I am gay and it is about time I said it out loud

An article for coming out

I will turn 32 this year. I’ve known I am gay for the last 20 years of my life. I started telling friends in 2015, the year I first had a boyfriend. I don’t advertise my sexuality but the news should not shock anyone who pays attention to the content of my conversations (e.g., my comments on another man’s appearance or how I talk about Robert Pattinson a lot).

There are a lot of reasons I haven’t been open about my sexual orientation. Some of those reasons overlap, at least one of them should not be difficult to imagine, and almost none of them are actually significant reasons to hide one’s self. The South is a complicated place with complex social networks, not unlike civilizations of various social progress everywhere. Navigating love, hate, and the in-between isn’t so different here from any other place, it’s just primarily branded by religion. Secularism isn’t new but is burgeoning in my home state of Mississippi, so it is present. I think people outside of Mississippi (and the American South in general) measure regional differences against a monolithic ideal “last place” character. The people in my community are the best people I’ve ever met in my life, so color-me-not-interested in dunking on the people in my life who think differently than me just to satisfy someone else’s ideas about where I live.

I struggle to identify as religious these days, though I do read religious thinkers and consume religious content. I come from a background of bible reading, church membership, and pastoral education in my formative youth. Much of my community in Mississippi is part of a church. It has been the technocratic days of my last 7 years which have led me to deconstruction and a healthier embrace of uncertainty. In my view being gay has very little to do with the core tenets of my self, but I recognize myself as part of the LGBTQ+ community and understand that it is to the benefit of that community if I am a public member.

As for my philosophy, I am an ignostic stoic. There are four fundamental virtues by which I try to live my life:

• to be open-minded
• to be empathetic
• to be honest
• to be kind

The fact that I hope to share my life with a man does not change the reality that I will fail to reach even these ideals someday, as all humans do. But they are virtues for that reason, and strive after them I must. This is how I work out my own salvation with fear and trembling.

If you read this and decide that I need to know the biblical or moral arguments against homosexuality, please save your energy and my time. I am well aware of the lines of debate and would instead refer you to John Corvino’s thought experiments in his lecture What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality? Go fight with folks in the YouTube comments because there it would be consensual.

Should this article bring you anything other than a greater understanding of who I am, I would clarify that I am not looking to debate. This is an intentional message with an invitation to celebrate our differences and appreciate our commonalities.

Peace, Michael