Category Archives: Notes From Across the World

A Note from Calvin, in Virginia…

Would love to be a part of this project. Why you may ask? I’m gay and about to be 54 years old and feel I haven’t accomplish much in life but now want to change that.

All my life I have been a victim of spiritual abuse. I say this because I was raised in a religious home but never felt like I was totally accepted. I knew something was different. I felt this at a very young age, and then I found out I was adopted. Nothing wrong with that. I had an amazing adopted mother who had no idea her son was being abused from a very young age and all that confused me. So much now later, in my years I have dealt with depression, shame, anxiety–all because I feel I’m doomed because I choose to be gay. I’m even in a relationship. It’s been 19 years and I love him very much, but my demons of hell haunts me everyday. But I hope there is truly a light at the end of the tunnel, as I’ve heard it said today.

I have been advocating for anal cancer, I was diagnosed a month after we lost Farrah Fawcett to the same cancer and I was blessed to survive this cancer, this rare cancer that many still don’t want to talk about–but I can’t do that. I have to advocate. I so much want to draw more awareness, it’s definitely needed and I do have some support. Now I made my own facebook page titled, Anal Cancer Is a Pain in the Butt Literally. It has 93 followers and I’m so excited about that. This is something I have to do, we must educate people that this cancer is very real and it’s even on the rise. Plus I know this wasn’t a curse from god, nor did I get it from being an “assf*cker” as one so called supporter told me because I used a ribbon for a profile pic that she felt was hers alone. It’s so much more than a ribbon to me. I would love to be featured here and at the same time get more word out about anal cancer .

Calvin
Very Grateful Survivor

Photo provided by Calvin

Photo provided by Calvin

A Note From Adam, in Phoenix, AZ…

I work for the Catholic Church as a Choir director. Five years ago upon my hire, I was quick to come out to my boss, thinking it best to be forthright. He told me he knew when he hired me, and then off handedly added, “I suspect you will use discretion in your relating to the parishioners?” Knowing he meant nothing intentionally demeaning in his token of seemingly friendly advice, I feared it would be a detriment to my growing in self actualization, but decided nonetheless to carry on in my musical pursuits.

To my delight, I found that a great number of people in the pews could not careless to many of the mainline teachings of the church and were more interested in a genuine encounter with God, or something higher than themselves, than they were with whom people choose to love, sleep with, or with being told how to treat followers of other faith traditions, or whether or not practicing safe sex was safe morally. Greater still, I found generally that those who were attracted to the music program and choirs were more accepting even still, often with children, relatives, or they themselves gay.

To be certain, I have had my less than accepting moments. In the beginning when older churchgoers would try to set me up with their granddaughters, I grew tiresome of telling people that I was considering the priesthood and am taking necessary time to discern. Perhaps a shameful and easy answer, I did not feel like coming out on Sunday mornings after only one cup of coffee. Perhaps the most scathing incident was a letter and petition that asked for my immediate removal simply because I was a homosexual and worked with children’s. It was, in his words, an abomination, and I might turn the children into little gay, sexually perverse monsters simply by daring to breath the same air they breathed. (As a side note, that man who called for my dismissal would later ask for my forgiveness for his hateful, intolerant actions). But it was the love of first group I mentioned, and the sometimes impossible hope of the just described conversion, that kept me going.

As to practicing discretion, it became a non-issue. I found people have a way of looking into your eyes that tell you all you need to know, at least people who have come to know in some way the depths of their own selves. There exists a matured depth to their gaze that says ‘I love you just the way God made you.’ The shallower eyes, by contrast, lack that depth and level of self- awareness, being content to simply into ecclesial line, leaving their conscious in a doctrinal box underneath their canonically surveillanced bedrooms.

So why do I continue working for an institution that historically condemns? I love choral music. I love teaching. And I love people seeing their spiritual evolution. To shake the same hand of man that also penned a petition for my removal, in a display of forgiveness, acceptance and mutual respect offers profound hope to me. My cynicism for the intolerance evolved (as I am still a work in progress) into a patient hope of conversion through love. The eyes of the blind really can be opened. Hearts can and do change.

photo provided by Adam

photo provided by Adam

A Note from Derek, in Los Angeles…

Hi Kevin,

My name is Derek Mathew Gonzalez and I am a Graphic Designer in Los Angeles, CA. I recently graduated from Otis College of Art & Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and an emphasis in Graphic Design. I found your website through a friend and have become a constant reader and admirer. The stories I have read have inspired me to reach out to you and share my own.

As an artist and designer, I think it’s important to incorporate not just a part of myself in my work but everything I am. For my Senior Project at Otis, I wanted to focus on my experience of growing up Catholic and discovering my sexuality at an early age. Right away, I knew that making this project and getting the word out about it would encourage gay youth (that struggle with religion) to be brave and strong for themselves. I started collecting journal entries from when I was in middle school to the present and realized how far I’ve come in accepting myself for all that I am. There are so many stereotypes and pressures to look a certain way that I had to keep telling myself that being gay is not all that I am and that I was worthy of so much more than a label. That being said, being raised in a Catholic home became in itself, a label I had to carry. There was a duality of tension and guilt between a force telling me how to be and another telling me to live freely.

Moving forward with this project was not easy as I wanted it to encompass not only everything that I experienced in my past but everything I recently overcame at the time. The summer before my last semester at Otis, I stopped going to church entirely. I had been sleeping in purposely every Sunday because the last mass I had attended made me feel completely left out and depressed. During mass, the priest spoke out against homosexuality and gay marriage. I had heard other priests give their own opinions about it and forced myself to believe that maybe someday the Catholic Church might open it’s eyes. I had held the beliefs of Catholicism in the highest regard and ignored it’s views on homosexuality. But in this moment at church, when the priest dared to speak words of distaste, I was infinitely pissed off. I was so overwhelmed that I began to lose my breath as tears were being choked back. I looked at my family around me and felt alone. I quietly stepped back from the pew and walked to my car where I finally let the water pour from my eyes; I was done.

It’s extremely hard when major self-identifiers are from opposing viewpoints but I am living proof that it’s possible to decide what you want to believe in and the path you choose to live is yours alone. I won’t say that it has been easy but like the many youtube videos say: “It gets better,” because it really does. That being said, I would like to introduce my publications “COEXIST: Homosexuality & Catholicism” and “COEXIST: The Liberation” (which I collaborated with my beautiful boyfriend on). Previously stated, it is a project that focuses on my personal experiences with my Catholic upbringing as it relates to my sexual orientation. I intend to reveal the clashing of organized religion and free sexuality by sharing intimate truths about my own struggles and journey. I want to empower gay youth to reconcile their own beliefs with their sexual identity and allow themselves to live freely — by accepting both. I’m not selling Catholicism or Homosexuality but I’m pushing for individuality. It is simply my story and the story of many, living in a limbo of faith and sexuality.

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Although these publications are currently not available for purchase, I have made them available for everyone to view and experience. You can view them on my blog or on issu.com. There is also a video on youtube: COEXIST

my blog:
DG (x) Design

issu.com
COEXIST: Homosexuality & Catholicism
COEXIST: The Liberation

All the best,

Derek

photo provided by Derek Gonzalez

photo provided by Derek Gonzalez