Article by Abigail Garner

I never really liked going to church. Right before I started junior high, I told my mom I didn’t want to go at all anymore. Mom told me that “the rule in our family” (as if it had been carved in stone centuries back) was that I was required to attend confirmation class and then make that decision. Since, at the end of eighth grade I would be mature enough to join the church, she told me, I would also be mature enough to not join if I chose to.

Eighth grade — and confirmation classes — finally came to an end. I honored my part of the agreement, and after seven years of Sunday school and two years of confirmation classes, I made my educated decision to leave the church. It was not the first time — nor the last time — that raising a free-thinking, authority-challenging daughter would backfire on my parents.

You could say I rejected my church before my church had the chance to reject me. In confirmation class, the teachers ignored the “fag” jokes and diverted any conversations that veered toward open dialogue about homosexuality. It was bad enough facing homophobia at school. Why did I have to keep my guard up at church too?

I resented members of the congregation who seemed to accept my father as long as he maintained his role as Benign Homosexual. You know: the gay guy who puts on a tie and leaves his partner at home and “you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking.”

My father put up with the church’s conditional acceptance for more than ten years longer than I did. I recently asked him why he stayed so long. He said that until he discovered his new church (where he is fully accepted as an openly gay man), he didn’t know it could be any different. Being treated as “less than” had simply been part of my father’s life for as long as he could remember.

Ironically, it was my father who had taught me that being gay was not a measure of anyone’s worthiness and that discrimination of any kind should not be tolerated. His voice was probably playing in my head as I sat uncomfortably in confirmation class, as I observed my father in church be only part of who he really is, and finally, when I gave myself permission to walk away from the congregation. Dad didn’t encourage me to leave, but his wisdom definitely influenced my decision. Looking back on it now, I still feel that it was the right choice for me. Partial inclusion isn’t really inclusion.

It just took my dad a while longer to have faith in his own wisdom.

This commentary first appeared in Just For Us.

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