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David Prosen #fundie #homophobia cuf.org

My family consisted of my father, mother, and my younger sister, Darlene. My mother and I always had a good relationship, but my father and I did not. He was an alcoholic and often physically abused me.

While growing up, my Dad tried to teach me the things in life that he enjoyed, such as carpentry and landscaping. However, it would always end with him losing his patience, screaming obscenities, and calling me names. My dad never taught me sports such as baseball or football. At school, when it was time to divide in teams, I was one of the last picked. The team that ended up having me loudly complained and made it clear that I was not like them.

Everything associated with masculinity brought me much panic. As a child, I didn’t enjoy playing with cars and toy guns. Instead, I enjoyed role-playing games such as house and, yes, even dolls. For as long as I can remember, I had an attraction to the same gender. When I reached puberty this attraction intensified and brought me much turmoil. This confirmed to me that my male peers were right; I was different.

At about age 15, an older male befriended me. I began to look up to him as an older brother. One night, this friendship was betrayed when he took advantage of me sexually. He played many mind games and emotionally abused me. I sank into a deep despair as this sinful behavior continued for three months. I then decided to give Jesus a chance. At first, I was on an emotional high, but despite my years of catechism classes, I didn’t understand my faith or the sacraments. For example, I didn’t recognize the sustaining power of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. When the emotional high left, I became very lonely and felt once again that I didn’t fit in.

I began using marijuana and alcohol to help numb the pain. Once I turned 18, I went to my first gay bar. At first it was exhilarating. I felt like I finally could be myself, but the emptiness only worsened and I relied even more heavily on substances to help deal with the pain. I had lived an active “gay” life for two years, but was given a special grace and realized how sinful I had been. From this point on I turned my life over to Christ several times, but again, still not understanding that conversion is an ongoing, daily process by which God’s grace transforms us. I would always end up falling back into the bondage of sin and heading deeper into darkness. After one of these falls, I learned of places where one could go to have promiscuous sex. I so desperately wanted to be held and loved that I fell into a horrendous cycle of addiction. I would want to be held, fall into sin, feel worse, do it
again to feel better, feel even worse, and on and on and on.

In the midst of all this pain, the worst was about to happen. My sister, whom I had become very close to, suddenly collapsed with a heart attack and died instantly at the age of 21. After working through some of the grief, her death forced me to face my own mortality. I needed to seriously work at building a strong foundation on Christ, instead of looking for the emotional highs that I had depended on in the past.

I was chaste for five and half years by His grace and some awesome things started happening. I quit alcohol and drugs and completely dropped out of the “gay” scene. Also, God helped me forgive my dad and the relationship between us improved.

But I wasn’t able to see these amazing things God was doing because every day was a living hell for me filled with shame. I begged God many times every day for a cure, but the attraction never went away. Some people said, “You don’t have enough faith.” Others said, “You must be sinning in some other area of your life.” These statements only added to my shame. One day, a friend of mine said, “David, maybe God isn’t curing you because maybe there isn’t anything wrong with being homosexual.” After much thought, I decided she might be right.

Although I went back into living a life of sin, I believe God used this imperfect situation to teach me some truths about what love really is. He never let go of me, even when I let go of Him. One day, I felt God say to my heart, “Yes, you never chose this attraction, but you can choose whether or not you will act on it.” I picked up the Catechism and learned that this was a cross, and that we all have our crosses to carry. “Then Jesus told his
disciples, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). He gives us the graces to carry our crosses; all we have to do is ask Him and be open to these graces. If it weren’t for crosses such as Darlene’s death, I am sure that I would be spiritually and physically dead.

By God’s grace I have been chaste for 5 years and this time there is no shame . . . praise God! I enrolled at Franciscan University of Steubenville last year and, since then, the Lord has been leading me on a journey of healing. The Lord had shown me that I was harboring anger toward my childhood male peers who mocked me and teased me. I learned that I transferred this anger toward any male that was perceived by me as extremely macho. By God’s grace, I have let go of this anger and so many tremendous things have been happening.

For a paper in my Christian Moral Principles class, I read Dr. Gerard J.M. Van Den Aardweg’s book, The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self ) Therapy for Homosexuality. The Lord used this to bring about much more healing. I learned that the attraction I had toward males was actually an admiration of those who had masculine or physical traits that I felt I lacked as a child. In puberty, this admiration became sexualized. In addition, I learned that when I was living the homosexual lifestyle, I was coveting what other men possessed. I was affirmed when men who were more masculine or attractive than me showed and interest in me.

God has shown me that true love is not primarily about seeking affirmation, or attempting to have our physical and spiritual needs met. As Pope John Paul II says in Theology of the Body, love is a sincere gift of self, and our various needs will be met by God and others when we express love in this authentic manner.

God has brought into my life Catholic male friends who have spent time with me this past summer showing me how to throw a ball, catch, and hit. That child inside of me has been getting the affirmation he had so desperately sought. And as a result of these healings, I am feeling things toward the opposite sex that I haven’t felt before. Do I still struggle with same-sex attraction? Yes, but the attractions are less intense. I don’t know what God’s will is for me, but I want to remain open to it whether it is the chaste single life or even marriage.

One thing I found very helpful in my journey is my involvement with Courage. Courage is the only Catholic support group for those with same-sex attractions that is approved by the Catholic Church. Members in Courage strive to live chaste lives in accordance with the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. During these past 10 years, I desperately sought support from other Catholics who were going through the same struggles but who wanted to live chaste lives. In my former diocese, I found little or no support, and often what support I was given condoned the sin. This has helped me realize how important it is that we promote and support Courage.

I was blessed to be able to go to the National Courage Conference this past summer and was so impressed. Our Holy Father calls Courage “the work of God.” I couldn’t help but meditate on those words as I experienced God’s love, power, and healing as attendees shared their stories with others who are on the same journey.

Some people told me that I had to be true to myself and accept my homosexuality in order to be happy. God has shown me that I am being true to myself by living in accordance with His Word. I am much happier now than I have ever been before. I no longer escape pain but, instead, I try to work through it. And each time comes growth. And with each growth comes a profound joy and peace in Jesus Christ.

David Prosen #fundie #homophobia cuf.org

I used to believe I was a “gay” person. I had been attracted to the same gender for as long as I could remember. Because this attraction was present from early on in my life, without my conscious choice, I concluded that I must have been born this way. After all, that’s a logical conclusion . . . right?

The attraction I had to the same gender when I was a little boy was normal and similar to what many boys experience. Boys look for heroes, role models who they respect and want to emulate. For me, the attraction to men started out with normal admiration but then began to take some dysfunctional turns. As a child, I was often made fun of and told by my peers that I wasn’t like them. This made me question what the difference between us was. At this point, shades of covetousness characterized my admiration. I secretly wondered, “If I looked like so-and-so, would I be accepted?”

In puberty, this attraction or admiration became eroticized. The derogative homosexual label was given to me by my peers, and I yielded to their accusations because I truly did have a sexualized same-sex attraction. Eventually, I embraced this label and called myself “gay.”

Although I didn’t freely choose same-sex attractions, I did willfully choose to act upon them. My decision to sin brought me intense pain, loneliness, and—worst of all—separation from God. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained this reality in a statement that observed, “As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one’s own fulfillment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The Church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood.”

Eventually, in my brokenness, I responded to the Lord’s loving call to forgiveness and healing. He has brought me through the valley of shame and out of the darkness of my past and shined His light of truth upon the many lies I believed about myself—especially the one that claimed that I was a “gay” person.

By defining myself as a “gay” male, I had taken on a false identity. Any label such as “lesbian,” “bisexual,” or even “homosexual” insinuates a type of person equivalent to male or female. This is simply not true. One is not a same-sex attraction, but instead experiences this attraction.

In his book, Growth into Manhood, Alan Medinger shows that homosexual tendencies and behaviors have been around for thousands of years, but the idea of a homosexual identity only began to evolve about 150 years ago with the emergence of the term “homosexual.”

In a later study, Medinger further demonstrates his findings, revealing a number of untruths that tend to surface when one accepts homosexuality as an identity:

+I must have been born this way.

+If I was born that way, God made me this way.

+If God made me this way, how can there be anything wrong with it?

+It’s in my nature and I must be true to my nature.

+If it’s my nature, I can’t change.

+If I try to change I would be trying to go against my nature and that would be harmful.

+Accepting myself as gay feels so good—I feel like a thousand pound load has been lifted off of my back—so it must be okay.

+If people can’t accept my being gay, then something is wrong with them.

+If people can’t accept my being gay, then they don’t accept me because that’s who I am.

When I read these, I was floored. I believed each and every statement deep down to my core. When I was engaged in this lifestyle, it made perfect sense to go along with what felt natural. However, it was logical only because it appeared to be truth. In reality, lies had to be built upon lies for them to add up to something with the semblance of truth.

I believed I was gay. But I was also certain that I didn’t choose this for myself, and so I believed that God must have made me this way. However, Scripture verses like the following made no sense in light of my feelings: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them” (Lev. 20:13).

How could a God of love create me this way and then condemn me to hell? I began to do what many other Christians struggling with same-sex attraction do and searched for “pro-gay” theologies for explanations. I desperately wanted to be in a loving relationship with the same gender, but at the same time, I had a gnawing feeling in my heart that this was wrong.

Looking back, I believe that my search for truth and struggle against accepting this lifestyle was ultimately the way in which the Holy Spirit convicted me. Still, this gnawing feeling—that same-sex attraction was not God’s plan for my life—was not easy for me to reconcile with because I believed that my sexuality alone was my identity.

Ignorance of this distinction is dangerous. My false beliefs regarding my identity deterred me from accepting the conviction in my heart from the Holy Spirit. St. Paul acknowledged this very same process, explaining:

Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator . . . God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error (Rom. 1:25-27).

Only after I accepted the truth that acting on homosexual attractions was a sin did I begin to ask for the strength and the grace to carry that cross—and the Lord abundantly poured these upon me. Several years later, He showed me that homosexuality was a false identity that I had embraced. And at this point, my integral healing began as I searched out who I really was. My reflections led me to the discovery that I never truly believed I was a man, and yet I didn’t think I was a woman. In that searching process, I realized that I did not fully identify with either gender.

Through the sacraments—especially the Eucharist—as well as counseling, spiritual healing retreats, and much prayer, Christ revealed to me that I am a man. I have many masculine traits that I was never aware I possessed—such as courage and strength. I can never adequately express the tremendous joy I felt when I began to internally recognize and accept the fact that I am a man, I am masculine, and I do belong in the world of men. At the same time this recognition occurred to me, my attraction to men continued to decrease drastically and my attraction to women increased.

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned the discussion over whether persons are born homosexual or if they choose to be. Neither is true because same-sex attraction is an experience—not a type of person. Accepting homosexuality as an identity, which has largely been affirmed in our culture, brings so much confusion. In order for a Christian to justify homosexual behavior, he or she needs to alter and contort Sacred Scripture.

Many individuals from within are trying to force the Catholic Church to change her stance toward homosexuality because it seems like discrimination against those who are just “being themselves.” But it is not discrimination when we identify and seek to correct falsely held beliefs.

The problem has not just effected those dissenting in our Church. There are very good Catholics and even good priests who wrongly assert that people cannot change their sexual orientation. These people may have the best of intentions, but for whatever reason they have bought into the lie that homosexuality is a type of person.

The Church’s response to those suffering with same-sex attraction offers us this perspective:

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition (CCC, no. 2358).

There is hope for those who have same-sex attraction, and we must not abandon efforts to help others understand the truth. This is not to say that God will “change” His creation, the person, because He did not make them this way or intend for them to experience this attraction. Rather, God can change the person’s way of thinking by revealing the lie that the individual has accepted and assimilated into their sense of self.

Once the lie is exposed, wounds that led to this lie such as abuse, rejection, or lack of affirmation in one’s gender identity can be addressed, healing can begin, and the person’s true identity can emerge. When this healing process begins, the attraction to the opposite sex for many has increased.

Courage, the Catholic support group for those with same-sex attraction, as well as many Christians, refrain from using words such as “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “transgender,” or even “homosexual.” Words can have powerful effects. Because these words are labels which insinuate that homosexuality is an identity, they reinforce untruths and continue to escalate the problems in our society and our Church. As Catholic Christians, I encourage each of us to be careful with our speech and eliminate the use of labels and instead use the words “same-sex attraction” which more accurately describe the experience that these men and women go through.