Gay at Wheaton

I am a junior here at Wheaton, I am an evangelical Christian, I am a nerd, and I am gay. There, I said it--I am gay. I am not openly gay here at Wheaton or at home, in fact, less than ten people know for sure that I am gay. Why is that? There are two reasons. The first is that it is not something I want to have to deal with in a conservative Christian environment, and secondly, if I ever were to "come out", I would want to tell my friends personally (facebook doesn't work well for some things). Also, I use the term gay to describe myself, but I realize that many homosexual Christians are not comfortable with that terminology, so I will use it only to refer to myself. Oh yea, and I totally stole my title from an article written by Steve Slagg that was published in The Pub a few years ago... deal with it.
Recently, Wheaton was listed as the most unfriendly college in the nation towards LGBTQ students, however when I came here it felt like a breath of fresh air compared to my situation at home. My conservative parents scrambled to figure out where they had gone wrong with raising me when they found out that I am gay, and my father asked me not to tell anyone as it would reflect poorly on him and his place in our church. For many years I held my parent's belief that who I am is the worst form of sin in human form, and that if I was to ever have a chance of reaching heaven I would have to surpress my emotions for the rest of my life.
My freshman year of college I tried to simply ignore the issue of my sexuality, somehow hoping it would just sort itself out. Of course, things didn't just sort themselves out, and by Christmas break of my Sophomore year I was severely depressed, I had decided that I was not a Christian, and I began to have thoughts that maybe the world would be better off if I was dead.
Why was I depressed? A large part of it was due to the thought of me having to spend my entire life alone, never being able to confide in another human being on the level that husbands and wives do. I do not think that people realize how lonely it is to be gay at a place like Wheaton.
Why had I decided I was no longer a Christian? It was not because I stopped believing in God or any form of the supernatural. I still believed that God existed, I had simply refused to worship a God who would condemn me to a life without love or deep relationships. Humans are made to be connected with each other, and we are made to eventually make the deep connection with another human being such as happens in marriage, and the idea of God creating someone in such a way as to deny them that connection seemed to me to be wrong of God.
So, there I was during Christmas break, depressed and without faith. That is a terrible combination, and one I hope you never have to feel. Because of these two things I found myself honestly believing that the world could be better off if I was not around. Lucky for me, I am a coward and never acted on these thoughts. But it still scares me how close I came to commiting suicide.
But when I got back to campus, a wonderful thing happened to me. OneWheaton posted a letter around campus, saying that there is an alternative to the conservative beliefs that both my parents and Wheaton as an institution hold to. I read their letter, and then went to their site (onewheaton.com), and began to read and research. This research led me to find a viewpoint that had never before been shown to me as one that Christians can hold. The idea that homosexuality is not a sin. As I studied the issue more fully, I came out of my depression, and I regained my faith and belief in God and his goodness. I have now come to terms with my sexuality not as a curse, but simply as how God made me, and that I was made this way for a purpose. I am now aiming towards the goal of counseling teenage LGBTQ students as a carreer, giving them the support and guidance that I wish I had when I was their age. I also hope to one day find a loving christian husband, and to have a God honoring marriage.
I know that this will all sound very strange to almost every Wheaton student, and that the vast majority of you will disagree with me. I cannot hope to change your mind with what I have written here. So why have I written this? The reason is two fold: first, the climate on our campus is to look down on or to pity LGBTQ people, which is an attitude that is very harmful. Whether you believe that homosexuality is a sin or not, we must all still love each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we disagree on some matters. Also, I am not sure that Wheaton students actually believe that there are homosexual students on campus. It is approximated that 4-6% of Americans are homosexual, and from what I know, that is also a good approximation for Wheaton. That means there are probably 1-2 homosexual individuals per floor on campus. Please realize that homosexual students are around you in your daily life, whether you know it or not, and guard your words so that you do not inadvertantly hurt someone close to you. Secondly, I wrote this for any homosexual students that may read it: if you are struggling to find your way, confused, or doubting God, please realize that the college's official stance is not the only Christian stance. I want to encourage you to go to OneWheaton's website and check out their resources. Also, something that gave me hope when I was depressed was the "It gets better" campaign.
Again, I know many of you will disagree with me, and many will probably label me as a heretic, and think that I will never get into heaven (I've heard worse things said about homosexuality by Christians who didn't know that I myself am homosexual). I disagree with you, and I'm praying for you. If you disagree with me, I hope you will pray for me. That way we leave it up to God to change hearts, rather than bicker endlessly with each other.