Wednesday, Jul. 10, 2002 - 2:56 p.m.
Church of the Poisoned Body

I first visited a gay bar back when I was seventeen but I don’t usually count that proto-homo experience: rather, I mark my entrance into queer sociality three years later, in the fall of 1986. What I remember most about it—aside from picking up a cute, weird blond guy in the parking lot at the end of the evening—was the sight of two beautiful, tall young men dancing so unselfconsciously. The song, I vividly recall, was “Male Stripper” by Man2Man, and to this day it evokes this defining moment of my coming out.

The dancing men I watched were so attractive, fresh-faced, and—yes, this was a big deal for me at the time—masculine-looking; they looked carefree, liberated from the guilt and shame that had kept me so closeted up till then.

Their dance gave me hope…and a hard-on.

One of them, Jason, had a bubble butt and dirty blond hair; the other one, Karl, was a tall, broad-shouldered brunette with stunning brown eyes. The kind of liquid brown warmth you want to swim into. He radiated a wholesome, grounded vibe that was instantly appealing.

Jason died of AIDS about five years ago. Karl, I recently learned, is now the priest in Matt’s mother’s parish. Matt (my ex-lover and good friend) and Trevor recently went home for a visit and attended church with Matt’s mom; Matt nearly fell over at the sight of “Father Karl” behind the pulpit.

So far as I know, Karl and Jason were always ‘just’ good friends, not boyfriends. I became slightly acquainted with Jason in those early years on the scene, but I don’t recall even having a conversation with Karl. He dropped out of the small city’s gay milieu shortly after my debut, and I later heard the gossip that, unable to reconcile gayness with Catholicism, Karl had entered a monastery or something. Sad. That was the last thing I heard about him until Matt’s recent announcement.

I’m not Catholic. I have many close friends like Matt who are recovering Catholics. I try not to let my opposition to the warped, evil social doctrines coming out of this church prejudice me against those who still observe the faith; I do not always succeed in this. (When Mark and I were still together, his kinda-sorta gay-positive uncle once recommended that we read some new book written by the Pope, that we’d get a lot out of John Paul II’s spiritual ruminations; I didn’t make a scene, but man was I pissed off. I said to Mark later, “That’s like telling a Jew to read Mein Kampf!”)

I was apoplectic at the news that Karl is now a Catholic priest. “You have got to be kidding,” I spluttered to Matt and Trevor. “That is just sick! If this isn’t a disaster waiting to happen, I don’t know what is. Talk about a metaphor for everything that’s fucked up about the Catholic church!”

A week or so later, I am only slightly more calm. I have managed to access some empathy for Karl, to identify with the struggle—now, seemingly conceded—to accept himself; I know what that’s like. But I’m still angry with him for giving up, for hiding behind a robe that’s supposed to make the body vanish but only poisons it.

Like, fuck.

I’m unable to talk about religious homophobia for long without getting into a tizzy. My blood is starting to boil as I write this, and what’s the point in working myself up into an inarticulate rage?

So let me just stay with that one visceral image. Me, twenty years old, newly-out, nervous, horny and unsure of myself; Karl, a bit older, sexy, confident, comfortable with himself, dancing and carefree. The image burned itself into me; a birth of gay consciousness, perhaps; a glimmer of okayness, of hope.

Appearances can be deceiving. Is that all there is to this story? No.

I mean, it’s good to remind myself that there is such a thing as free will. Karl has made choices that I don’t like, but they were his to make. The fact that he’s renounced his homosexuality and embraced priestly celibacy shouldn’t—and doesn’t—shake my sense of okayness with the choices I have made.

It’s sad when you can’t accept yourself. It’s also a universal human problem, with intrapsychic dimensions that anyone—male, female, gay, straight—can relate to. But what bothers me the most is the prospect of some guilt-ridden Catholic boy seeking guidance about his homosexuality from Father Karl, or sitting in the pew listening to him sermonize about Catholic family values. In order to hide, this man with the dancing brown eyes, whom I found so handsome and self-assured—so inspiring—years ago, has become a conduit for the hatred he himself could not confront.

If I believed in sin, if the term had any personal meaning to me whatsoever, that’s what I’d call this sad, fucked-up turn of events. A sin.