Keeping the Faith - 4. August 1991, One Day Later

I hope Ken never turned up, and Michael had to evaluate his life and decide to follow the only path which can make him feel alive. But I fear it's too late for him, even though he has a model in James.

27 minutes ago, Timothy M. said:

I hope Ken never turned up, and Michael had to evaluate his life and decide to follow the only path which can make him feel alive. But I fear it's too late for him, even though he has a model in James.

That's what I wanted. I wanted him to be unable to deny his true nature, his sexuality, and hopefully finally face-up to himself; but, as you say, at least he has an older brother who can help.

Having been raise in a strict Catholic family, I know the guilt that is felt here.  It took me until my 40's to be able to be comfortable with myself and realize I didn't have to be "out" to all, but to myself.  I no longer attend the Catholic Church though the core teachings of Christianity as taught by Jesus still are the bedrock of my own faith.  They don't jive with the institutional church in all things, but I am very comfortable with my faith.

13 hours ago, pvtguy said:

Having been raise in a strict Catholic family, I know the guilt that is felt here.  It took me until my 40's to be able to be comfortable with myself and realize I didn't have to be "out" to all, but to myself.  I no longer attend the Catholic Church though the core teachings of Christianity as taught by Jesus still are the bedrock of my own faith.  They don't jive with the institutional church in all things, but I am very comfortable with my faith.

I grew up in an Evangelical Anglian background. When I started to realise about my sexuality, in my teens, I was told that I couldn't be gay, I had to change or burn in hell (Great thing to be told as a gay, scared, virginal teen). In terror I turned to the Ex-gay movement. To cut a long story short, they failed. To cut a really long story short, it screwed me up for nearly all my twenties.

This was my first attempt to write about what happened to me, to use fiction to try and explain what happened to me. This isn't autobiographical, but I used some of the emotions that I'd lived though.

This reminds me painfully of my Aunt, who was a born again Christian and always trying to force her views on other people. She even sent 'missionaries' round to our house and eventually my mother had to ban her from visiting. My Aunt disowned her own son, not for being gay, but because he married a Jewish woman.

20 hours ago, Mawgrim said:

This reminds me painfully of my Aunt, who was a born again Christian and always trying to force her views on other people. She even sent 'missionaries' round to our house and eventually my mother had to ban her from visiting. My Aunt disowned her own son, not for being gay, but because he married a Jewish woman.

@Mawgrim,

I was like your aunt when I was a teenager. I'd didn’t sent missionaries around to other people but I was always forcing my views onto them and telling them how they were "wrong". I look back at myself then and shudder, I saw everything as black and white, right and wrong. Of course that was all until I had to face up to my sexuality and that smashed all that self-righteousness.

I'm afraid that fundamentalist Christians don't just screw up gays. I have kept contact with only three other people from my Evangelical days, two of them are straight and one is a Lesbian, and all of them had their sexualities screwed up by what they were taught and forced to believe. None of them are Christians now.