G’day all, this is my first post 🙂
My story is over years. I had the odd gay experience in New Zealand in 1979 (in Auckland after leaving my family in Taranaki at 17 years old). I’d had a very rough time of it growing up at home in a mostly dysfunctional and overly disciplined family. albeit one not at all involved with any church. When I left Taranaki the home situation had gotten so bad that I’d been put into foster care. It was a situation that I hated, and reached a point where I just could endure it no longer, deciding to leave and see if I could make a life of it elsewhere.
I arrived on my older sisters doorstep in Auckland unexpectedly, who became very irate and told me I should go back and not stay in Auckland. It was the last straw for me at the time. I went back to the room I’d rented for a couple of days and took a whole bottle of pills in a suicide attempt. Over the next months I lurched from drama to drama in Auckland. I had my first sexual experience with a night club owner who picked me up late at night and took me to his place, getting me pissed and stoned, and screwing me.
After a few months I encountered someone who was from the United Pentecostal Church and went to one of their Sunday meetings. Was immediately made to feel welcome and at home, the perfect snare for me as I was ripe for the picking. I embraced the family atmosphere of the people. After a while went to America and studied at the Apostolic Bible Institute in Minnesota, doing a 3 year course and getting a Bachelors Degree in Theology, and becoming completely indoctrinated with the churches teachings. I returned to New Zealand in 1983 and for a short time became a licensed minister in the church.
However I felt something wasn’t right. After leaving the intensity of the Bible college, I was able to think more clearly. After a very significant trip to the local library, and photocopying much, over a few weeks I came to the conclusion that the UPC was behaving as a cult. I left the church in 1984, producing a long leaving statement to hand to my fellow ministers. It was one of the hardest things I’d done in my life; to declare that the last 5 years of my life had been spent being indoctrinated by a cult.
Sexuality, unlike some, didn’t play a part in the reasons for my leaving. Back then I was so indoctrinated by the church that to think that I may like guys was certainly not even a consideration to dwell on. It was simply wrong, and any thoughts I had in that direction were simply wrong. In fact their doctrine hasn’t changed after all these years, as I looked it up just recently:
“Let us therefore resolve that the United Pentecostal Church International go on public record as absolutely opposed to homosexuality and condemn it as a moral decadence and sin, and do hereby encourage prayer for the deliverance of those enslaved by that satanic snare.
UPCI”
http://www.upci.org/doctrine/homosexuality.asp
It turned out that the physical act of leaving the church was far easier than the mental one. For decades after I would come across thinking in my head that had it’s associations with the original indoctrination of the UPC. Particularly the notion that being gay was inherently wrong. It took many years to overcome that hurdle, and is an indication of the true damage that these churches do in society.
I met a lovely woman and we fell in love and had a daughter. We both loved each other deeply. My personal view is that love isn’t restricted to a particular sex, but is about the person whatever sex they are. We were together for 17 years, getting married for the last 8. She was chronically ill however, and passed away peacefully in 2006 after many years of sickness and pain. It was sad but in many ways beautiful to be with her to the very end.
In recent years I’ve found the freedom and space to recognise my gay sexuality and pursue it. There have been many things cause huge amounts of mental and emotional pain in the last few years, but at least I’m feeling the most comfortable I’ve ever felt about my sexuality and who I am. Regarding that, it has been a long journey over decades. Much of it the thought processes brainwashed into me by the church, not allowing me the freedom to even address the issue in the first place. It was always denial and guilt.
Peter.
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