Category: Homosexuality

When I Became a Sexual Compulsive

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 12 Comments

In 2013, I was sick with heartbreak. My boyfriend, on a sunny January day in Baltimore, broke up with me.

He was a conservative Christian, and so was I. We both believed that homosexuality was not God’s best for humanity, and that it would be a sin to act on it. And yet, here we were: deeply in love, and now deeply heartbroken. We had lived in a horrible in-between place, unable to change our beliefs and unable to stop loving each other. The dissonance drove us mad, and it ended in him breaking up with me. I’d never known such rending emotional pain.

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Dear Christian, Stop Telling Me What I Know Deep in my Heart

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 9 Comments

Nearly every gay person raised in the Christian world has heard it at least once in their lives: “You know deep within your heart that what you are doing is wrong. You know in your heart that homosexuality is not God’s best for you, and you are just unwilling to admit it, running away from the truth.”

Far too often, we hear this from the people we love the most: old friends, pastors, parents and siblings – the people who raised us, nurtured us, taught us how to understand the world. They are concerned, well intentioned, unaware of just how damaging, belittling, dehumanizing those 9 little words are: “you know the truth deep down in your heart.”

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Exploring Sexuality as Language

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 3 Comments

Several years ago, as I was journeying out of the traditional theological view of gay marriage, I read an extraordinary book by Dr. James Brownson titled Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing The Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships.

Bible, Gender, Sexuality is a thing of theological beauty: elegant, persuasive, and deeply compassionate. It was the book that allowed me to finally pack my bags and walk with confidence into affirming gay marriage and my own gay orientation.

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Three Assumptions Christians Make About Gay Relationships

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 1 Comment

I’m away from the blog this month, focusing on school, work, and vacation, and I will be back next week writing regularly. While I’m away, I’ve decided to repost articles from my previous blog. Enjoy.

As I’ve struggled through questions of faith and homosexuality and arrived at a more affirming position, I have found myself on the receiving end of some persistent and annoying assumptions. Granted, some of these might be stereotypes of affirming gay people for a reason, but I feel that these assumptions become blocks, disengaging people from the uncomfortable and redeeming act of listening to each other.

While I can’t even begin to address all of the assumptions people make about gay people, I will go ahead and list the ones I most frequently run into here.

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In Which I Have a Breakdown: An Open Letter to the Church

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

I am away from the blog this week, finishing up my degree and preparing for vacation. Because of this, I’m reposting an old article of mine originally published on my previous blog on February 17, 2014.

Back in October, just before I left the blogosphere for my sabbatical, I had something of a breakdown.

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The Heart Matters

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 11 Comments

This morning, as I was scrolling through my feedly app, I came across a particular post from an ex-gay blog called Your Other Brothers (they would probably object to being labeled as ex-gay, but that to me seems the best approximation of their work.) Much as I disagree with the guys on the blog, I enjoy reading them. They are figuring life out the best way they can, and I relate to their journey – mine was very similar to theirs before I came to fully embrace being gay. the post in question was a discussion about Trey Pearson, the Christian rockstar and frontman of Everyday Sunday who recently came out as gay. One sentence read, “I can see his heart behind coming out, coming to terms with his sexuality, and all that. But it’s all heart. He’s leading by feeling in lieu of fact.” The simple fact being, I assume, that the Bible is clear, and that no amount of human suffering should dissuade us from that clarity. This is clearly seen as a strength among many Christians, but I see it as anything but.

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Moving Beyond the Gay Christian Debate

Gay and Christian: When it Hurts Too Much
~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 15 Comments

Once upon a time, I was known almost exclusively on the web for being a gay Christian. I wrote day in, day out, about the experience of homosexuality and faith, and I eventually developed a tidy following for my work. For almost all of my late teens and pretty much all of my twenties, I dedicated my life to sorting out the puzzle of my sexuality, and it consumed my every thought. It kept me up at night, I wept, I cut myself, I plunged into deep depression, I read and prayed and talked, I searched desperately for the love of God. And, all along the way, I wrote untold thousands of words in poetry, fiction, journal entries, and articles.

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Conversion on the Road to the Rainbow: An Interview With Michael Coren

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 1 Comment

In 2014, Michael Coren – the conservative Catholic columnist, television personality and bestselling author – made international waves by coming out in support of gay marriage and leaving the Roman Catholic church. Earlier this year, he published Epiphany: A Christian’s Change of Heart and Mind Over Same-Sex Marriage.

I found his book heartfelt, beautiful, and compassionate. I am always moved when someone like Michael Coren – someone who represents the conservative Christian vangaurd – publically switches views and risks disgrace from his own camp. I reached out to Michael to discuss his book, his thoughts on the church and the LGBT issue, and (as he describes it delightfully in his book) his “conversion on the road to the rainbow.”

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Why Am I Still a Christian?

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 12 Comments

Every so often, I get asked a difficult question: how, after all I’ve been through as a gay person in the church, am I still a Christian? I’ve struggled with this question, and refrained from writing about it, because, “I don’t know” doesn’t seem like an appropriate answer.

The question just keeps coming up, though, and I think it might be time to start unpacking that “I don’t know.”

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