Where It Began

What do you do when you lose your home? I grappled with that question on a cold November evening as the last whispers of light kept the sky from turning its deepest blue. The orange glow of Denver crept up the valley over I-70, and I was alone in my car at an overlook near the town of Evergreen. I’d just finished speaking with a Catholic priest who happened to work for the same non-profit that employed me. I was inconsolable in the truest sense after our conversation. Tears streamed down my face, and an overwhelming sense of isolation drew closer like the falling night.

He was the sixth priest I’d spoken to in the past month and the seventh I’d contacted. This laundry list of priests was not an attempt to find someone who would tell me what I wanted to hear but an act of desperation, seeking to talk through and reconcile the antagonistic desires swirling in my heart. On the one hand, there was an ardent desire to remain faithful to Jesus by following all of the teachings of the Catholic Church, and on the other, a deep longing for companionship that finally felt met when I fell in love with a guy for the first time. I was distraught. How could I claim to love Jesus and Catholicism and yet feel profound peace when I was with this man I’d come to love?

This was the question I wanted answered and prompted these conversations. I’d known most of these priests for years and expected to be able to process these conflicting feelings. But I was wrong. Some of the responses I received during these conversations included:

If you were to date this man, you’d lose your job.

We need to go over the teachings on this topic again so you can understand them better.

Is this really where God is leading you?

There’s just no path forward here.

Why do you feel like you need to talk about this? This is only a small part of your life.

I didn’t need reminding of any of this. I knew I could lose my job, I knew what I wanted was contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, and I knew it was considered wrong. To question something like this put everything on the line for me: my job, my friends, my community, and even my sense of purpose in life. In those conversations, I needed someone who could sit with me in my uncertainty, but they couldn’t do that. That’s why, on that dark, cold November evening, tears came for what seemed like hours as I sat in that empty parking lot. I was crying because, consciously or subconsciously, I was grieving the loss of my support system, my second family, my home, and I knew that I had to turn elsewhere to start to untangle the knot that was my heart.

Catholicism no longer felt safe. I thought if that was how priests treated me, then I couldn’t expect other Catholics to be any better. I’m sad to say that, in many ways, this fear came true. In one story that characterizes so many of my coming out moments, I was driving to an event with one of my friends. He asked about my dating life and whether I wanted to be set up with a nice girl he knew. After several attempts to politely decline or deflect the question, I reached a breaking point and just said, Sorry, I’m gay, so I’m really not interested. A long, heavy pause filled the car. Finally, he asked me, So, do you agree with the Catholic Church’s teaching on the issue?

Theology, that’s where many people went when I came out to them. What was my stance on the Church’s teaching? Did I agree with it? How could I disagree with this? What about this argument or that argument? That is where people went. Rarely were there questions about how I was doing, why I decided to come out, or how I was handling things. 

I’ve talked to enough people now to recognize that having someone come out, especially if it is unexpected or rather blunt (like the story above), can be very jarring for people. People’s minds go blank, knowing they need to say something, but they’re just not sure what. I get that now. I can hold space for that now, but as someone whose life felt like it was in complete turmoil, this was the least helpful thing someone could do. To feel like people were more interested in theology than my life just added insult to injury.  

With a fear of losing my livelihood, shame surrounding my questioning, and a growing list of poor interactions, I effectively cut myself off from Catholics. Sure, I still went to mass, showed up for my job, and said everything I was supposed to. But I was terrified of saying the wrong thing, letting something slip, or someone seeing me walking into the non-denominational Church I started attending to meet with a pastor there, getting “reported,” and then losing my job. 

Looking back, I know things weren’t so black and white. While there was some truth to my concerns, the apparent gravity of the situation blinded me from trusting more people than I could have; I genuinely know that people (those priests included) were doing their best to love me in the way they could. But the fact remains that I did lose my community and many of my friends as I slowly decided to come out and eventually date. To choose something so “worldly” felt like it put a wall between myself and many Catholics, making it awkward and seemingly impossible to remain friends. Rarely was this communicated, but I felt it as conversations repeatedly skirted around personal details of my life, and invitations became few and far between and ultimately stopped.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Coming out as same-sex attracted, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary, or in any other capacity does not necessitate a break between one’s faith community and one’s friends. I can say this because I’ve experienced it one-on-one with a handful of Catholics and other Christians. There is a constructive path forward for those who disagree. Catholics and LGBT individuals can learn to love each other and build deep, meaningful relationships without compromising their fundamental beliefs. 

Here’s what the way forward could look like. A little over a year after I’d started coming out, I was sitting on the couch with a friend. I shared that I was leaving the non-profit job and the deeper reason for the career change. She started by responding in a fairly typical way. Thanking me for sharing and reiterating how she could never fully support my decision to date and perhaps get married, but then the conversation took a turn. She said, Justin, you’re my friend, and I want to know about your life. I want to meet the people who are important to you, including any future boyfriends. And if we each ever end up married and with kids, I hope our kids get to play together. 

I can’t even begin to tell you what that meant to me. What it still means to me, and a significant reason I can call her one of my close friends, is that conversation. We’re friends and want to hear about all the parts of each other’s lives. We’re here to listen and support each other in areas that we agree and areas we disagree. We’re friends not just because we believe the same things but because, on a surface level, we enjoy each other’s company, and on a deeper level, we want what’s best for the other.  

I believe there is a future where Catholicism and the LGBT community are no longer at odds. That can happen only through these small one-on-one interactions. The path to heaven is littered with people who will challenge and contradict what we believe, and our first job as Christians is to meet people where they are, seek to understand, and learn to love.