My best friend is gay
(TW: self-harm and suicide)
I write this letter in response to Phil who wrote a comment on an op-ed saying “People are killing themselves over this kind of direct spiritual shaming, Alaina. Did you know that? Have you ever actually talked to a queer person? Or are they too disgusting to you?”
Phil, I did know this, and it saddens me deeply. When I was in high school, I believed that love was love. At Calvin, I really started to dive into the issue, and discovered that I could not believe it. I’m not going into the theology of it (because frankly we have all heard it), but I realized that one-man one-woman marriage was the only way I saw God endorsing marriage throughout the Bible.
But Phil, I write to your point: do I know a queer person? Yes, my best friend of 3 years who attends Calvin with me is openly lesbian. She came to Calvin identifying as straight and wrestled with her sexuality all throughout her freshman fall before identifying as lesbian in December. She asked me to read a series of pro-LGBTQ books such as Torn. I read them. None of them changed my mind. I never forced her to have a conversation. I always told her that I loved her as a friend, and she was amazing the way she was. I answered honestly when she asked me what I thought, but when we talked, I tried to end each conversation by praying “God, please let Maria* feel your love. Please let her feel surrounded by people, so that she knows she is not alone.” Then we always told each other: your friends love you; God loves you; you need to love you.
Phil, I went to Pine Rest with Maria two times over my three years at Calvin. I helped stop the bleeding on the cuts. I cleaned up the broken glass. I made the call to Pine Rest and to her mother. I paid for Ubers to and from the hospital. I dropped everything for midnight phone calls and supported her during her darkest hours. I was with Maria from day one, and through one year, 3 months and 29 days, I am with her as she remains self-harm free.
See Phil, those of us who believe in one-man one-woman marriage still love you. Because that is what we are called to do. I don’t care that you hate my theological views. But do not EVER say that we don’t talk to queer people. You don’t know our lives, just like we shouldn’t assume to know yours.
*I have changed her name to honor her privacy. I have shared this story with her permission.
This story has been updated to include a trigger warning.
Caleb,
I can tell how much you care for your friend. This response is not meant as an attack on your friendship nor your devotion to her well-being. I want to offer you my perspective. You are welcome to take or leave it, but my story is very similar to Maria’s. I too became aware that I am not straight while a student at Calvin. Many of my friends, like you, subscribed to a ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ model, if you will: believing that I was inherently lovable but my “different” sexuality was Fallen. It was exactly this theology that kept me in the closet so long. This theology kept my from fully accepting myself. This thinking, that there was something wrong with the way I experience the basic human feeling of desire, that made me feel wrong within myself. I felt misaligned for lack of a better term. Like Maria, I became extremely depressed. I hated me. The only time in my life I have ever been suicidal was my time at Calvin. You see, even though my friends’ words were telling me that they loved me, at the same time, their actions were loudly proclaiming that I wasn’t quite as holy as them because I happen to be queer.
You tell Maria that she needs to extend love to herself, but that may be easier said then done when these are the messages she’s also internalizing. If you were my friend, my advice to you would be just to grapple with that. Your theology, though framed in supportive words, still makes me feel lesser and unseen. If Maria were my friend though, my advice would be to seek out queer friends, or at least friends who can fully affirm her identity. Once I moved away from Calvin and was surrounded by people more like me, my mental health drastically improved. I felt seen and heard and known for the first time ever. Caleb, I am one queer person. I cannot speak to what Maria wants for herself. Calvin can be a difficult place to discover that you are LGBTQ+. Piling on non-affirming theology from people in your most intimate circle can be isolating or damaging, without you even realizing it. But from this one queer Calvin alum, the best thing that you can do for your LGBTQ+ friend’s mental health and ability to love themselves, is to fully affirm them.
A large problem I see popping up lately has been people putting themselves in a place of judgement of others, myself being one who struggles with this daily. The problem here then is, that by doing that, by putting yourself in judgement of others, you are putting yourself in the place of God. We are so concerned with what everyone else is doing that we miss our own sin and main purpose. Our purpose here isn’t to tell everyone else that they’re in the wrong, it is to bring glory to God in everything we do. Does passing on judgement to others really fulfil the call to love God and your neighbor? Or is it energy that can be better put to spreading the blessings God has given us to others?