I had many good friends growing up, both in New Zealand and in Australia. Some in the church, and some outside the church. One such friend, we would spend time mucking around on games, making movies, and hanging out at church.
As the years went on, we lost touch, reconnected, lost touch again and reconnected again. It was a friendship I enjoyed but sensed might have been changing. The last contact I had with him however left me with some unsure feelings. I remember we talked about his trip, and I noticed he had fresh tattoos. Now, in the church, the leaders made it clear that getting a tattoo was not encouraged and that our body should not be “defaced.” This was the strong language used during my upbringing; that the body was a temple, and would you graffiti the temple walls? It was brought to my attention that I was looking but not looking at his tattoos and I felt bad.
Years and years later, I lost contact with him and felt guilty that that was our last contact. I then saw him surface on social media through a birthday post. He was pictured with another guy, and the way the photos was taken and the post written suggested they were a couple. I ask my other friend and she said, “Yeah, he’s been out for several years.”
I was lost for words. I then raced right back to the last contact we had and felt a great and heavy sense of guilt. I immediately was lost in the thought of how I could’ve treated him better. I thought, “So, he has been living with this and our last contact was that I was judging him for his tattoos.”
Several months later, I told my mum about this experience, and she quickly sent me a video of David Archuletta talking to the camera about his experiences when he came out. This was the moment I began to allow the thought to enter my mind…
What if the church isn’t true?
David talked about the culture of the church, informed by doctrine that was so damaging that he felt like an outcast. A copy of the video can be found here. One of the most prominent things I learned was that David just wanted an emotional relationship with someone, and it felt unnatural to do that with a woman. It wasn’t out of lust or just to have sex. It was to connect on a deep and emotional level, and I understood then that he is just like me. I want to have a continued emotional connection with my wife. Why can’t he have that?
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the dates have become a blur despite my efforts to record as accurately as I can (and I say this because the video came out in January of 2022). But I definitely remember connecting these two events together. I felt like I have more fully understood the struggle that David went through, and then thought of my dear friend and how it must’ve felt for him. I try not to speak on behalf of a community I do not belong to, and so I won’t. All I will say is that they have an ally in me. I believe the church cannot fully embrace the gay community because of its own doctrine. They will always rank below heterosexuals in their progress and their status because of the church’s own doctrine.
I believe that everyone should be allowed to express their love in the most natural way for them. Who are we, who and I to get in the way of that? If roles were reversed, I would not want to have my personal freedom to choose whom I love dictated to me.
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