Bay Windows - Local News, December 9, 1999
Scott A. Giordano, Bay Windows staff

Some have used their religions as a support system to deal with coming out, either through a personal connection with their beliefs or through a supportive religious leader or organization. Some have left the religions they practiced in childhood and have become members of pro-gay organizations like the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC).

Still many others tend to shun organized religion after being ostracized because of their sexual orientations within their religious faiths, and because the far Right often uses religious arguments against homosexuality to roll back gay and lesbian civil rights.

Like it or not, religion is a subject that both unites some while dividing others. Some say it has saved their lives, while others say it has destroyed them.

Opposing organized religion

Several people told Bay Windows they don't believe in organized religion and others stated they don't believe in religion at all, yet they did not feel comfortable speaking for publication. But a 53-year-old East Boston resident, who wished to be identified only by his first name, Dennis, shared his experiences that led him to his current opposition to organized religions, while maintaining his individual spirituality and belief in God.

Dennis was raised as a Roman Catholic, taught that all sex outside of a heterosexual marriage was sinful, prompting him to have extreme feelings of guilt and low self-esteem.

"What the church taught made me feel my sexuality was something I needed to hide, that it was something totally unacceptable, and that basically made me feel very badly about myself. ... It absolutely slowed down my coming-out process. I spent many years trying to deny my sexuality and to ignore it," he said.

Dennis first came out to himself when he was in his mid 20s in 1971, while he was on active army duty in Germany. Events there led him into a Catholic seminary.

"There weren't any gay social organizations or churches, only bars in Germany at this time. ... Because all I experienced in the gay scene was one-night stands and the typical bar scene, it turned me off. I decided that I would be willing to give up everything else in my life to live in a community of people who truly cared about each other," he said. "So after the military, I came back to the [U.S.] and entered a Catholic seminary. I was there for about six months when I decided to tell one of the priests, who was a spiritual guidance person I met one-on-one with once a week, that I thought I was gay."

That experience led to his first falling out with organized religion.

"I told him that I thought I was gay, thinking it really wouldn't matter since I would be taking a vow of celibacy anyway. He smiled and looked down and said, æYou better figure out what you want to do next because you can't stay here.' That was pretty much the end of it. I first left the seminary and I eventually left the religion because of the pretty strong feeling of rejection from that experience," said Dennis, who remained spiritual but stopped practicing organizing religion.

Later in life, Dennis decided to give organized religion a second chance and to enter an interdenominational seminary, where he met and fell in love with a woman. Brushing aside his gay feelings, the couple wed and remained married for 14 years until Dennis felt the need to explore his sexual orientation once more. "We struggled for the next year to find some way to remain married but allow us both to be who we really were. Eventually, we decided it would be best if we separated and went our separate ways," he said.

During the process of their trials and separation, the couple turned to a pastor for guidance. Again, Dennis found he was shunned because of his sexual orientation.

"We consulted the pastor of our church, who seemed to be at a loss to deal with the issue. The pastor tried his best to understand the issue, but it was really out of his depth of understanding. Eventually, he told me that if I became open about being gay within the church, only about 10 percent of the church's members would support me. ... So for the second time, I felt let down by religion and by a church."

This time, Dennis left the church and never returned. Yet he maintains his faith and belief in God, stressing the difference between his faith and membership of a religion.

"Churches are human institutions and share all the strengths and failings of their members. ... I believe that God views me as He views all people, with love and care, and that my sexual orientation is a major part of who I am and so it's a major part of whom God loves."

Grant Burdick, now a 25-year-old Boston resident, was born and raised in Miami in a Catholic and devoutly religious family. But after coming out to his family at age 19, Burdick lost contact with them for years because they could not accept his sexual orientation and constantly preached the Bible to him. It was just this year, while living in Boston, that Burdick re-established a relationship with his mother. But he remains skeptical of any organized religion.

"In terms of religion, I am very afraid of religion right now. That is the best way I can describe it, with respect to how I have been treated by my mother and my aunt," Burdick said. "My mother has made it very clear that God feels it is an abomination to be a homosexual and I have to repent. It's clear she loves me and accepts me as most as she can, but it's very clear how she feels about it. I feel as though she thinks she acts as a spokesperson for God and she tells me how God feels about my being gay like she had a conversation with him about it.

"Religion doesn't have a place in my life because, in the past, it hasn't been very positive to me. My aunt tried to get very close to me and then tried to reform me. She felt as though she had to save me," he said.

Staying in the closet

William Sawtell is an example of others who continue to practice organized religion, but remain closeted in order to do so.

A 65-year-old greater Boston resident, he has been a practicing Episcopalian his entire life. While he has remained closeted in his church because of its complete silence on the topic of homosexuality, Sawtell said religion continues to play an important role in his life.

"You knew you were somebody who wasn't considered the norm [within the church], that you were somebody that belonged to a different group. ... I had to decide. I had to either play the straight role or play the gay role. I kept everything in the closet and I did nothing about coming out, so to speak, until after my parents died. ... I didn't want to hurt my family. You are dealing with a person who is pre-World War II, and things were quite different then," he told Bay Windows.

The church's virtual silence on issues related to sexual orientation created many fears that made it more difficult for him to come out, Sawtell said. However, he came to the conclusion in his own head and heart that God created him as a gay person and accepts him as such.

"The idea was, in those days, you are going through a phase. But I knew there was something more to it than that. ... I go to church today. I maintained a relationship with the church, but I never came out. ... I think I was born the way I am, and I think that I try to be a good person, so I just kept everything very well in the closet. I just did not talk about [being gay]," he said. "Religion has opened my eyes to what I believe and what I think people want me to believe about myself. I do feel as though God accepts me as I am."

Today, the Rev. Joan Saniuk is an open lesbian minister for MCC/Boston, and an outspoken religious advocate on behalf of gay rights. But even she acknowledges her own coming-out experiences were postponed for about 25 years because of her Roman Catholic church's teaching on homosexuality.

"The teaching of sexual orientation was part of the teaching of sexuality in general: outside of a straight marriage, it's a sin -- a big enough one to send you to hell, if you die unrepentant," Saniuk recalls. "I'd say my religious beliefs stalled my coming-out process for about 25 years. I wanted to be ægood' and lesbians weren't ægood' in that belief system. ... Once I finally reached the conclusion that it wasn't a sin to be [a lesbian], I quit explaining away my feelings of attraction to the women in my life, and shortly thereafter, I let myself fall in love with one. We've been together for six years now."

Ironically, Saniuk left Catholicism for reasons not directly related to her sexual orientation: because she felt unwelcome as a woman and because the church would not welcome her friend who was HIV-positive. She then found the MCC, an interdenominational faith community, and has never returned to Catholicism.

"MCC was the first faith community I found that acknowledged AIDS. MCC gave me some tools for dealing with the realities of AIDS in the context of my faith life ... and once I found that MCC affirmed women who felt called to ministry, I really had no reason to turn my back to the Catholic church," she said.

Reconciling the differences

For those like Sawtell, people who choose to live closeted lives in their communities of faith, they must find ways to reconcile their individual opinions with that they are taught by their organized religions -- and often promoted by the religious Right.

"I think that we are God's creatures and I think there are a number of [gay people] out there, a lot of which who are not known and who are still closeted today. I think God loves us all. I think we all should be accepted as who we are," he said. "This is the first time I have said anything like this to anyone publicly, but I have nothing to hide. I have not been a bad person. In fact, I have tried to help people like myself who are less fortunate. I hope to be able to go to my grave with that Christian-like feeling for my fellow man."

As a minister, Saniuk is greatly troubled by the religious Right hurting the people they claim they are trying to help.

"[The Right's rhetoric] infuriates me. The Jesus I believe in is a guy who preached fire and brimstone at hypocritical religious leaders -- but never at ordinary folks who were trying to do their best. I think Jesus would be angry at what's being done in His name," she said.

Moreover, Saniuk feels great empathy for many people she sees struggling with the issues she faced for years before coming out.

"What's hardest for me is to sit with people who really don't believe that they're OK. Nothing I can say will shake loose someone's shame, their internalized homophobia, if they've grown up believing they're not OK," Saniuk said. "And for those of us who've been brought up in a homophobic environment, we all have our own timetable for letting go of it -- for better or worse."

The message she wants to leave to those struggling with faith issues: "I teach that sexual orientation is part of God's gift to us, and that an appropriate spiritual response is to say æthank you' and then live your life with integrity.

"The bottom line is this: What we understand, through our own experiences and through the observations of contemporary science, is that sexual identity is really, really complicated," she added. "Diversity is part of the diversity of creation, and it calls for celebration, not oppression."

Burdick is yet another person who has maintained his spirituality and faith in God, even while walking away from organized religion.

"I am very comfortable with myself today, and I do have peace with my sexuality because I know that God loves us all, no matter what," he said. "I personally feel, deep inside of me, that God makes us the way we are, no matter what, and He wouldn't make us to be this way if it was such an abomination. Homosexuality is natural, and it is not a terrible sin."
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