Since
the spring of 1985 I’d been driving myself crazy trying to become
one of Jehovah’s Witness, only to repeatedly fail miserably,
embracing an openly-gay lifestyle. The two were mutually exclusive;
I could not be both people at the same time, living a double life.
To do so would be to live a lie, to play the hypocrite and I simply
could not do that; to this day I abhor hypocrisy.
It
was if I were becoming two completely different people, and every six
to twelve months one or the other would come to the fore. Mine
became a life of extremes; it was all or nothing, black or
white—any kind of grey area simply did not exist for me.
The
swinging of the Great Pendulum of my life began to cause some
Witnesses to feel that I was just “playing with the Truth,” not
taking it seriously. What they never understood is that I took
serving Jehovah far more seriously than any of them could imagine.
That’s why, when I would succumb to the desires of the flesh and
find myself at an adult bookstore or a gay bar, I went all out; I’d
already sinned and broken my vow to stay “clean before God” by
simply walking into the place, so why the hell not? I’d never be
able to get baptized, not at this rate, so why even try? I began
referring to those periods as “relapses.”
Before
my AIDS diagnosis in 1989, I’d never done drugs, with the exception
of alcohol and a little marijuana once or twice back east in
Virginia, but I’d never smoked cigarettes or done anything else
until 1988/89, when Richard moved back to Denver and introduced me to
cigarettes (I nearly coughed up a lung the first time...but the high,
though short-lived, was amazing—and that’s what eventually got me
addicted to tobacco). So my relapses up to the late 80s had nothing
to do with drugs or tobacco; it was alcohol and sex, plain and
simple. I knew I was gay, but I still held out hope that I could
overcome it; who knows, maybe I’d actually get married someday. I
figured, as long as I was completely open and honest with my
potential mate about my past, we could work together to put it behind
me and have a loving, productive relationship, and maybe a child.
Once
I learned I had AIDS, however, that idea flew straight out the
window. It was one thing to tell a prospective mate, “I lived as a
homosexual in the past, but my heart’s desire is to serve Jehovah
God, possibly as a Bethelite or missionary...” To tell her, “By
the way, I used to be gay, and now I have AIDS. What do you think;
still interested?” was completely out of the question; I was now
destined to be alone for what time I had left of my life. The only
hope I could reasonably hold out for myself was the hope of Paradise,
where I would be cured of AIDS—and homosexuality.
Regarding
the latter, of the time when “I would be cured of …
homosexuality,” I eventually reached a compromise of sorts: Perhaps
it is genetic, not because of God intentionally making me gay,
but as a result of the original sin of disobedience on the part of
Adam and Eve. Their act of rebellion against God in the Garden of
Eden led to imperfection, which was then passed on to their children,
and hence to all mankind. I determined that, if I were
genetically predisposed to homosexuality, it was little more than a
genetic mutation resulting from millennia of accumulated mutations
that would be corrected by Jehovah after Armageddon, when all
surviving mankind (and those resurrected from the dead), would be
cured of all ailments and eventually reach the level of perfection
originally enjoyed by our first parents.
This
was the best solution I could come up with. I had not chosen
to be gay, and God had not made me that way—but a genetic mutation
caused by generation upon generation of passed-down sin and
corruption was something I could grasp; it’s like making a copy of
a copy of a copy, until the original, pure copy becomes
all-but-unreadable. That became my lifeline, my hope—God knew my
weaknesses and struggles to do what He wanted, and would ultimately
forgive me for something that was beyond my control and would cure me
of these “unnatural” tendencies, but only after
Armageddon. That became my position for the next ten years; it gave
me hope that, though I might be pathetically weak and inherently
wicked, Jehovah would cut me a break and show me mercy at the end and
let me live. The best I could do was adopt a life of celibacy; that
didn’t change my sexual orientation, but it gave me something to
hang onto, at least for a time.
I
never believed that Jehovah could produce a person inherently
spiritual and God-fearing, but also inclined to live a life
diametrically opposed to everything for which He stands. I refused
to accept that, so I set out to prove that this lifestyle could be
overcome, even by someone with my track record, only now with AIDS.
I put forth all my effort to use what little time I had left to make
a difference by being the best Jehovah’s Witness I could possibly
be, and for a while I succeeded, but eventually I found myself once
again in the cesspool of sin and despair; now there was no hope for
me, so this time I went further, and that’s when my drug use began,
first with pot, then cocaine and crystal meth. By 1990, I was living
in downtown Denver at a Section-8-approved apartment building, just a
few blocks from several bars where these drugs were readily
available. For months, I was lost in that quagmire and figured, “I’m
about to die anyway from this disease, and I have no time left to
make things right with God, so what the hell?”
But
then the Great Pendulum began to swing back the other way and my
conscience started telling me, “You don’t belong here, hanging
out in gay bars and doing unspeakable things that have surely
offended Jehovah,” and I put all my hope and faith in the
possibility that He would forgive me, take me back into His fold and
let me try again. After all, Armageddon hadn’t come yet, so from
that standpoint I still had time, and as long as I was trying to do
what was right, He would grant me amnesty should His “Day of Wrath”
come before I got baptized. So again I would humble myself and
return to the Kingdom Hall, devoted every waking moment to Bible
reading, study and prayer—for a while, before the Pendulum swung
back the other way.
In
my mind, each act of transgression, each relapse, was tantamount to
treason against God Himself, as I had sworn I would “never do this
again”. Every six to eight months (occasionally longer) the Great
Pendulum would swing in the opposite direction, and I had absolutely
no control over when it would happen. When it’d swing left, I’d
inevitably find myself at the bars; when it swung right, it was like
flipping a switch; anything and everything “gay” had to go,
including magazines, movies, “toys,” even boyfriends—you name
it; it all went by the wayside. I’m sure I’ve disposed of
several thousands of dollars worth of porn and related items over the
years, as well as broken many hearts. I would begin drawing close to
someone, thinking, “This time I’m staying right here, and I’m
going to have a life with a man who loves me and that’s that, damn
it!!” But inevitably, my conscience led me to abandon him for the
“high road” of “the Truth.”
Each
time it happened, not only did I cause that person tremendous pain,
my heart was also shattered into a million pieces. It got to a point
where I was convinced that my fate in this life was to do little more
than cause people pain; if I were living as a gay man, I’d hurt my
Witness friends. When I returned to “the Truth” I would
devastate my gay partner(s) and friends. Eventually, I refused to
get involved in any serious relationship because I knew the Pendulum
would again swing the other way and I refused to commit to one person
only to hurt them...again and again.
Now
that I had AIDS, though, I’d developed a growing feeling, fed by
countless relapses into sin, that I would never actually see the
paradisaic New World to come after Armageddon. How could God
possibly truly forgive me for my sins now that I have in my body a
disease I contracted by being utterly disobedient to His
commandments? My attitude toward that hope and my efforts to become
a Jehovah’s Witness took on a very different nature: “I will
never see Paradise, but I can help you get there. Here’s
the path; take it and enjoy everlasting life!”, as I would never
see it. I never told any with whom I shared “the Truth” that I
felt this way, and it would be much later when I would confide such
in Witness friends. It would be suggested at meetings and
conventions that we strive to ‘see ourselves there in that New
System, in Paradise; make it real!” Over time, such a thing became
virtually impossible for me to envision, so I simply stopped trying.
In
1993, this swinging of the Pendulum led to what would result in one
of the most critical choices of my life since returning to “the
Truth” in 1985...and would confound my efforts to get baptized on a
scale I’d not experienced before—a chance encounter that would
nearly prove to be my undoing.
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