The public junior high was nothing but a hotbed of sin.  Or so my fundamentalist parent thought.  So instead of moving on with my friends, in 6th grade I was inserted into a small church school, where everyone had grown up together.  Being the outsider made for a rough year, so in 7^th grade I was homeschooled.  I was terribly lonely, so in 8^th grade, my parents sent me back to the church school.

I was on the cheerleading team and we were going to be travelling for a competition, which meant staying in a hotel, where we were assigned roommates.  One day, shortly before we left, we were all hanging out during lunch.  One of the girls asked me to go upstairs to her desk to get her a pencil.  I lifted up her desk, and a bright orange post-it note was laying right on top, cleary meant for me to find.  It was a note from another classmate, and it said: “I wish Caris didn’t have to stay in our hotel room.  I wish she wasn’t even coming.”  The red heat of shame and humiliation flooded my face.  The pencil had been just a ruse.

*****

I know what it’s like to be excluded and not wanted by people who say they love Jesus.  And I’ve had it happen often enough by many different stripes of Christians that I started wondering if that was a requirement of following Jesus. 

I understand why people leave Christianity.  When all you know of Jesus is fundamentalism, exclusion and fear, why would you want to stay?

I understand, because that’s how I was raised.  I was born in 1981, into a world run by the Moral Majority.  ‘Pat Robertson for President’ was seen around our house.  My pastor and people from our church were arrested for protesting abortion clinics.  I was steeped in a world of absolute rights and wrongs, a clear line between black and white. 

Growing up, one of my favorite activities was reading the newspaper, and my favorite section was the obituaries.  I remember being shocked and horribly sad when Mike Brady died.  I was even more devastated when I learned Robert Reed was gay and had died from AIDS.  Not only was my favorite TV dad dead, he was rotting in hell.

Being anti-gay and terrified of AIDS was a common theme in my life.  Everyone knows being ‘a homosexual’ is just the worst thing you could possibly be.  And AIDS is just what you get for being so wicked.  I remember Greg Louganis being in the Olympics, and my parent talking about how selfish he was that he competed and put everyone at risk with his blood, and all of those people should just be quarantined anyway.

I grew up on Lake Michigan and I remember watching the sand for dirty needles.  I became terrified of public toilets and to this day I won’t sit on one.  (I didn’t make that connection until now.  Fear runs deep.)  I knew that you shouldn’t give a stranger CPR because you might catch it.  The fear of AIDS and the disdain for gays was everywhere.

And then a boy who lived 2 hours from me got HIV from a blood transfusion.  And he became national news.  I remember going to the mall and seeing banners and posters all over about him, honoring him, raising awareness, I assume.

But the lesson I took away from it all was that those horrible people selfishly donated their blood and got normal, innocent people sick.  Rather than ending the fear and discrimination that Ryan White so desired, it seemed to increase it, in my Christian world at least.

It was the 90s now, and I was in Jr. high, high school.  Gays and AIDS still weren’t on our radar, and besides, didn’t they have medicine to fix that now?  I mean, when it comes to places like Africa, sure, we should be sympathetic and do what we can to help, but have you seen the news lately?  There’s a little country no one’s ever heard of and they are killing each other.  Everyone knows it’s all corrupt and they are dangerous and uncivilized.  Yeah, it’s sad they are sick, but really, if everyone would just stop.fucking.around, this whole AIDS thing would just go away.  Why is it our problem again?  We can’t think about that.  We have the Clintons to deal with.

Even after Christians realized they could claim a legitimate rock star as one of their own, and their most favorite president evah made AIDS in Africa a priority, I didn’t hear a peep about it from the conservative Christian world I lived in.  The extent of our outreach to ‘the other’ was sponsoring Compassion and World Vision kids.

This whole gay thing is just a conspiracy anyways.  Everyone knows that.  It’s an agenda driven by the media.  I mean, Will & Grace was an abomination of a TV show and everyone who was really righteous stopped watching ER after Kerry Weaver came out and especially after she kissed her girlfriend.  Oh, America, where have you gone?

Sarah and Micah went on an AIDS walk and who knew those were still a thing?  Isn’t AIDS just an African deal now?

But, whatever.  It doesn’t really matter.  That’s not what is important to Jesus!  We’ve got churches to build, seats to fill, and we’ve got to figure out how to make it the funnest, coolest place for families to come to church, and what else can we do to make it comfortable for outsiders to come and join?  We are aware that people aren’t coming to church, so let’s have another conference to figure out why!

*****

When you’re growing up, you’re a fish in water.  You don’t realize the water is there, because it’s always been there.  I didn’t know how human our tendency to exclude is.  I thought being a Christian meant everything you said and did because of God was right and true.  I didn’t know how often we put Jesus make-up over our fearful and hateful faces and think we’ve changed.

I never knew the other side of my story – the ones who died and lived it.  These are the people who were demonized by the church, collectively laying on the side of the road.  They became their own Samaritans because we refused to look at them.

Christians today might think that Chick-Fil-A or World Vision are isolated examples, and really, we promise, we love gay people, we just don’t agree with them.  But there is a pattern to this story that makes people believe that exclusion and fear are central to who Jesus is. 

Christians of the past 40 years have blood on their hands – both brown dried and wet, sticky red.  History has consequences, and we need to understand them.

*****

During the 80s, the slogan for AIDS was Silence = Death.  This is just as true today.  Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to explore the history of AIDS, the LGBT community, and the church.  Next Monday night, the 19^th, PBS is running the documentary God Loves Uganda, which focuses on the ‘Kill the Gays’ bill and how evangelical Christians are instrumental in that movement.   I can’t continue to be silent when the movement is spreading worldwide, because of Christians.  We have to know our history, and we have to find our voice.

At the end of the series, I’ll have a list of resources, but if you’re looking for a place to start, start with these obituaries from the 1980s.  It quickly puts a human face to what can be an abstract story.  And many, many thanks to Kenny for making me aware of all of this and for teaching me and guiding me through this series.

Gays, AIDS, and the Church

My Story: Part 1
Fear and Silence: Part 2
The Religious Right: Part 3
Oh, the Humanity: Part 4
Modern-Day Colonialism: Part 5
Africa, Russia, the Past, and Now: Part 6
The ‘Gay Agenda’: Part 7
The Rest of My Story: Part 8
Resources: Part 9