Hey! I’m Gay!

As you can read from the title, I am a gay. Some of you reading this are saying, “Duh, I know!” Others, this is the first time you have been faced with this information. I don’t know how you are taking this because I am not there to experience it with you. However, I felt as though this article needed to be written and scheduled to be published before I attended Kentuckiana Pride Festival on Friday and Saturday. I don’t know what is going to occur during the time I am attending the festival, but with all the violence and hate crimes that have been occurring, I wanted to make sure you had my story before my face was flashed on the news.

Trying to Pray the Gay Away

I want to begin with the statement that I was always gay. This was not a choice. This is who I am. I have chosen to keep this hidden for a long time to certain individuals because I love people and I don’t want them to stop loving me because of my sexuality. I attended church ever since I was little, all the way up until I reached college. I continuously heard how being gay was a sin and that I was going to burn in Hell, if I didn’t change my lifestyle. The idea that I would suffer in a burning, torturous and terrible place just because I wanted to be happy and follow my heart was hard to understand and believe. The fact that this was the only sin that I truly have committed that was listed in the bible. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that someone, who teaches his children to love all without judgement and I tried to mimic that myself, would send me to hell because I loved men. I remember there were nights that I would lay in my room and cry because I wanted this sin to be taken away from me, but nothing ever occurred.

Family I Really Never Knew

I also remember way back when I was younger hearing my dad talk about his brother Rodney. He would refer to him as Aunt Rodney. I couldn’t bring myself to understand why someone in your family, who you are supposed to love unconditionally, would be called a woman for liking me. Even before I myself knew, I was fearful for other gays. And it became clear that my mother and father tried to keep the conversation about him at a minimum. I truly only remember ever meeting him twice in my life to this date. Another family member who is openly gay and I rarely saw or heard of until recent years was my cousin Jacob. Again, my parents never really said anything about him while I was growing up. However, I can remember my Aunt Kay talking about her son until she was blue in the face. At that time, I just accepted it as her being a mother bragging about her son, but now I wish I could have got to know him better as I was growing up. I met him at a family funeral and there was something about his personality that was different from everyone else and at the time I didn’t understand why or what it was about him that clicked in my brain.

Response to Those Who Disagree With the Gay Lifestyle

I personally believe that people have their minds made up about a topic like this before anyone can speak to them and try to clear up their misconceptions. I want to first start by saying. Hi, my name is Christian. Any memory that you have of us together before this article is still me. Whether it be religious events, artistic performances, honor ceremonies, etc. I still was that person and meant what I did. All the times I sang at church; it was how I felt in my heart. I have never sung a song, as a soloist, unless there was some type of connection behind it in my heart. That one time I sung at the church camp talent show. There was emotion behind that performance. I just want to urge my friends who are extremely conservative and have strong beliefs of their type of Christianity to re-evaluate your thinking. My love that I wish to share with a man someday is the same love that you either share with or will share with your wife. I share the same type of love for my family and friends as you do. There truly is only one difference between my love and your love. Mine is for a man, your's for a woman. I also wish to urge those who wish to not accept gays to think about this. Did you like me as a person before you knew this small part of who I am.? Did you accept me as a friend? What is different now? You should actually feel a stronger connection with me on a personal level because I wish for you to know me as who I really am. I want you to know 100 percent of me, not 75 or 80 percent.

Message to Young People

Parents are great and have vast amounts of knowledge when it comes to life experiences. However, I want to caution you about that “knowledge”. There are individuals who have never come in contact and met or talked to a gay person and who say that they are evil and wicked just because it is the current popular belief. Don’t listen to that. I want to urge you as a human being, as a person who will eventually be making decision on your own without the voice of someone else in your ear to have your own experiences, to have your own conversation and beliefs aside from what others do, to push the boundaries of thinking, to step out of the small town thinking box and to look at issues from a world view. Think with a mindset of how will this affect everyone, not how will this affect me?

How America Needs to Progress

We as a nation have begun to fall back into the traditional mindset of what is acceptable and what is not. This can be dangerous in a world that continuously is changing. The world has begun to accept that LGBT people are as much human as anybody else. Daily, new country pass marriage equality laws. Organizations, like the Human Right’s Council, continue daily to push to make sure that members of the LGBT community are not looked at as second class citizens, but rather equals. Politicians continue daily to push for legislation that prohibits a person from being fired due to their sexuality. Daily, members of the LGBT community come together to celebrate these improvements in our society. These events are not to shove the gay lifestyle in the face of those who are not, but rather a celebration of unity to those who continue to be persecuted around the world.

What’s Next?

If after reading this article you feel as though you cannot accept me for who I am as a complete person, then I am sorry for your loss of a friends, and I hope that one day that you will see that being gay is not a bad thing. It is a person being who they are. I would ask that you remove me from your social media because the continuous blasting of people who are LGBT will not be tolerated and will result in your removal by me and a loss of friendship.

If after reading this article you feel as though you want to make a bigger impact and support the LGBT community, then get involved in a Pride Alliance such as the Franklin College Pride Alliance that I am a part of. You can also show your support by attending events such as the Pride Festival that I attended Friday, June 17, 2016 and Saturday, June 18, 2016. Anyone who either LGBT or is an ally welcomed to with open arms to such events.

If after reading this article you are confused or wish to know more, please contact me on Facebook through Messenger, or email me at Christian.Bowling@franklincollege.edu. I want you to understand my feelings completely before you make a decision.

If after reading this article you need support as a LGBT or questioning member, I am always open to discussion with anyone. I have been Safe-Zone Level 2 trained, so I am a good resource to speak to about such a topic. Any conversations are private and safe. I wish for anyone to feel safe around me and be able to share their questions or thinking without fear of the consequences. And I will support anyone that is going through or has been through this process like me of being completely open to who you are.

Update:

Kentuckiana Pride Festival 2016

Day 1:

After attending my first Pride event, I can honestly say that Love can bring so many people together. While I was there, I saw so many happy people. They all were there for the same goal, which is to celebrate who they were. I not once while attending the event found a mean or angry face (Except the protesters). The event completely reaffirmed my thinking that love is love and that members of the LGBT community deserve just as much rights as anyone who is straight. If people could attend and see the joy and happiness that was in the air, I feel like some people would change their tune. Jordin Sparks, herself, said," You can feel the love in the air." during her concert. When a celebrity can just look out and feels that, it means it was a strong feeling. I loved Jordin before the concert, but through her performances of songs like "Tattoo," "No Air," "Battlefield" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," I grew closer to her. Plus, she called for a moment of silence for Orlando and prayed for all of us to have strength and for the families to heal down there.

Day 2:

Upon arrival in all my rainbowness (see photo at the top of the article), My friends, Jordan, Tehya, and I walked around for awhile and explored. We ran into my friends, Patrick and Lynndi! Plus, we listened to music from The Louisville Gay Men's Chorus. <3 Loved it! Once they finished, we continued to walk around. I decided that I wanted a palm reading so I sat down and received one. At this moment, I am still trying to decided if what she said is true because I kid you not, as soon as she said part of the reading, not five minutes later something she said was going to happened possibly happened. The result will be determined on a later date. After the reader, we wandered some more. Upon our wandering around, we ran into, our friends now :), Alex and Lexie. Little did we know that upon meeting, we would go on some adventures in Louisville. We continued to wander around until we picked up more new friends named Hunter and (someone whose name is escaping me right now). We walked around Pride a while longer before Alex and a few others decided that we should explore Louisville and its greatness. We ventured down to 4th Street Live and absorbed the experience. Also, Hunter, Lexie, Alex and I decided that we wanted to ride a horse-pulled carriage around Louisville. It was quite fun and beautiful. The view was spectacular. Once we finished our ride, we wandered back to Pride for a couple more hours. We all left at about the same time.