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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 1983)
T whatsoever. B ut even though it d id n 't have a great im p act on me, it was ju st enough to m ake m e go back. I started to go back every Sunday, and at the end o f February I had ceased all m y gay activities. Yet I still co n sidered m yself gay at that p o in t It w asn’t un til the m iddle o f July, when the m in iste r was preaching about faith in God and w hat a life in C hrist can do, that I really sat dow n and th o u g h t about i t Everything I’d trie d had bro u g h t m e happiness fo r a season, bu t no real fu lfillm e n t no real joy. I decided to give it a try. I said, “ Lord, here I am . Just accept m e in to your arms.” Oh, what it’s done fo r m e! I have a great sense o f peace. I don’t w orry about things. I know feeling good isn’t everything, bu t I feel very secure, I have lots of joy, and I feel good about m yself. I walk down the street singing, and people look at me like I’m crazy. The pastor was preaching one Sunday, “ If there are con ditions in your life that aren’t like C hrist, the best thing to do is to give it to God. D o n ’t waste you r tim e thinking about the situ ation; devote your tim e and energy to God, and those other things that are not like Him w ill change.” I found that to be very true. That is n o t to say that I haven’t seen a man that excites me, but it’s different now. The m ore I pray, the m ore I read the S cripture, the m ore I give m y m in d over to thoughts o f the Lord, I fin d th a t those thoughts do n’t phase me. DP So when you have hom osexual desires, do you th in k o f it like having a tem ptation to steal, that it’s som ething that God doesn’t w ill, and therefore that you have to fig ht against? GB Yes. The C hurch is strongly against th in g s like sm oking, drinking, and getting high. As far as I’m concerned, I ju st put it in th a t sam e category. I have a very dear friend th a t was a lesbian. W hen I m oved to Portland she was the first person to take me to a gay bar, tau gh t m e how to sm oke a cigarette, gave m e m y first drink, gave m e m y first joint; she tau gh t m e everything that was totally d if ferent fro m what I was brought up with. She was also bro u g h t up in the C hurch o f God in C h ris t DP It sounds like you tw o are soulm ates; you go th ro u g h these stages together. GB We becam e very close friends. About three years ago she decided that she’d had enough. She decided to give her life back to the Lord. She cu t loose all o f her gay friends. A lth o u g h we had been very close, when I w ould call her there wasn’t a lot we could talk a b o u t She was basically concentrating her life on serving the Lord. She w ould tell me fro m tim e to tim e, “ Gary, I’m praying fo r you, th a t G od w ill help you.” I said, “ Fine." When I fin a lly did go back to the C hurch, all Heaven broke loose. She’s been a great source o f help to me, because by no means am I what I w ould consider a strong C hristian at this p o in t I consider m yself a baby in the Lord. O ne day I was ou t w orking on m y car. Living in NW Portland leads to a lot o f tem p tation. I had the radio on and was listening to a G ospel station, in m y m ind thanking God fo r His goodness in general. In the space of an h o u r’s tim e, five or six o f m y friends went by. O ne o f them wanted m e to go sm oke a jo in t I turned him down. One asked me to com e over and drink som e beer, and I turned th a t down. O ne o f m y friends had another friend w ith him , and you know how you get those looks. It gripped me so badly that I d id n 't know how to handle it I started to fall apart at the seams. I stood there and prayed, b u t it d id n ’t seem the prayers were strong enough, so I called m y friend and said, “ C— , Just Out Nov 11-Nov 25 th is is Gary, and I’ve got this problem .” Right then she started praying, rig h t on the phone. She said that if I really wanted to live fo r the Lord, whenever I had any knd o f tem ptation I should say, “ Satan, I’m G od’s property; take yo u r hands o ff me." If you resist Satan, he will flee fro m you. I d o n ’t th in k I w ould have made it th is far w ithout her. DP W hat about MCC? GB I have attended tw o o f the ir services. The services were g re a t the singing was good, I enjoyed the message, but the scene at the ch u rch after the services were over didn’t sit w ell w ith me. They had a social hour after wards, and one guy cam e up to me and said, “ Let’s get together som etim e and have a little B ible Study.” DP (The tone o f Gary’s voice can un fortu nately not be conveyed by ju st printing his w ords. A t this point I suddenly realized that I had a picture o f E rik Hooper, m y favorite Playgirl’s Man o f the Year, sitting cross-legged in the buff, grinning affably at o u r serious conversation, so I tried to turn it face down nonchalantly, and Gary broke into peals o f laughter.) GB O h, I noticed that first thing when I walked in. It doesn’t bother me. DP I was ju s t trying to make the atm osphere m ore conducive to the Holy S p irit tim e he was upset DP How did you resolve this? GB He gave m e an ultim atum and said that it was either him o r the C hurch. So I decided th a t since I had been to church all m v life, and I really did care fo r him , that I w o u la co n ce n - trate on the relationship. I did this fo r a year and a half, bu t ultim ately the C hurch w asn't the only reason that we broke up. W hen I w ent to parties on the weekends I w ould be perfectly fine un til I sm oked a jo in t U p to then I m ig h t be having a good tim e dancing and being friendly, but after that jo in t som ething in the back o f m y m ind from the way I was broug ht up w ould com e to the surface. My w hole attitude w ould change, and 1 w ould feel that I d id n ’t belong there. The last party that I went to I was in a trance for the firs t tw o hours and finally som ething said to m e, "W hat are you doing here?” It w asn't that I was condem ning anybody that was there. It was ju s t that I realized 1 had to turn m y life back to the Lord. I had som e good tim es, even in m y relationship, but I was never really happy, and one o f the reasons that I decided to go back to the C hurch was because I realized that I never w ould be happy unless I was serving the Lord. DP D o you feel that it is possible fo r two people o f the same sexto have a deep, sig nif He gave me an ultimatum and said that it was either him or the church. GB The flirtin g that went on afterwards bothered me, because I really did get a lot out o f the service. W hen services were over I wanted to take the message I received, get in m y car, go hom e, and spend a couple of hours th in kin g about what the m inister had said, bu t m y m ind was distracted from every th in g I had heard. DP Have you ever heard MCC’s reasonings behind why it is acceptable to be gay and C hristian? GB No. I w ent to a program once when Troy Perry was here selling the program he is g o ing to broadcast over the TV, but they d id n ’t really go into the details o f it I d o n ’t know w hat scriptures they use to base that on. DP D id you ever have a loving gay relationship? GB I had a lover fo r tw o and a half years. As a m atter o f fact I was still attending services on a regular basis. The reason that I left the C hurch altogether was because o f him . As I said, w hen I first left the C hurch I did so because I gave up m y com m itm e n t to the Lord, bu t I continued to go to services, al th o u g h I d id n ’t claim salvation. B ut m y lover g o t really upset that I still w e n t I w ould com e back fro m services, and m y lover would make th is huge Sunday afternoon meal, and he w ould be all loving and caring and expected th a t in return, but the message o r what hap pened in the service was so m uch on m y m in d th a t I could not im m ediately respond to him . S om etim es he w ould hold me, hug me, and kiss me. I d id n ’t m ind the hugging, but I d id n ’t want to kiss him . Everything that I heard d u rin g the three and a half hours was still fresh in m y m ind; it was doing som ething to m e, and th a t caused a lot o f problem s in the relationship. Som etim es it w ould be evening before I cou ld com e down fro m it By that ica nt em otional relationship? GB Yes, but it’s still against G od’s will. It’s not th a t everybody has to get m arried and have childre n. Everyone is d iffe re n t B ut there are passages in the S cripture that specifically state that hom osexuality is w rong. If one really turns the ir life over to the Lord, really dedicates th e ir tim e to Him, that w on’t happen; it ju st w on’t A friend o f m y parents in New York, who used to be a drag queen and do shows in the Village, has a real testim ony. Every tim e I feel I have a problem I always th in k about him . He said in chu rch one day that he had taken his w igs to a beauty parlor to be s e t and there was a w om an there w ho gave him a tract and started telling him about the Lord. He d id n ’t w ant to listen, but he kept the tract, took it hom e and read it and the tra ct convicted him . Now he's a preacher, is m arried, and has several kids. If your heart has really been tou che d by God, then He does change things in you r life that are not like His will. DP W hat do you feel Jesus' function was in relation to Jew ish Law? It’s obvious in the Jewish Bible that hom osexuality is considered w rong, bu t there are certain laws that the C hristian C hurch has dispensed with such as keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath, at least on Saturday. How do you decide w hich laws Jesus has suspended? Is it that the H oly S pirit gives you a conviction as to w hich laws aren’t relevant? GB Jesus did away w ith the Law insofar as people are redeem ed by C hrist; he d id n ’t do away w ith the laws as to how we should live o u r life in fro n t o f God. Instead o f the Jewish people giving a blood sacrifice o f a lam b, C hrist becom es the ultim ate sacrifice; th ro u g h this com es salvation. T hat’s the only part o f the Law that was done away with. DP D o you th in k o f yourself as bisexual and therefore able to redirect you r sexual urges in to heterosexuality? GB I w o u ld n 't say that I was bisexual. I have had affairs w ith w om en, bu t they have been negligible in relation to those w ith men. DP Are you able, then, to rechannel your em o tio n s to cause you to be attracted to w om en, o r w ill you sim ply go through the m o tio n s because it’s G od’s will? GB It's no t a m atter o f rechanneling energy, because as I've said before as long as I stay prayerful and read the W ord o f God, that in itself rechannels the energy. 4 DP D o you plan to get m arried someday, or is th a t som ething that you feel is necessary. GB I hope to, because I need an outlet for m y sexual feelings, but I d o n ’t plan to do it for its ow n sake. W hen I was seventeen I was the cho ir d i re cto r and the youth m inister fo r m y church. Here I had so m any kids calling me on the phone asking fo r m y advice, and I had this great c o n flic t w ithin m yself. I said, "Lo rd, here I am w ith this condition, and you tell m e that I’m g o ing to Hell after all I’ve done to try and serve you?” I was bitter. I ran a Crusade in Albany, NY; I fasted for three days because I d id n ’t know what I wanted to preach a b o u t A nd the message that G od gave me was dire ctly fo r me. I was so caught up in things th a t I d id n ’t even take tim e out to hear what I was saying. The message was, "T rust in the Lord.” I used a passage in the O ld Testam ent w here G od says to the children o f Israel, “ H um ble yourselves before Me, and seek My face. If you tru st in Me there is nothing I can't do fo r you." I had to leave NY, cam e to P ortland, and changed m y lifestyle and every th in g I was bro u g h t up w ith before I could fin ally com e back and hear that message. It has taken m e this long because I felt that if I ever w ent back to the C hurch m y m ind w ould have to be m ade up never to backslide. The gay w orld wasn’t a bad w orld, and I w ould never tell anybody, “ You’re going to Hell." I w ould say, “Listen, if you really want to know about the Lord, try Him . Because if you earnestly try H im you w on’t have to w orry ab out w hether som ething is rig h t o r w rong. He w ill show you w hat is rig h t” People d o n ’t believe th a t G od can actually talk to you, but He can. My closest friend d id n ’t believe that I w ould be able to hold on, and he cam e over once at 2:0 0 in the m o rnin g, w oke m e up, and show ed m e that he had a six-pack o f beer. I rem inded him that I gave up things like that, and that boy w ent th ro u g h m y apart m e nt and cleaned it o u t m y bong (w ater- pipe fo r m arijuana), m y pipes, m y roach clips, m y papers. I had a lo t o f album s that had the kind o f rock th a t m y C hurch advises to stay away fro m . He to o k every album I had except fo r m y G ospel album s, it’s hard to let go. The C hurch I belong to believes in exercis ing all the gifts o f the S p irit I was trying to explain to a friend about being d ru n k in the S p irit o f the Lord. These discos d o n ’t have anything on a Pentacostal C hurch. Even th o u g h they are very em otional, they always slap us w ith the W ord o f God. The m inister w ill say, “ You can dance all you w a n t but m ake sure you r life is founded on this',' and ho ld the B ible to your face. M y m o th e r said to m e once, “The way that G od used to use you, especially w ith the un derstanding o f S cripture that you had, if any body is g o in g to Hell, it’s going to be you.” DP Thanks a lo t M om ! GB I th in k I had to get to the point where I realized that even if there is no Heaven o r Hell, it’s w orth living this life that I’m living now. 7 >