Ramblings in the Night...... Religion, Faith, God & growing up Gay in the South part I

Ramblings in the Night………Religion, Faith, God, & growing up Gay in the South

            A popular statement when I was growing up went something like this, “American by birth, Southern by the Grace of GOD.” It was a song by country music artist Waylon Jennings. No surprise there. When I was growing up, Southern heritage, Religion, & God, were three areas that we took Pride in, in our daily lives. For many in the era that I grew up with, it still is a source of Pride. This new generation not so much.

            Some of my earliest memories are of my Mom reading stories from the Bible. Sundays were spent at the house of God. The many different Sunday school teachers taught us about the Love of God, Christ sacrifice for all mankind, Hell, and to honor our fathers & mothers. We could recite the ten commandments by age 3. Even before we could read. The Preachers would stand behind the pulpit and proclaim God’s word in the sermon. And the choir would sing the old hymns that would soften the hearts.

            My family was Baptist. That is how they were raised. It was how they raised us. There are several Preachers in my family. My Great Grandpa, many uncles, and cousins, were old time country preachers. They believed in and taught us in the inerrant, infallible word of God, the Holy Bible. King James 1611AV. Outside of breathing and eating once a day, it was all wrong and you shouldn’t do it.

            I loved God and Jesus. I loved going to church, and singing in the choir. I took everything that the teachers and the preachers said to heart. I not once questioned what they were telling was anything other than the honest to God’s truth. I gave my life to Christ at the young age of 10. Oh, happy days. I am going to heaven when I die. My sins have all been washed away. That is what the preacher told me, so I knew that it was true.

             I was faithful to God, and my church. I attended every service on Sunday, Wednesday, and Revivals. I took part in Church. I sang in the choir. I loved to sing. I was in all the plays that the church put on during the year.  I wanted to do my part, for the cause of Christ.

            Then around the time puberty hit, and things started changing, on the inside and well as the outside. I started noticing the differences, in myself, as well as in others. Boys and girls that used to hate and despise each other started looking at each other in odd and curious ways. Then boom, they would start dating.

            I had many friends, both male and female. And several girls were interested in a more intimate relationship. But for some reason that didn’t interest me in the least. I didn’t find girls sexually attractive. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I thought girls that were pretty were in fact pretty, just not in a sexual way.  I only thought of them as “Just Friends.” Still do even unto this day.

            I don’t know if my family suspected or not. I remember that a new TV show came on the air called Dynasty. We started watching it, as a regular Wednesday night soap opera. One of the episodes, the son whose name was Stephen came out as gay. My mom immediately turned the TV off and we didn’t watch it the rest of the night. I didn’t understand what had just happened. I didn’t understand at the time what the big deal was. Then my parents educated me on the birds and the bees short version. Boys are to date and marry girls. Boys don’t date or marry other boys. Girls don’t date or marry other girls. That was the short and skinny version.

            Shortly after that episode of Dynasty. The news started reporting a strange virus that was targeting gay/homosexual men. Shortly after that, I heard my first sermon preached in church on the sin of sodomy, or the perverted lifestyle of homosexuals. I didn’t consider myself gay or homosexual. I didn’t consider myself straight or heterosexual.  Yes, I was attracted to guys. But some of the stuff being reported in the news I had never tried or participated in.

            So, to protect myself I buried my feelings deep inside myself. Time passes as it always does. High school was a time of exploration for me. I was living with my Grandpa by this time. I was a walking bundle of hormones. All my friends were dating and having sex. I would take girls out, usually on double dates with my buddies and their girlfriends. But I never got serious when it came to girls.

            So, I bet you are wondering what the hell is all of what I just said got to do with Religion, Faith and God. Well I am building up to that…lol. Once I hit high school and was living with my Grandpa. I started to rebel against the teachings of my early childhood. Which is not uncommon. Young people tend to rebel against authority and try to stretch their wings, so to speak when they hit the teen years. I started letting my hair grow. And grow it did. I was half way down my back and curly. I got an ear ring. Which I should point out, that my Grandpa nearly killed me over.

            There was a conflict, a war being wages within my mind. The teachings of my youth were colliding and warring with the reality of my sexuality. I was taught to love God and put none other before him. To abstain from sin and those who are committing sin. Now I find that being homosexual is a sin and an abomination. I’m surprised that I was grey headed by the time I graduated high school.

            “The shackles of belief, when reinforced by fear, are difficult to break free from and rarely done,” by: Richard Paul Evans. Very true words. It makes a person think.

            Once I graduated high school, I tended to stay to myself. I didn’t go out. Most of the time I worked and went to church. Still I would set through sermons and hear the word of God and Preachers condemn homosexuality, sodomites, and the like to the eternal flames of hell. I would set there stony faced, while dying on the inside. Because I knew that I was gay.

            In the fall of 1992 I went back to college. I was moving into an apartment with my good friend Bryan Beasley. He was transferring from UNCA to WCU, and I was going to SCC. Bryan and I went to church together. So, he kept me pretty well grounded. Then he started dating and I didn’t. I worked a lot. Then I got to partying with friends, from Hayesville. And hanging out with the Sig Ep fraternity. I did pretty well for about a year. I didn’t drink. Then one night at a party the Sig Eps were throwing, a young girl named Melinda Mundy cornered me and two other guys into a drinking game. Things went downhill from there.   

            Shortly after that night a friend and co-worker named Anna, talked me into meeting her in Asheville, at a bar called Scandals. I hadn’t heard of or ever been to Scandals, so didn’t really know what I was about to get myself into.

            I arrived at Scandals at 10PM. Back then we didn’t have the GPS devices that we do today. So, I had to ask for directions. I made it though. I walked through the door and there was a ticket booth as you first walk in. The guy collecting money, his name was Ken. He asked me if I was a guest or a member. I said a guest, that it was my first time here. He checked my ID, and I asked how much it cost to become a member. He said $10 dollars. I said well, if Anna likes this place I’ll probably be back may as well become a member. Ken gave me a membership application and I filled it out and handed it back. Just before he buzzed me through into the bar, a man came up beside Ken and said David, welcome to Scandals. I hope you enjoy it. Just know that the information you provided in your membership application will never be shared with anyone not even the police. The man was Art Frier, the owner of Scandals, I later found out.

            Ken buzzes me in. I walk up to the bar and the bartender TJ asks what I am having. I order something sweet. I later found out that TJ was the head Drag Queen at Scandals going by the name of Aurora Borealis. I still didn’t know that Scandals was a Gay bar. But I was soon about to find out.

            I had just got my first of what would be many drinks that night. Ken stuck his head around the corner, and said, “hey David do you know what kind of bar this is?” I looked at him sort of strange, and said, “just a regular bar?” Ken said, “NO, it’s a gay bar.”  TJ walks up to look at the pole-axed look on my face and asked if I was going to be alright. I told to make me a double and keep them coming. And he did.

            When I came too, the next morning. I was in my bed with the worst hangover in my life. I felt like I was going to die. Bryan asked me, how my night was. After I finally got out of bed. I told him it was ok. Bryan where all we went. I realized right quick that I never did see Anna that night. I finally told him I didn’t remember. Bryan looked at me with a shit eating grin and said, would you like to know, where you were at and what you were doing? Dread seized my insides. He said would you like to know how you got home. I broke out in a cold sweat.

            Bryan proceeded to tell me all about my night even though he wasn’t there. Bryan’s fraternity “Theta Chi” sent all their pledges to Scandals to get the signatures of the bartenders and the drag queens. And of course, it had to be on the night I was there. Which the brothers of Theta Chi that brought the pledges to the bar, knew me, because I was Bryans roommate. The brothers and pledges brought me home, and helped Bryan get me in bed to sleep off the large amounts of alcohol I had consumed. Bryan knew where I was at, the whole story. I was mortified. I completely cut myself off from everyone and everything. I wouldn’t talk to anyone. I stayed to myself. Bryan was just about ready to kill me. I didn’t know how to deal with all the crap that was going on.

            I felt like I was about to have a nervous breakdown. What if my family found out? What if my friends suspect? What if my church finds out? I’m going to go to hell. My family will disown me. These were just a few of the thoughts running through my mind. What was I to do? I had no clue.

            But Bryan finally cornered me on a drive back home to Robbinsville. We were going in for the weekend. A mutual friend, named Andy, sort of spilled the beans to Bryan that I was gay. Andy called me worried that he had said too much. Sure enough Bryan called moments later. So our drive into Robbinsville was like a torture session. Not really but it sure felt like it. But after our talk, Bryan was like dude its ok. “My mom told me she thought you gay when we spent the weekend with her in Atlanta. Plus there is that Mercedes Lackey, book that you immediately fell in love with.”

            We talked about what if it got out in Robbinsville that I was gay. I’d be excommunicated. My churches belief was homosexuality was and is a sin. An abomination in the sight of God. And all too soon my worst fears were realized. Just a few months after I confessed to Bryan our church had a revival. I had missed a few Sundays due to not feeling up to enduring people’s looks. But after not going I got to missing church so I went to the revival on Wednesday night. I got to church and set in my usual spot. But I could tell something was off. Lis Stewart, kept looking back at me with evil and hatred in her eyes. I didn’t understand I had done to her to be getting those looks. But I soon found out.

            After the service was over and people were fellowshipping and leaving the church. My Pastor Brother Jimmy asked me to help him with something in the Sunday schoolroom. When we got back there the room was packed full of men, preachers, deacons, and I was the focus of their displeasure. They had found out that I had went to a bar, not just any bar but a gay bar. I felt like I had been ambushed. They just automatically assumed that I was gay because I went to the gay bar. I stayed in there long enough to hear them out with their ultimatums. I walked out the door and down the hall back to the sanctuary where Lis and Angie were talking with a few others. Angie gave me a sad smile and Lis the look of death. I held my head up and walked out.

            It didn’t stop there. I got home from school the next afternoon, and my mom had left and very nasty message on the phone concerning what some busy body gossip had said, that she heard concerning me. So round two begins. Mom was screaming and yelling. That people were talking and saying that I was gay. And how could she ever go back to church with people saying such things. It was horrible. After she was finished she hung up. I didn’t go home for months afterwards. Mom and I didn’t speak. My Grandma Pauline would call and make sure I was ok. But she acted different from the Grandma I used to know and love.

            My life had turned upside down. And the funny thing was, I thought that the people that would surely turn their backs on me, Bryan, and my other roommates, Gabe, Michael, Kenny, and Eugene didn’t. They gave me their support. I think it was Eugene and Bryan, who made the rest see that I was still the same guy. Still their friend through thick and thin. It was these guys who helped me survive though first few months of my coming out experience.

            Let me stop here, for this tale is long and the journey has not come to an end. There is much still to tale.