place – gave up: they kept banging until AIDS finally took them, they put a needle in their arm, or they simply surrendered that last little speck of themselves. A few saw something walking towards them, steadily and purposefully through the hopelessness. We crawled towards it – only moving a few inches. Then, we got scooped up, and were never seen in those miserable places again.
“The Lord wishes to cleanse you from the trouble of your sickness and to show you light after darkness. The good Shepherd, Who left them that had not wandered away, is seeking after you. If you give yourself to Him He will not hold back. He, in His love, will not disdain even to carry you on His own shoulders, rejoicing that He has found His sheep which was lost. The Father stands and awaits your return from your wandering. Only come back, and while you are yet afar off, He will run and fall upon your neck, and, now that you are cleansed by repentance, will enwrap you in embraces of love. He will clothe with the chief robe the soul that has put off the old man with all his works; He will put a ring on hands that have washed off the blood of death, and will put shoes on feet that have turned from the evil way to the path of the Gospel of peace. He will announce the day of joy and gladness to them that are His own, both angels and men, and will celebrate your salvation far and wide.” ~ St. Basil of Caesarea
Joseph, I sure do wish there was a book compiled of just all your blogs — put in a book form! Oh I would sure buy copies. I fear a day when a website like yours is forcibly removed. Your blogs are so important to me and bless me so very much!!
+1 to what is stated above – you really need to plan ahead – your website can quite possibly be shut down someday and it would be good to have a “back-up” of all your posts online somewhere and also in print form!
Joe… Ditto the two previous posts. I would be willing to “crowd fund” you and an editor for a year to help you put your blog writings into a second book. You inspire us all and do much to shed light on an otherwise dimly lit path. PaX.
Joe, may God bless you as you continue life's journey and work to do His will. While I don't share all your views, many of mine coincide with what you have described. The gay subculture is ruinous to say the least.
The conversion experience you describe is quite powerful. However, when I read your blog, there's a tendency to identify homosexual nature and behaviors as a simplistic malady of psychological gender development, neurosis, or sexual abuse. Do those cases exist, yes, though the Tomeo study cited has flaws and it would be interesting if a better control methods were utilized to see the repeated test. There's a lot of dirty laundry and you highlight many themes that are cold hard truths, but the characterizations presented here crowd out many folks who had normal psychological formation, are healthy, rational adults with strong family/business/community relationships who have SSA through no outside environmental impact beyond the womb.
Sexual intimacy outside of a marriage bond between a man and woman is not what the Lord had in mind (Mat 19:6). And they are called to fidelity. All of us not in that state still will continue to have some degree of heterosexual and/or homosexual feelings of emotional intimacy or physical attraction to our fellow persons. We are called to chastity and there is sadly zippo support for living chastely in our modern era and our clergy often turns a blind eye or tacitly supports it as to 'keep current'. The modern era which espouses self-reliance is a fallacy when we require God's grace to weather moral challenges and occasions to sin. I can understand your practical criticism of Ms. Tushett on 'spiritual friendships', especially when there is some undercurrent of attraction. It's like the age old question of 'can men and women be friends without it turning to intimacy/sex?'. Your experience with Courage is exactly why I didn't seek out that group!
I think Richard P. Fitzgibbons said it best in his Appendix for Fr. Harvey’s book “The Truth About Homosexuality:” “The Majority of males with distant fathers do not struggle with homosexuality because their masculine identity has been validated through acceptance by male peers and in athletic competition. However, some males will have strong homosexual attractions to men in an unconscious attempt to fill the emptiness created by an angry, absent or negative father.” Therefore, in some sensitive boys, I was one of them, you can have a perfect storm of sorts – where everything comes to gether to create a future gay man; as for those who claim to have had “normal” and “healthy” upbringings, I did not meet any; although I knew many who claimed that, but this was mainly due to a high level of denial; some of the most perverse and dysfunctional families presented the most convincing public persona of domestic bliss; under the surface, things were about as sick as they could get. I have always argued that the presence of a gay child in a family is a sure sign that things are not going well.