My Gay Story [part 3]

A continuation of my story. Originally written 29 October 2013. 
Read part 1 / en español
Read part 2 / en español
Read part 3 / en español

Read part 4 / en español
Read part 5

Read part 6

The biggest turning point in my attitude and hope occurred as I was serving as Sunday School President over spring/summer terms at BYU. I prepared a lesson on Joseph Smith's experience in Liberty Jail, focusing on section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I had read this section many, many times before, but for some reason this time it was different. I put myself in Joseph's place. Abraham had his Mount Moriah, Jesus had his Gethsemane, Joseph had his liberty jail, I have my same-gender attraction. Abraham offers up his son on the altar, and Jehovah sends his voice through an angel. Jesus, in agony, prays more earnestly, and the Father sends an angel, strengthening Him. Joseph offers his plea, and the Lord sends His voice. I pray, and God answers me similar to how He answered Joseph: first He comforts Joseph with an eternal perspective. Then He gives Joseph some key instruction:

Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands. Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job.

Joseph, TURN TO YOUR FRIENDS. I melted. I have never really reached out to anyone for emotional support, ever. I'm a pretty independent person. What is a friend supposed to do? To be? What is a FRIEND? By the Lord's definition, do I have any FRIENDS? A quick search on scriptures.lds.org for 'friend' in the Doctrine and Covenants brings a list.

Rafiki means friend in Swahili. Also, he gives
good knocks on the head at opportune
moments, as a friend should.

So a friend is exactly what Jesus Christ considers us. A friend stands by you, offers a warm heart and friendly hands, does not contend against you, does not charge you with transgression (judge), and offers comfort and joy. No matter what. The Lord gives us friends and family for that purpose. He reminded Joseph of this, and He reminded me of this. I had to consider how to turn to my friends. I felt it as a commandment directly to me, piercing straight into my heart: DAN: Turn to your friends. This is what I gave them to you for!  But I was stubborn: I'm independent! Cue the humbling knock on the head (think Rafiki, which ironically means FRIEND in Swahili!)

So I began my journey considering my 'friends'. How do I ask for support? Do I be vague and just ask for prayers in my behalf? Do I come out to them? To whom? When? How? I let it stew for a couple of months. 

Summer term ended and circumstances allowed for me to return home to Illinois for a week and a half before starting fall semester again. I was determined to act on that prompting. 

At the shooting range with good friends
back home. We went shooting twice in the
week and a half I was home...and yes, I did
shoot more than just a staple gun--I'm particularly
fond of my mom's Glock :D

I had an enjoyable week at home, but this experience was gnawing at the back of my brain. Remember me? I'm still here! I waited until the night before I was to head back out to BYU. I sat down on a couch in our living room and just waited until my mom came in to the room and sat down too. I asked to talk. 

While I was home, my brother Brian was
able to visit from New York! Diesel, the
family dog, knew his place in the car.

We did, and I shared my experience of same-gender attraction with her. It's hard enough to face it alone the first time you realize it. Then it's harder to tell someone else. And it's even harder to watch your mother deal with it. We shed tears together, talked about it, and talked some more. My mom is a great FRIEND, by all definitions.

My mom is the best friend anyone
could ask for. Also she's a great shot. 

Dan Bunker

My Gay Story [part 2]

A continuation of my story. Originally written 29 October 2013. 
Read part 1 / en español
Read part 2 / en español
Read part 3 / en español

Read part 4 / en español
Read part 5

Read part 6

For so long I've felt like Abraham, climbing Mount Moriah, building an altar, preparing to give my sacrifice to the Lord, for I love Him. But for so long I've been waiting for His approval of my sacrifice. 

Abraham yielding his greatest sacrifice

I would put what I thought was my greatest sacrifice on the altar and kneel and wait. Nothing. Flustered, I took it back off and swapped it out for something else. Surely this would be the right sacrifice. Kneel and wait. Nothing. Magnify calling. Nope. Try to do my part in making a blended family work. Nada. Serve a mission. Zilch. Full tithe, service, love, charity, scripture study, faith, fasting, you name it. All good things to offer the Lord, but none were the one required for my Abrahamic Test. I started thinking harder. It's mighty hard to place something on the altar that you deny possession of. Especially when deep down you know you might have it, and the Lord definitely knows you have it. So this has been my experience lately: soul-searching and acknowledging possession of something the Lord requires of me. A path that I do not know. This is my required offering unto the Lord upon the altar.

I've never been suicidal, though I understand how someone with this experience could be, and I try not to judge those who have attempted it. I've never thought "I just can't live up to what the Lord expects of me, I'm not good enough," which is a thought that many have. I have made mistakes, yes, committed sins, yes. The thing is, I believe in repentance. 

The Book of Mormon Title page explains its purpose: to convince us that we are never cast off forever because of Christ and His Atonement. Simply put, I believe that is the purpose of all scripture: to persuade us that we aren't cast off. If we are convinced of this, we will repent and come unto Christ. 

The thoughts that I have had more recently have been ones like "Okay, now that you've repented, don't do anything to screw it up." I would try and bug God with "Hey, ya know, if you're cool with it and all, I wouldn't mind if you said my time was up here 'cause I'm doin' pretty good right now." 

A friend of a friend wrote me the following message, which impacted my outlook on this experience:

Dear Brother, [Your friend] has told me a little bit about you. Not your name or anything specific, just that you know that you're gay and how hard that can be in the church. I felt like reaching out to you. I'm sure you have wonderful people in your life and an email from a stranger can't mean much. But I just wanted to be another voice. I wanted to share with you that I love you. I know that our Heavenly Father loves you completely. He loves you exactly as you are. If you were the only person in the world to ever take part in the atonement, the Savior would have suffered it all just for you, because you're worth it.

As I shared some thoughts with another friend, he told me, "You're God's little boy. He'll take care of

I'm God's little boy

you."

People like these two have helped me gain a new perspective. Now I've started to have better thoughts of "Oh, this is my purpose, my path. I can do this."

Dan Bunker

My Gay Story [part 1]

Mexico City, Mexico. September 2010-2012

This is the coming-out post that I wrote first but never published. Instead, I wrote this post. Now, I feel more comfortable sharing this experience.

Originally written 29 October 2013:

Read part 1 / en español
Read part 2 / en español
Read part 3 / en español

Read part 4 / en español
Read part 5

Read part 6

My life has been going full-steam ahead, with hardly any time to breathe. I got off the mission and hit life hard. It's a bit like riding the moving walkway in the Chicago O'Hare airport (or really any airport) where you're running on it to go really fast and then it ends. You keep running but you're not going fast anymore. It just FEELS inefficient, even though you're moving as fast as your legs can carry you.

Achieving High Goals - Eagle Scout

The past two weeks for me have been really difficult. I'm gay. Wait...What? Yeah, that's what I thought too. Raised in the church, you are taught to set high goals, inspired to achieve them, full-steam ahead. The mission accelerated that. Then you get off the moving walkway and real life starts. I've seen great friends, mission companions, and ward members dating, getting engaged, and getting married. Full-steam ahead. I've been in this surreal dream since my teenage years, wondering when this "straight" thing was supposed to happen to me. Sure, as a teenager, your hormones are raging and you don't really understand your feelings, right? Reality check: those feelings become fixed rather quickly. I didn't know that. I was waiting for so long to make sense of all the 'set boundaries, don't date until you're 16, bridle your passions, obey the law of chastity' counsel. Sure they made logical sense to me, but not emotional sense. Was it hard for other guys to keep clean thoughts around girls? I didn't seem to have a problem with it. It was the physical features of guys that were interesting to me (I didn't know that was called 'being gay' haha). I only realized a short time ago (leading up to my writing this) that, yes, I am attracted to men and not women. And I realized the term for it: gay. Homosexual. Same-Sex attraction. Same-gender attraction. Whatever you call it, it's the same thing in my opinion.

Switching to Computer Science, Bioinformatics Emphasis

So when I realized this, the duly-named blog title was my reaction: Wait...What? Imagine getting through 3 years of college in a degree program, then suddenly you realize...this isn't for me. You switch majors to one that requires you to recalculate all of your goals, the what, the when, the how. That is what this has been like for me. I was wary at first, but then I accepted it and intend to start going full-steam again. 

What helped me most recently in the transition from being wary to acceptance was a hymn sung by the ward choir at church, particularly the first verse:

It may not be on a mountain height, or over a stormy sea, it may not be on the battle's front my Lord may have need of me. But if, by a still, small voice he calls, to paths that I do not know, I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine, "I'll go where you want me to go"...

For so long I was preparing for the battle's front, for the mountain height, for the stormy sea. The Lord calls many, many people to these places. I was taught my priesthood duties, how to treat women, how to be a good father and husband. But recently, the Lord with a still small voice has called me to paths that I do not know.  What is my answer? What do I do? Where do I go? What do I say? I'll say what You want me to say, do what you want me to do, be what you want me to be, dear Lord. ...Savior, if Thou wilt be my guide, though dark and rugged the way, I'll... I will. That is the only answer.




Dan Bunker

5 Little Bottles of Happiness

I don't normally talk about my feelings here, but after looking over my first 3 (somewhat cynical) posts, I decided to share some of my more sincere feelings.

First, there are difficult days. Kelly Clarkson's lyrics from People Like Us are particularly applicable here:

Hey, everybody loses it; everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes.

The rest of the song is applicable too. I do have these feelings sometimes. But I have learned to identify them, and I made a decision a while ago: when I have these feelings, I don't make any decisions. I distract myself--with homework, friends, music, youtube, whatever--just long enough for them to go away. And they do go away, I promise.

Other than those occasional days, I am generally and genuinely at peace with my experience. I have been called an anomaly--in a good way. I don't have and haven't had a lot of the same feelings that some of my gay friends have had--namely depression, anxiety, and shame. Once I understood that my natural attraction isn't by choice, I was almost instantly at peace. Afterall, being hungry is a natural phenomenon of the human body and there is nothing shameful or embarrassing about it (except for the stomach growl in the middle of sacrament meeting on fast sunday haha). If there is any shame due, it would be for gluttony in the unhealthy eating habits to fulfill that hunger. Same concept here. Attraction: natural. Reaction to fulfill it: my decision.

My friend Spencer updated his facebook status recently:

You ever feel so good, peaceful, and full of joy that you wish you could bottle it up so that you could save some of that good energy for a bad day? Yeah. That's me right now :)

I started thinking about this. Some days (including these past 3 or so days at the time I'm writing this) I just feel incredible. Optimistic, hopeful, sure. I'm trying to capture what about these days make them so great so that I can port them to my Kelly Clarkson days. Sometimes what makes them great is pretty elusive, so I'm taking it one day at a time. I offer up 5 little bottles of happiness that have made my days great (don't ask why...I still don't know, but I'm trying to figure it out):

Friends and being yourself and talking about whatever. Finding other gay friends and hanging out with them is so relieving. Gay stuff doesn't dominate our conversations, but occasionally being able to talk openly about how we're feeling, what our future plans are, and what our challenges and experiences are is really great to be able to find peace. They don't judge and are good allies to have.

Racquetball. Some regular exercise and stress relief brings lots of happiness. A good 1.5-to-2-hour session of hard racquetballing makes me feel like I can conquer the world.

This video. Though I'm not a proponent of living the gay lifestyle, I laugh every time I watch this video (I have watched it many, many times!). "If you're gay, then you're gay. If you're straight, well THAT'S GREAT! If you're somewhere in the middle, it's the best place to be: every fish in the sea wants to kiss you!" A good friend shared this video with me, and it makes me feel awesome. (Remember that awesome song Say Something by A Great Big World? Same group.) From the youtube "about" section:

A while ago, our friends Kristin and Dannielle (who run a website called EveryoneIsGay.com that offers advice to LGBTQ youth) challenged us to write the "gayest song ever" for a compilation. And this song was the result! We believe in their mission and stand by all those who live in fear of being their authentic selves. NO ONE deserves to be bullied or treated unfairly based on sexual preference.

This video. Through Heaven's Eyes, from The Prince of Egypt. Being at peace and coming to terms with who you really are and seeing yourself through God's eyes is the first step. Once you achieve this, you can then decide how to respond to who you are--how to act on it.

And, finally, this video. Yep, I'm baby hungry, want to be a dad, and want an eternal family. This video just mesmerized me. I guess it's just a waiting game to find the right woman that could love me for being me--which isn't an issue specific to being gay but a definite twist on the traditional issue :) Keeping in mind what I really really really want brings perspective and happiness.

Of course, prayer, fasting, scripture study, and temple worship help tremendously and are at the top of my list of bottles of happiness, but these were some of the other things I've come across that I hadn't thought about before. Sometimes it's tricky to identify your feelings, but with practice, you can correlate them with things you do and invite them back on those Kelly Clarkson days :D

Dan Bunker

Society: The Great Machine

I think it's about time to explain the title of my blog: Um...Wait...What?

A little background...
I took a computer science class this last semester: Algorithm Analysis. Our professor helped us see the amazing beauty of algorithms. In some class slides, he briefly introduced us to Donald Knuth (Ka-NOOTH), a recipient of the ACM Turing award and author of The Art of Computer Programming (TAOCP), who stated:

Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it.

I think it's great to get to a point where we understand something so well that we can teach it to a computer. There are ethical questions, though.

Machine Learning (skip this section if you already know what this is or don't really care)
Machine learning and control is an area of computer science that involves teaching computers to be more like humans. You basically train a computer on a set of data--pictures, numbers, stock prices, protein folding structures, anything--and then you pass it some new data. The goal is that the computer will "learn" new patterns based on the training data and apply those patterns to the new data to predict the outcome. For example, you tag a face in a few pictures on facebook or iPhoto, and the machine learning algorithms apply those facial patterns to other pictures and ask you "do you want to tag [friend's name] in this photo?". That is teaching the computer to recognize your or a friend's face in photos.

Machine learning algorithms aren't the best algorithms for solving a problem, though. It turns out that they're often a last-ditch effort when you can't mathematically compute something without training data--like a face. Relatively often, they get it wrong. What happens when you give a computer a new face--one that was never in the training data? It can mis-name that face or fail to classify it at all.

So what?
And that's the issue: we teach computers to classify--to classify people, places, things, behaviors. In many applications, this classification is necessary and useful--tagging photos; predicting protein folding for development of new pharmaceutical drugs; and extracting names, dates, and locations from pictures of tomb stones are some examples--, but what about the classification of people? A system that goes through training data and then classifies people--and makes decisions or recommendations based on that classification--could be dangerous. I think of a scene (video below) in the movie "I, Robot", where the robots scan and analyze an emergency situation, calculating the chance of survival of several people, and then they rescue the person with the greatest chance of survival. But what if the robot was wrong?

(Video didn't load? See it here)

The Blog Title: Um...Wait...What?
The programmer has to think of this case: What should the computer do when it comes across something it hasn't seen before, when something doesn't match the patterns that it discovered in the training data? Should it stop classifying and ask? Should it make a best guess? In a way, the computer sees the new data and stops and asks "Um...Wait...What?".

Society: The Great Machine
That has been my experience with being gay. I grew up pretty hostile against gays--I'm still trying to figure out why. Society often paints a picture of gays: rainbow flags and speedos in pride parades. That is NOT me. I didn't identify myself as being attracted to the same gender for a long time because society trained me with that training data. I was new data coming along, and I didn't fit that pattern. So that was my reaction while coming to terms: Um...wait...what? What am I? Who am I? I'm definitely not the extroverted, flamboyant, outspoken, flag-waving, speedo-wearing dude that society presents with the label "gay". I do have feelings for guys, but I don't identify with THAT so what am I? It took me a little while to learn that gay doesn't mean sexual activity. The thing is, in many cases when somebody comes out as "gay", they choose to be sexually active with those attractions. But every definition I've looked up for "gay" and "homosexual" talks about same-gender attraction, mentioning nothing about sexual activity. Somehow society and cultures have been incorrectly trained, and when someone comes along and comes out as "gay" but chooses abstinence, the abstinence part is ignored and the "gay" classification makes people assume, judge, and react negatively. It's not entirely their fault, it's what they were trained on.

Now what?

(Video didn't load? See it here)

In "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (see video above), the grinch changed his attitude when he "thought of something he hadn't before...maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store...maybe Christmas perhaps means just a little bit more..."

I changed my attitude when I considered that maybe "gay" doesn't necessarily mean rainbow speedos--maybe there's something more to it--different dimensions that I'd never considered. (And even those who do sport the rainbow speedos are people and should be talked to and their feelings considered.)

It is my hope that society and cultures change their perception--that they consider that just maybe the stigmas, classifications, and years of one-sided training are wrong, that we are all humans with real feelings living on the same planet and that nobody can be boiled down into one statement or classification. I hope that the first impression that society has of someone is not "oh he must be [classification]" but rather "My training data could be wrong...I should get to know him more".

The saints faced a lot of persecution early on; the Lord's response:

Pray ye, therefore, that their ears may be opened unto your cries, that I may be merciful unto them...That wise men and rulers may hear and know that which they have never considered

Many treat topics like this as knowledge that is understood very well--a science. The truth is, we don't fully understand it, so the art is manifest as we learn how deal with it. Let us turn the way we view and interact with people from a science that can be taught to computers into an art as we seek the big picture.

That's all.
If you've made it this far in reading (I know it's long...sorry!), please leave a comment with an idea of how we can change society's training on the gay topic or any topic really--I'd like not to do one-sided blogging :)

Dan Bunker

Getting It

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for friends, family, and support. It has been about a month since I came out publicly. The first week was emotionally exhausting--I couldn't get any work done. I couldn't pick up my phone and see my texts, emails, and fb notifications without bawling! The love and support was overwhelming. The second week, things started calming down. Those that had seen my fb post or read my blog had either sent me some kind of message, 'liked' my post (whatever THAT means for a status update of that caliber haha), scrolled right past it on their news feed, or just ignored it. In all, the responses were positive. The third week, I was starting to get the feeling that I could move on with my life--no walls, no emotional barriers. I had the spirit of transparency. No more hiding. Anyone that loves and supports me had let me know that I had allies, and anyone else that doesn't support--well, I moved on. Not everyone "gets it", and I understand that; heck, I didn't "get it" until I went through it! I don't blame them.

What frustrates me is why it took an experience like this for me to "get it"! I am trying to re-train my brain to stop judging so quickly. Sometimes I see something and automatically disapprove of it; negative feelings arise, and I feel opposed to it. I have to stop and ask myself "self, why did you react that way?", and the answer is enlightening: "I don't know". I find that society, culture, tradition, group think, and fear contributed to my negative reaction -- the "natural man". 

For some people, the terms gay, SGA (Same-Gender Attraction), SSA (Same-Sex Attraction), etc. are labels that carry many implications. Some people are sensitive to certain terms and find them difficult to even voice. For me (this is strictly my experience), they all mean the same thing: one who is attracted to the same gender (that describes me). I am comfortable with the term gay because I have clearly defined it for myself. For me, being gay does not imply homosexual relationships, sexual behavior, pride movements/organizations, or anything else. For me, it simply means an attraction to the same gender. And that's it.

That said, being a gay mormon for me means I'm an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who is attracted to some people of my same gender. That's it. I'm a temple-recommend-holding, temple-attending, doctrine-supporting, calling-holding, testimony-wielding, faithful member of the church. Sadly, it took me a while to "get it": that I can be all these things and be attracted to the same gender. If I live the same law of chastity that is asked of everyone else, then there is no reason for me or anyone else who is gay to feel shame or embarrassment in acknowledging this. 

As the BYU Honor Code states:

Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or attraction and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards. Members of the university community can remain in good Honor Code standing if they conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code...One's stated same-gender attraction is not an Honor Code issue. 

Thus there is a difference between feelings/attraction and behavior/activity. 

Sadly, there are many naive people (both members of the church and nonmembers) that just don't "get it". They don't see this difference. They don't understand that a person doesn't choose these feelings/attractions but does choose his behavior/activity. It is the attitude of this naive thinking (not necessarily their fault; I was like this until I went through it!) that contributes to many gay mormons leaving the church. I have friends whose church leaders have asked their ward not to support the "homosexual lifestyle" of my friends when actually what these friends have done is support the church and stand as a source of hope to those who are struggling to stay in the church. Asking ward members not to support faithful gay mormons or releasing gay members from callings for having come out publicly isn't the right message to send; it's not consistent with what those of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have said:

...what is changing and what needs to change is to help our own members and families understand how to deal with same gender attraction. (emphasis added)

I'd like to finish up this post by sharing a story my mother shared with me regarding how the topics of mental illness, diabetes, and cancer used to be "dealt with" just a few years ago. Then think of how we understand them today.

I was born in the mid 1950's and my mother was in her early 40's when she had me. I remember while growing up in the 1960's, there were 3 diseases that were taboo to talk about and you certainly didn't want to contract them. There was mental illness. No one knew what caused it but if you were mentally ill, you were put in a mental hospital never to be seen of or heard from again. You didn't want anyone to know if you even had a relative with mental illness because that meant there was something wrong with your family. You didn't want to marry into a family where there was any mental illness. I remember my mom saying to find out about any mental illness before you ever considered marrying someone because you didn't want to be tagged as undesirable.

The second one was Diabetes and the third was Cancer. Both of these diseases were death sentences. There wasn't a lot known about either of these diseases or what caused them and there wasn't much for treatment. I remember my mom telling us to not get close to anyone with Diabetes or Cancer because you might catch them. Mom had a really close friend that contracted Diabetes and had to take insulin shots. Mom was so torn because this was her really close friend, but she didn't want to "catch" Diabetes so she didn't want to be too near her, yet she wanted to be there to support and help her. It was the same with Cancer. You didn't want to get too close to someone with Cancer because you might catch it.

Eventually, my mom did get diabetes and cancer. She was too embarrassed to tell anyone (including her children) because she still considered these diseases to be death sentences and you would lose all of your friends and family if they found out. She was in denial about her diabetes for years and this effected her heart, her vision and other body systems before she ever got treatment. With the cancer, she was able to have surgery and the cancer was cured.

Today, we have pills, insulin shots and pills, chemotherapy, radiation and pills as well as surgery (for Cancer) to help control or cure these diseases.

With same gender attraction, we are about where we were in the 1960's with the three aforementioned diseases. Some of the older generation feels that SGA is a choice, others think you catch it from someone else. We have no pills, surgery or chemotherapy to "cure" or control it. It will take studying this affliction and education to gain more understanding of what SGA is and how we can support those that are afflicted with it.

I think my mom's experience is very telling about this process of coming to understand how to deal with these things. While I personally have moved from viewing this as a challenge/trial/affliction to viewing it as a very sacred part of me that God has entrusted to me (and only He knows why, haha), others still feel it is a trial by fire. I sincerely hope for their sake that more people can just "get it" and change their attitudes to be more open and considerate. We are not undesirables; we are brothers and sisters, friends and allies, family, fellow saints serving in various callings in wards, stakes, and branches. You know more of us than you would think-- some 7-10% of the population is gay by some studies. That means statistically of my facebook friends, some 36 are gay -- and I only know of 10 of them. How many is 10% of your fb friends? Of your ward? of your first class of the week? of your family? extended family? We can help strengthen the church; we understand the need for unconditional, Christ-like love. Zion doesn't come from groupthink. 

Zion comes from those of one heart and one mind, where there are no poor among them because no one is left behind.

Dan Bunker

What I wish I had known about being gay

This post is just a collection of some of my personal thoughts as I've progressed through my journey of being gay. It is not meant to be a blanket statement about all those who are gay. 

I wish I had known sooner...

• that it's not by choice. Imagine sitting next to that special someone that you admire physically and emotionally. Now explain why you get the feelings that you do. Imagine sitting next to someone that you don't particularly admire physically or emotionally, and explain why you don't get the feelings that you did with the other person. Difficult? Yep, same for me. I was once asked "How do you know for sure that you're gay?" I proceeded to quote Crush from Finding Nemo: "Well, you never really know, but when they you know, you'll know, ya know?" Equivalently, when asked "When did you know you were gay?", I wanted to ask: "When did you know you were straight?" Not an easy question. My reality check: if those feelings are occurring when you're 22 years old, it probably means they're pretty fixed. Whether the cause be genetics, the environment, or gene-environment interaction, the reality is that those feelings exist. I can't explain why they occur in one circumstance and not in another -- they just do.

• that I have a choice. Viktor E. Frankl wrote, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way," (Man's Search for Meaning). I can always choose how to react to a given circumstance. That's why the exact same thing can happen to different people, and they can have completely different experiences. It may be out of my control that I am gay, but it is in my control how to behave and react. My possible choices from here on out are:
• homosexual relationship
• celibacy
• heterosexual relationship

• that friends make it easier. After trying to reconcile my feelings with my beliefs for a long time, I had some deeply spiritual experiences that helped me decide to "come out". I considered the depth of my associations, relationships, and friendships, most of which felt pretty superficial. Strong emotional barriers kept my connections with other people at arm's length. I decided to lower my barrier, let trusted people in, and test the waters. Not knowing how others will react -- ending friendships, the cold shoulder, or overwhelming support -- was the largest obstacle I had to overcome. Coming out to friends and family and seeking support from those who are also gay has been the best thing for me in my journey. I wish I had known this sooner.

• that it's not always easy, but I can be genuinely happy. For a long time, I considered this a trial, challenge, affliction, etc. My personal and religious beliefs require that I either remain celibate or pursue a heterosexual relationship. It can be difficult because a heterosexual relationship contradicts those particular feelings that arise in certain circumstances and not in others, and celibacy means sexual abstinence. The disparity between my beliefs and feelings does create tension and frustration sometimes, but following my beliefs also creates joy.  Focusing on the tension and frustration has tended to foster more of the same; however, focusing on the good that I can do and can pursue--genuine friendships and emotional connections now that my barrier is down--has tended to foster more joy and genuine happiness. 

• that it's not black-and-white. Many people tend to over-simplify circumstances. Take a heterosexual relationship for example. If your personal and religious belief is sexual abstinence before marriage, to what degree can you connect with someone you care about before marriage? Is spending lots of time together ok? Embracing? Cuddling? Putting your arm around the other person? Just sitting there holding each other? Holding hands? Kissing? There are many different degrees of connections, and each person must set his own wise boundaries. Some of these degrees are perceived and judged as acceptable in one culture and not in another. It's not black-and-white. To what degree do you allow a heterosexual couple to connect before disapproving of their actions? To what degree do you allow them to be loved? Cared for? To what degree do you allow this for someone who is gay and chooses to have a homosexual relationship? For someone who chooses celibacy? Can you remain true to your celibacy and still be cared for and loved by someone? Is it appropriate? It's not black-and-white. I wish I had known this sooner too.

• that others have different experiences just as difficult. What is difficult for me isn't necessarily difficult for someone else; others are going through things that I don't even know. I will never know the whole story, so I can't judge. My only job is to show love. Many--including myself--have had the attitude of "love the sinner, hate the sin" and express it. News flash: when you're the one struggling and you hear someone say "I will always be your friend, but I can't support you in..." or "I will always love you, but I don't approve of..." or "you will always be welcome here, but leave your behavior at the door..." or anything of the sort, you don't hear the first part. You only hear "I can't support", "I don't approve", "leave your behavior", etc. It's like when someone says "No offense, but ...." and they proceed to attack. The point of the statement was to attack or offend or express a contrary opinion. If you don't approve, don't support, don't agree with what someone is doing or going through, you have every right to it. But if they are struggling -- no matter their lifestyle choice--, keep it to yourself. What they really need to hear is "I love you." PERIOD. "I am here for you". PERIOD. I wish I had known that for much of my life when I had that attitude, and now that I'm on a side that many people misunderstand and attack, I have a clearer understanding of what is really needed in these moments.

• that questions are good. I love it when people ask me honest questions about being gay, partly because I'm still learning myself. Honest questions are how misunderstandings get cleared up and how people get educated. I am still putting this one in practice as often as I can. When others sincerely ask questions, it shows that they have interest in you and your well-being. It shows that they care. 

Again, I want to make it clear that these are not the experiences of everyone who is gay. This is what I have experienced, and these are my personal beliefs. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (I'm a mormon), so some future blog posts will have more insight from my personal religious and spiritual perspective; however, my posts do not represent the position of the church. 

Dan Bunker