About Kevin

I Was Deep In Denial

Growing up in an evangelical home, raised by an ex-military dad, being a churched kid, teen and young adult (five services a week) and having three straight siblings, left zero room to believe gay was even a possibility in my life. Additionally, I went to Bible college, traveled the world with a Christian contemporary singing group and numerous other ministries, which eliminated any infinitesimal homosexuality.

In Bible college in 1973, I met a Christian girl whom I truly loved—well, maybe only liked a lot, in retrospect. In 1975 we married. Eventually, we had two sons, in 1980 and 1982.

Yet in all that time I can’t ever recall meeting or knowing a guy who sparked any emotional or physical interest. Sure, there were guys I had an interest in, which I quickly brushed off as comradery or the desire to be good friends. Looking back, at least two were more.

My marriage was more friends, companions, partners and parents. There was little to no real physical passion or physical attraction. However, while earning a living, building a home and raising children, I had little time to consider the lack of a normal lover’s relationship. It just was what it was, and I lived with it. No, it really never satisfied or fulfilled me, but after the children came along, my fulfillment was not a priority.

The years from 1975 through 2006 moved quickly. Looking at an upcoming retirement and an empty nest, at 55 years old, and with 30 years of marriage, had left me in a state of having zero expectations of ever having any fulfillment or real happiness. I didn’t even know what would make me happy, but I would soon find out.

Still, I was certain: I was not gay! In actuality, I had never even considered that thought, nor had I ever even entertained it.

My sons got their own place, and the wife and I packed up and moved to North Miami. I had gotten a job as a personal assistant to a famous nutritionist doctor. And I was headed for a sudden crash course in who Kevin truly was. But when the crash came, it would bring me all the happiness and joy I’d secretly yearned for since I was a teen and through a 30-year-plus marriage.

When the joy came, it came suddenly on a moonlit Friday night, as the palms swayed in the gentle summer breeze, in South Beach, Florida.

The joy came, and the decades of denial evaporated in a chance meeting of a man who did what no other man had ever done. He made me feel attracted to another man. He caused my heart to race, my breath to stagger, my voice to stutter, my hands to shake and my brow to sweat. No one had ever done that. That night, that man and that encounter caused my paradigms to shift with the force of an earthquake.

It was then, and only then, that I thought I might be gay. It was like the scales fell from my eyes, and the walls crumbled from around my heart. The attraction was so much more than physical. It was a soulful connection. His touch on my hand crackled and popped like electricity.

Over the next days, weeks and months, we fell in love, and it was then that I was sure I was gay. Yes, we tried the just-friends thing, which lasted next to no time at all.

Rather quickly, in just a few days, I had to tell my wife, “I’m pretty sure I’m gay.” Of course, that began the end of a 32-year friendship and a 30-year-plus marriage.

Over the next few months, the thought of being gay seemed so very natural and normal, like the feel of a pair of worn jeans that fit so comfortably. My Christian part didn’t go away or diminish. It just became paired with my sexual orientation. The two, which I once thought were an oxymoron, now walked hand in hand. Being gay and a Christian harmonized like a wonderful, rich melody.

Just a year and a half into my new life, I met Rick Brentlinger—the founder of Gay Christian 101 and the founder listed on this website—via his book and his website. It was his amazing research and study that helped me to become an out, proud, gay Christian. He was the clarity that motivated me to go on and become a writer of gay-themed books and poetry, a radio talk show host of one of the country’s very few openly gay shows, and one of the administrators, along with Jim, here at Gay Christian Truth.

Today my life is that of a Christian man who feels no shame or guilt for being gay. I am who God created me to be—a man who was created to love and be in relationship with another man.

Why it took me decades to get here, I don’t know. But I’m happy, content and certain that this was always my destination.

About Jim

God Has No Plan B

In the summer of my junior year of college, I was moving to an on-campus apartment for the first time. A few weeks before the move, I had the opportunity to change my assignment from a random apartment to another that I thought I would enjoy more. While the school performed maintenance on our permanent assignments, we were placed for a couple weeks in other housing. Two of my roommates for those two weeks would also be with me in my permanent apartment, but one, Alex, was to be a couple buildings away.

I quickly developed a strong attraction to Alex. He was everything I wanted to be—masculine, attractive, athletic and confident. Everyone seemed to be drawn to his charisma, and relationships with other people, both men and women, seemed so easy for him. He told me that he walked away from playing baseball and what he was sure was leading to a professional career.

Now when most guys claim that they’re athletically skilled at a professional level, you discount it as hubris or wishful thinking, but not Alex. In spite of having every reason to be arrogant, he was probably the most humble man I had ever met up to that time. And his reason for walking away from baseball only supported that view. He wanted no part of the idolatry that he knew would be placed on him if he were to become a professional athlete.

In those two weeks that we were roommates, Alex began sharing his Christian faith. I said many hateful and blasphemous things to him, and he always stayed calm and was never harsh with me. We spent a lot of time together talking about God and other things, and when we all moved to our permanent assignments, Alex and I continued to hang out and develop a friendship.

Well, for him it was a friendship. For me, it became a very strong infatuation, maybe even an obsession. Alex was on my mind constantly, and all I wanted to do was spend more time with him. I spent a lot of time with him at his apartment, along with his three roommates. As it turns out, they were all Christians, too.

They invited me to join a twice-a-week Bible study they were starting, and since it meant spending more time with Alex, I readily agreed. We started reading in Matthew, and each Bible study night, we went around the room, taking turns reading a few verses, and then we all talked about what those verses meant to us. Having zero Biblical knowledge, I didn’t have much to say, but I listened.

On one occasion I complained about smearing the ink in my Gideon’s New Testament, which was the only Bible I owned. A meeting or two later, Alex and his roommates presented me with an NIV gift Bible with my name engraved on the front. I was unexpectedly very moved by this, and it felt like one of the most thoughtful and caring gifts that anyone had ever given me.

A few weeks later, following one of our meetings, one of Alex’s roommates asked me if I had made any decisions about what we had been reading. I clearly remember my response, since at the time it struck me as an odd thing to say. “No, not yet. I don’t really believe all these things we’re reading, but I know that one day I will.”

One night, after our Bible study, I was lying in bed thinking about what I had read over the last few months, and what I had learned about God and His Word from Alex and his roommates. I started talking to God and asked Him to help me to believe, and in the course of our conversation, I did believe. That night, I confessed my need for Jesus and received Him as my Savior.

In the following weeks, as I reflected on the experience, I was reminded of my decision to change my apartment assignment, and I started to feel that the names of Alex’s roommates were strangely familiar to me. Soon I realized that their names were on the apartment that I had been originally assigned to, and Alex was my replacement in that unit.

God had planned it all. Whether from living in that apartment myself, or from hanging out with them often, God had determined to surround me with Christians from whom I could receive the truth. He knew I would change apartments, but placing Alex with me temporarily was not a fallback plan to draw me into that apartment full of Christians. It was integral to His plan, and my attraction to Alex was a significant part of it. I never would have attended a Bible study were it not for my determination to spend as much time as possible with Alex.

I began to understand that God had allowed these homosexual attractions to develop in me because He knew He was going to use my attraction to Alex to draw me into His Kingdom.