• the217
• Blogs
• With Tongue
• Catholic School Boys: Luke

• RSS

Catholic School Boys: Luke

posted by Liam Reed at 11:44 am.

• Bookmark & Share
• Comments (0)

When I first sought out to interview gay guys who went to Catholic schools, my main goal was to find a relationship between spirituality and sexuality. I wanted to see if it was possible for a gay guy to remain Catholic or a Catholic to carry on homosexual relationships. I interviewed five different guys: Luke, AJ, Matt, Ted, and Pat. Their stories, of course, do not represent the entire gay community or the entire Christian community, but they do provide a quick glance into the lives of five different guys who have had very different experiences. Some of them have come to the same ultimate conclusion and some have not. I’ll be using aliases for some of the guys, but I’m not going to let you know which ones. That makes it fun, right?

These are all going to be really long. For the most part I have transcribed the entire interview, just because a) I love this voice recorded I bought and b) I haven’t written in so long that I feel I should really tell the entire story. So I’m sorry if it takes you longer than 5 minutes to read, but hopefully you’ll find it worth it.

Let’s just dive right into it, shall we?

Luke

Luke is a student at U of I – Springfield. Luke grew up in a more liberal household, and so we’ll start with him and slowly work our way through guys raised in more conservative households. Today Luke considers himself agnostic, borderline atheist. This is his interview.

With Tongue: Borderline atheist, huh? What’s keeping you from crossing the border?

Luke: There’s something so definite in declaring yourself atheist. I just don’t think I can ever know what lies ahead, in any sense. I sometimes think that atheists can be more discriminated against than a lot of other groups in the US. My parents are lapsed Catholics and when they had a falling out with the church when I was in about 7th or 8th grade they lost friends, we had to sometimes lie to family members about going to church. Being a closeted atheist can almost be as scary as being a closeted gay depending on your circle of friends.

W.T. Alright, and you went to Catholic school, yes?

Luke: I started in 3rd grade and graduated from a catholic high school. 3rd through 8th was the same grade school, then all the catholic schools are funneled into the only high school in town.

W.T. Can you tell me which school or would you like to keep that anonymous?

Luke: Ehh id rather not. I still haven’t come out to a lot of people in high school and I’d hate for them to find out online. I was the only Luke: in my class. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist.

W.T. Alright, no problem. Now were these schools co-ed?

Luke: Yes

W.T. What was sex education like?

Luke: Hahaha, well in grade school they didn’t want to deal with it in the school so we all got sent to the health center, but it was mostly like “your changing body and you” type stuff. In high school “health class” was taught by a male coach, and never mentioned contraceptives, only natural family planning. Anyone pro-choice was eligible for expulsion, if that gives you some idea of the climate.

W.T. Wow, okay, so abortion was bad and contraceptives weren’t mentioned. How about homosexuality?

Luke: Never discussed, unless it was brought up, which never happened in health class. Sometimes it was talked about in religion class. Basically, it wasn’t a sin to be gay, but it was a sin to practice it, think about practicing it, if you were gay, they asked you to remain celibate.

W.T. So what did you think about that?

Luke: Well it’s highly idealistic and contradictory.

W.T. You thought this even when you were in high school? What would you say was the opinion of your peers?

Luke: Well, speaking for my peers, it was that gays were punchlines, nothing more. My parents have always been pretty liberal and so I grew up in a place that was accepting but a lot of the families at church were not. If a gay couple had showed up at mass, I’m pretty sure they would’ve been booed out. That never happened though.

W.T. Would you say any of this influenced your agnosticism?

Luke: Of course, and I probably didn’t even realize it at the time since my own “gayness” was so repressed. I stopped considering myself catholic or even religious in my junior year.

W.T. Ah, ok, and when did you start realizing you were gay?

Luke: I didn’t admit it to myself until about a year and a half ago. But I had always been attracted to men ever since puberty. I had a bad experience in grade school. Getting called fag, apparently they knew even before I did. Which probably set the whole coming out thing way in the back of my mind.

W.T. So even the good Catholic school children called each other fags

Luke: Of course, children are children who turn into like-minded adults

W.T. You didn’t come out until college and you’re still not out to friends from high school?

Luke: Two of them, yes. But for the most part I really only keep in contact with a handful of friends from high school and I just haven’t gotten around to telling them yet. They’re probably better off not knowing. I don’t think it would further our friendship, and it might even be too personal. I don’t feel like it’s pertinent information. I’m single now, if I was in a relationship I would feel like it would be necessary. That’s how I came out to my parents and it seemed easier. You know like “Hey I’m seeing someone now, his name is “Blank.”

W.T. How did they react to it?
Luke: Stunned exasperation, but they were quick to calm down and just asked lots of questions

W.T. What was their prime concern, would you say?

Luke: They ended it with the “we just want you to be careful”…so my health basically. My parents have been out of the church for quite some time now. They consider themselves spiritual now and have a group of lapsed Catholics over to their house once a month to talk about philosophy, theology.

W.T. So back to your high school days, did you ever date girls?

Luke: Yes, I had a girlfriend my freshman and sophomore year, she went to a public high school though. It was boring. I ended it out of sheer boredom. Not to mention how are you supposed to have a relationship when neither person can drive?

W.T. Bicycles! Go green! Alright, you were simply bored. What was going on with your homosexual thoughts?

Luke: I wouldn’t acknowledge them, hoping they’d go away. Straight life was more appealing. You know, nuclear family, white picket fence, steady job, basically what society and the media feed you from birth

W.T. And that’s not what you see in your future anymore?

Luke: Please no, I would go insane if I was forced into that. As of now, I have no relational expectations. I’m taking life as it comes.

W.T. When it comes to Catholic school, it doesn’t seem it affected how you live your life in terms of following Christian doctrine. Would you say that’s true, or would you say there are still some morals/values that you follow?

Luke: I mean there’s still the basics that Catholics are supposed to follow, the golden rule, care for those less fortunate. Even though I’m not religious at all, I still do community service and volunteer work. I started doing to fulfill a graduation requirement for high school and I continue because I feel it’s the right thing to do.

W.T. How about Catholic rules when it comes to sex? What do you consider sexual deviance?

Luke: While I was in high school, anything beyond holding hands and kissing. Now, I don’t think the term “sexual deviance” is in my vocabulary unless I’m making fun of religious fundamentalists, and even then I usually choose “abomination.”

W.T. Well if things like homosexual acts or premarital sex aren’t deviant, what about things like polygamy or bestiality?

Luke: Jeez, I would feel like a hypocrite condemning someone for their own sexual preferences. I would say I would be more accepting of polygamy than bestiality or pedophilia just because they are consenting adults. I guess I don’t test my own opinions on bestiality very often.

W.T. How do you feel about gay marriage?

Luke: In full support. I can’t wait until Illinois passes it. Hopefully next session the civil union bill will make it through the legislature. I’m not big on the whole “it has to be identical to straight marriage,” as long as I’m still getting the same rights and privileges as a straight couple I don’t care what it’s called.

W.T. And overall, how do you feel about your experience at Catholic school?

Luke: I look at it like an atheist factory. I’m glad I went through it in the fact that I’m more grounded in my own beliefs now. Kind of the, “I know I don’t want that, so what do I want?” mentality. It helped me think outside of my comfort zone, which was catholic doctrine. So spiritually it helped. In other ways it probably inhibited a lot of personal growth, sexually, socially. Just the fact that differing viewpoints other than Catholic doctrine pigeonholes teens into something they may not want. Had I been in a more open and accepting environment I probably would’ve come out earlier. From what I know, there no out gay students at my high school of over 800 students

W.T. One more question: if you were to give any advice to kids currently in Catholic school who are coming out to themselves and realizing they’re gay/bi/whatever what would it be?

Luke: I’m pretty pessimistic when it comes to coming out in catholic high school. I would say, only tell those you trust. And to just wait, life gets so so so much better after that 4 years is over. I hated my high school. That’s just from my own personal experience, some teens may be able to come to grips in a terrible environment, but they’re going to have to be incredibly strong-willed to do so.

No need to login to comment on the blogs.