The Bifurcators

Mark 3:20-30

          This passage started me to thinking about people who stand against themselves. A very personal 'house divided' if you will. I would call them the Bifurcators and there many examples in society.  These are people who have a managed form of a split personality. They live secret lives that are often diametrically opposed. The politician who is virulently anti-gay and who happens to be gay himself. A priest who has taken a vow of celibacy and is not allowed to marry (in the Roman church) and yet has a lover on the side, perhaps even a family and children. But the example that hits home most for me is being gay and being in the closet.

            I am happy to see the advances the gay community is making. There was a picture on FaceBook a few months back of gay couples at their senior proms. How wonderful for these young people. Compare that to the likes of me who denied his own sexuality for almost 50 years.  A mix of societal pressures of the time and horrific religious beliefs perpetuated by millennia of homophobia and errant scriptural exegesis helped me deny at all costs who I was. This was even as the clues and signs were all there. I simply say I was a good Catholic boy.

             But the worst of all scenarios I think are the people who live in the closet. They know they are gay and for many reasons do not come out. They live bifurcated lives as if it is some form of manageable schizophrenia. There are great problems with this way of living. For one it involves intense denials of yourself. You cannot be the person God created you to be in an open, free and forthright manner.  This creates a self loathing that is intensely unhealthy. The dishonesty that is involved with a double life is one that cannot help but follow you into both realms of your existence.  It becomes very easy to lie and you have got to begin to believe those lies in one way or another. It is just unhealthy. 

                As faithful people we are called to be the best and most loving person God created us to be. We are not supposed to deny who we are. We are not supposed to boast either but it may seem that way to some. When you are held down and closeted you have such extreme joy at your liberation that celebration is a natural bi product.  I was recounting the other day with an in-law the day I pulled him aside and told him I was asking my wife for a divorce. Another important point I noted was that I am gay. This family member recalled the joy and peace I had at my announcement.  I have not lost that feeling. I am forever grateful and joyful that I am gay. This is a gift from God and an even bigger gift to be able to express it. Bigger still is the blessing of my husband to share the rest of my life with. Once I knew I was gay I knew I could not move forward living a bifurcated life. Out of respect for myself, my (ex) wife and my (ex) church, I had to come out. 

              I could not live two lives. I do not believe God wants anyone to live that way. It is a shame that the church of my youth whom I had the respect to tell does not have the same respect for me.  So no matter what, you must respect yourself and live a life of 'out' love that God wants and intended you to live - assuming you are gay. In general, be whom God created you to be. Be true to yourself and never live that bifurcated life

and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’— for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’