Dear Mom and Dad,

I came home for Christmas vacation this year expecting to tell C, P and Ma... that I was gay. I had already told M and J at the beginning of last summer and I told N about three years ago when she asked if I was gay. If you are reading this it is because I suspected you knew something was up and that it was time to let you know as well.

As I write this, it is December 4th. I look toward the trip home with a combination of sorrow and dread. It seems like the way I would feel if all of you had some sort of terminal illness and there was a very real possibility that this was the last time I ever would see you alive. There is a bit of anger as well at the fact that instead of the Lord taking you away it may be you who puts the distance between us. Telling you about this just shouldn't be this big of a deal . I am the same person I was yesterday and the same person I've always been. I anticipate, however, that telling you will be extremely painful.

I feel as if I am under pressure to have the all of the answers to every question you may have. I do not. I also fear that the attempt below to anticipate some of your questions may leave you completely overwhelmed. I will, however, spend the rest of this letter trying to anticipate some of your questions like...

When did I decide I was gay?

The classic response to this question is to indignantly ask "When did YOU decide you weren't?". My answer is only slightly more complicated. I've had feelings for other guys since I was about 10 or 11 years old. I have never in my life had feelings toward girls or women. It doesn't mean that I don't notice or appreciate when a woman is exceptionally good looking just as you notice and appreciate when someone of your own sex is exceptionally good looking. It means that my fantasies, arousal and longing for closeness have always been directed at other guys and never at girls or women. Most straight people don't hope against hope that their attraction to people of the opposite sex is merely an adolescent phase they will outgrow in time. I, on the other hand hoped that my feelings were merely a phase for about 15 years. I even had a hard time believing my straight friends weren't faking their feelings. Finally, when I was teaching high school I had a chance to observe the behavior of the kids there. I noticed that when high school aged kids are in a small classroom and an attractive member of the opposite sex walks into the room there is a kind of electricity in the air. They act different --- silly. Their hormones go into overdrive. When I was in high school and college I never had this feeling when girls walked into the room but with certain guys I remember I did. I realized then that the feelings of the kids and my straight friends --- as well as my own feelings were, in fact, genuine. I came to grips with the fact that at 27 or 28 years old I had long since passed adolescence and any feelings I may have had were not merely due to an adolescent phase.

Am I sexually active? This is really a private matter, as are the details of your sex life. It does, however, seem like a good lead-in for some more personal history. During my years teaching high school I had pretty much resigned myself to a celibate life. I even had passing thoughts about becoming a priest but the call just wasn't there. It merely seemed like a good idea for someone who was going to remain celibate anyway. Not long after I was admitted into the grad school, I realized that if the opportunity for an intimate relationship with another man came along that I would take it.

I realized at that time that I resented terribly how the church merely asked straight people to abstain from sex until they were married while it condemned me to a lifetime of loneliness. I resented even more the fact that when my straight friends fell short of the church's relatively easy demands on them that most Catholics would take the attitude of "boys will be boys" . On the other hand, if I faltered under the unfair, unreasonable and ultimately unbearable burden the church had saddled on me, I would risk my fellow Catholics, even my own family turning against me. I did not go to communion for nearly a year after this point. After about a year I figured that since I wasn't actually committing any mortal sin that I could go back to communion for the time being and wait until such time as I had an intimate relationship to deal with the issue. I broke the "communion boycott" with a visit to Fr. B for face-to-face confession. This was about 5 years ago now and I can't exactly recall what he said. I remember he dutifully recited the church's "partly line" on the issue of homosexuality and homosexual sex but managed to provide some comfort somehow. He also advised me at the time to not tell you I was gay. The reasons for his advice, as well as the reason I am not adhering to this advice now will be mentioned later.

No opportunities for an intimate relationship ever did come along when I was in grad school. It was not very reasonable to expect that they would as long as I was in the closet. Whenever I would meet an attractive single man there would be the risk of being ostracized, physical injury or even death if I ever let my feelings be known. Similarly if there were any men who were attracted to me I'm sure they had the same fears. I probably could have pursued a relationship if I knew a person to whom I was attracted was gay. The problem with that was that the only way one can tell if people are gay is if they are further "out of the closet" than I was at the time or if they had some effeminate trait, which I found unattractive. It became clear that a relationship was not going to happen unless I actively sought it out.

Last May I began to notice a disturbing pattern in the relationship with a good friend here. I found myself attracted to him. Whenever anything seemed to bother him I suspected it was because he knew I was attracted to him. Without asking point blank if that was the problem, however, I could never find out if he knew. This happened in a string of friendships dating back to when I was in the ninth grade. The cycle would end with the friend distancing himself from me for reasons he could not or would not say and my being frustrated and devastatingly heartbroken. I broke the cycle with the friend here by telling him I was gay. Fortunately, he had several friends back home who were gay and was comfortable with the idea. We've had several conversations since and whenever he seemed to be uncomfortable we were able to talk it out. He has become as good of a friend as I've ever had in my life. Now, however I realized that the feelings I had for my friends were not those of admiration or hero worship but of sexual attraction. The only healthy outlet for these feelings would be an intimate relationship with another gay man and such a relationship was not going to happen unless I sought it out.

The first place I looked to meet people and to find comfort with the religious dilemma I faced was Dignity, an organization of gay Catholics. It took three months to find them. They were not listed in the phone book. I asked several Catholic churches, including one that prided itself on being quite liberal but none of them knew where to find it. I found the number of the national office of Dignity in the back of a book called "Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America". Three months after deciding to look for Dignity, I finally found out how to contact them in here -- and found out that they held mass once a month at the place where I had been attending mass all along. Dignity proved not to be a great place to meet potential dates -- only about 10 to 15 people attend in any given month. It was however a place where I met several older gay couples who had been in very long-term monogamous relationships. It was a group of people with whom it was OK to be both gay and Catholic.

I've been to a couple of the bars. They were nowhere near as disgusting as I had pictured them being but they still aren't great places to meet people. I went to a meeting of a campus gay group but they were younger wilder and more "out" than I was so it wasn't too comfortable. I will be going to a meeting of a gay and lesbian hiking club tomorrow night. I have dated one guy down here. I met him by responding to a personal ad in the paper. We went out three times. There was not a tremendous amount of spark between and it ended after three dates.

Why can't I just keep quiet about this?

I don't exactly advertise the fact that I'm gay. I've explained earlier why I felt I had to tell my friend here. As for telling the family, I told N about three years ago because she asked and I didn't feel like lying about it. I told Mo and J last May be cause I had told my friend here just before the break and I was thinking about it a lot and had to talk. I knew that after half of the siblings knew there could be some sort of domino effect where everybody would find out -- or even worse -- all but one person would find out and that one person could be the only one not to know for quite some time. Besides, I just need to clear the air on this and I think I'm ready to do it now.

Several years ago, when I spoke with Fr. B, he advised me not to tell you about this. He drew an analogy to a couple in which the husband had cheated on the wife and wondered whether or not to tell her. He had found that when the husband 'fessed up to the wife, she held it against him for the rest of her marriage. On the other hand, if the husband kept it to himself and just stopped cheating it worked out better. The problem is now I've grown tired of being silent. If that is selfish then so be it. In addition it has become increasingly clear that my situation is not like a past indiscretion in a marriage but it is about who I am, who I always will be, who may become significant in my life and how he and I will be received by this family.

There is also the matter of integrity and standing up for what is right. My family and closest friends need to know that when they make disparaging comments about gay people they make them about me. They need to know that when people ask for their vote to ban so called special rights they are asking for approval to kick me out of my home and fire me from my job without any reason whatsoever. They need to realize that when they accept church teaching on homosexuality without question then they are accepting without question that I should relegate myself to a life of celibacy. It is a life in which the only reward I see is dying a lonely, miserable yet still intrinsically disordered old man. When my family and closest friends hear about how promiscuous gay men are they need to realize that one of the few gay men they know remained a virgin until relatively very late in life. When they hear the terms "homosexuality" and "pedophilia" used as if they were the same thing they need to know that one of the few gay men they actually know was a high school teacher with ethical standards that were beyond reproach.-- a man who never treated kids with anything other than the utmost respect and would never ever harm a child. They can think what they want but I can' t let them do so without knowing the pain these myths and misconceptions inflict on decent people who haven't hurt anybody.

Could I be wrong? Could it just be that I haven't met the right woman?

I personally know three people who had a gay relationship only to go back to a steady diet of straight relationships. On the other hand, I also know of a woman who had a boyfriend for several years who now says she is a lesbian and dates women.

One important fact in all of these situations is that exploring homosexual feelings and pursuing gay relationships did not prevent these people from eventually finding somebody of the opposite sex to love. If I am, in fact, wrong about this and if there is a Miss Right somewhere who will convert me somehow from these feelings then I could still meet her even if I pursue a gay life now. The tone of the last sentence makes it sound like I just want to experiment. I would ask you to contrast this "experiment" with another more cruel experiment, i.e. dating and/or marrying somebody who I was not attracted to just to see if I could be changed. Many men have been pressured to do this by society and have been (along with their wives) trapped in loveless marriages as a result. The best thing that could come of it would be to spend a year or two dating, only to decide against marriage in the end. How would you feel if a man came along to perform this cruel experiment with one of my sisters? I, for one, would not b e pleased.

Another important detail in these situations is that, at least in the two cases where I know the person well, the pursuit of a homosexual relationship occurred after meeting the person with whom they had the relationship. These people weren't homosexual, they merely met someone special of their own sex with whom they thought they wanted a sexual relationship. My feelings are not toward one special person but toward men in general.

Waiting for a woman to come along who will convert me from a lifetime of disinterest in women and girls and fascination with men and boys seems about as foolish as quitting school and sitting around waiting to win the lottery. It could happen. Lots of people have won the lottery. I can't say with absolute certainty that it won't happen to me someday. It is just that I won't bet my economic well being on it happening. The possibility of meeting a woman to whom I'm attracted and with whom I could be happy seems to me to be as likely as winning the lottery and I will not gamble my emotional well being on the hope that it will happen.

Do not for one minute confuse the last statement with giving up hope on meeting a woman who I could marry. I never did hope to meet a woman I could marry. My hopes have always been for closeness with another man.

What about AIDS and other issues of personal safety?

I fear that discussing this to anything remotely near your satisfaction would involve discussing my present or future sex life in far more graphic detail than I wish to. The first thing I need to say about this is that I am an intelligent and mature person and I am aware of these issues. I am aware of the fact that AIDS is transmitted by the exchange of blood or semen from an infected individual and in order to minimize or eliminate the risk of contracting AIDS one must eliminate or minimize the risk of exchange of blood or semen with an infected individual. I have read and will read further on how to minimize the risks involved. I will contact a physician and consult with public health professionals on this topic before engaging in a sexual relationship of any sort. I will use my best judgment on this. It is all I can do.

The other thing I need to say on this is that I firmly believe that the risks of contracting AIDS or other STD's as well as the risk of personal injury are greatly reduced by admitting I want an intimate relationship with another man and pursuing that relationship deliberately and without heroic measures to try to conceal the fact. In the reading I've done I've seen the stories of men who struggled against their sexuality until they couldn't stand it any longer only to give in impulsively to sexual encounters with strangers with no serious consideration towards disease prevention or personal safety. I've heard of these people beaten to death by someone they met in an unfamiliar bar in a city miles from home---a place they went to make extra sure that nobody they knew would find out. I believe that the route I am taking is both the safest and the one most likely to result in a fulfilling relationship.

If there is no hope that I 'm not gay and there's no hope that I will decide against pursuing a relationship then where are you supposed to find hope?

I begin this section with a story a man down here once told me. He had a Catholic friend whose son had committed suicide. The friend went to her priest disconsolate about the fact that her son's last act was to commit a mortal sin by taking his own life. The priest asked the woman if she would condemn her son to hell for this. She told the priest that she would not. The priest responded by asking her "Do you think that you're more merciful than God?"

I tell this story to make the point that your faith was given to you by God to be a source of guidance in carrying out his will on earth as well as a source of hope. I cannot believe that God gave you the gift of faith so he could torment you with images of your beloved children roasting in hell. I have found considerable hope in a couple of books, which I will most likely give you with this letter. One of these books is "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality" by Daniel Helminiak and the other is "The Church and the Homosexual" by John J. McNeill. Who are these people that they can go about dispensing hope that my immortal soul will not roast in hell if I pursue a homosexual relationship? They are not the magisterium; in fact they make a point of telling the reader they are not! They are, however, Roman Catholic priests who were devout enough in their faith to commit their lives to service of God and the Church through the priesthood. They are also theologians who know an awful lot more about the sacred scripture than I do. They probably know more than you or anyone up at your parish as well. No, it doesn't make them automatically right. It does, however, make their views worth considering, particularly if it may help you in seeing your faith as the source of hope it was meant to be rather than the source of despair that God surely did not intend. They may not convince you to picket the Vatican in angry certitude that the church is wrong. They may, however, provide you with some hope that the Church may have blown the call on this issue, just as it did on Gallileo and the selling of indulgences ---not to mention the hope that the church can continue to be a source of comfort and guidance even if it is wrong on this particular issue.

Some other thoughts.

I love you. I am not doing this to rebel against you or reject you. I am doing this because this is the way I am and I am convinced it is the only way for me to find happiness and emotional well being.

I am not doing this to embarrass you in front of your friends and relatives. The nearest relative lives 600 miles away and the nearest family friend lives 500 miles away.

I am not rejecting your faith and mine. On the contrary, while many people my age have quit going to church out of mere laziness, I have remained active in church in spite of an apparent total lack of understanding from some in the hierarchy and the knowledge that many in the congregation would be hostile if they knew. I can almost hear your thoughts of "What did they teach you in those Catholic schools we spent all of that money to send you to?". They taught us that sex was to be reserved for a lifelong relationship in Christian marriage --- a relationship that was necessarily with somebody of the opposite sex. I just didn't buy into the notion. Hopefully you can see by this point why I had trouble believing this. They also taught us (not in so many words) that our faith was more than a mere litany of sex taboos. I hang on to the essential notions that our purpose here is to glorify God and that along the way we must treat other people with respect and compassion. I agree to disagree with the Church in its teachings on homosexuality. Some people don't understand how I could be a Catholic and not buy into this. They don't have to understand. It is my life and my soul --- not theirs. Some people just plain don't want some fag sitting in the pew next to them in church. That's their problem --- not mine.

As you read earlier in this letter, it took me 15 years to accept the fact that I was gay and over 20 years to accept the fact that I must look for a man to love. I had (and still have) a long life ahead of me and could afford to fritter so much time away denying reality. It would be unreasonable then for me to expect that you would somehow accept and be comfortable with all of this instantly. I do hope that you are better and faster at dealing with this than I was, for it doesn't seem wise to expect we w ill have another 20 years together on earth for you to deal with this. I anticipate that there will be rocky times ahead for us in the coming months. Please remember through it all that I am grateful for all that you've done for me and I will always love you.