I learned to see that my bisexuality was as much of a choice as my height or ethnicity—the only choice was accepting and embracing or denying the truth. And so bisexuality became a part of my identity.

As a young adult learning who I was and how to be that person, I was living my life, every hour of every day, under the confines of oppressive rules and policies that were explicitly against my identity. This was harmful to my sense of self and to my mental health.

Messiah College’s policies, and the policies other conservative Christian colleges, utilize a false separation between homosexual orientation and behavior. Orientation is an identity defined by action or the possibility of action. If you are allowed to be homosexual, but aren’t allowed to act homosexual, how are you allowed to be homosexual? How can you tell a person of color it's OK to be black, Latino, Indian, etc., as long as he or she only acts like he or she is white? How can you place judgement on the actions of an identity without placing judgement on the identity itself?

Speaking of race and ethnicity, the covenant also states: “Because we see people as having intrinsic worth, we avoid gossip, manipulative behavior, and sexist or racist attitudes or behaviors… .” But any advisement against “homophobic attitudes or behaviors” is nowhere to be found in the covenant. Back to our reader:

Conservative Christian colleges are slowly changing their stances on homosexuality. Acceptance of the identity without the action is a step forward from rejecting both. At Messiah, there is an acceptance of the diversity of many Christian denominations, beliefs, and values. I hope that Messiah, and other conservative Christian colleges, can grow to allow individuals to make decisions about these beliefs and values for themselves.

Messiah College helped me grow into and learn to be the person that I am. But the institution would not accept that person. I pray that Messiah will soon be a place that will allow young adults to grow into themselves, and accept them as they are, both in identity and action.

What your readers convey regarding the silence and confusion around LGBT issues is absolutely accurate. The worst part is that as a shy 18 year old desperate to fit in with the school culture, I was traveling alone. I did not know how far I could go before putting my education and livelihood in jeopardy. Could I attend pride or wear a rainbow bracelet? Could I write about and talk about my experiences in class, in front of my professors? Could I come out to my RA? My friends? Even more than disciplinary action, I feared social rejection.

It was painful enough losing friends when I came out. More painful than the once friendly acquaintances who avoided eye contact when I walked by, were the friends who provided their hesitant “non-judgment” but then spoke in hushed tones whenever I brought up a romantic interest or spoke of my struggles coming out to my family. I was the subject of prayer meetings I wasn’t even aware of, and of conversations between roommates who weren’t comfortable living with me anymore.

It was painful enough being turned away from counseling services when I said that I was in a same-sex relationship and didn’t view it it as a sin, or sitting through mandatory chapel services of “ex-gays” who said I needed to pray about my sexuality (as if I hadn’t spent night after night crying myself to sleep and begging for God to change me).

But the most painful thing, what I heard from fellow students at a school whose motto is “we believe you belong here,” and what people say over and over in the comments section of articles like these, is “why go to a college that doesn’t accept you?”

As someone who grew up in a Baptist church, who never missed youth group, who considered faith the most important part of her life, and wanted to attend a school that shared those values, it hurts to hear “why did you even come here?” As a bright student who wanted to be a music teacher and received a life changing scholarship to a school with a great music program, it hurts to hear “why did you even come here?”

But even more, as a kid who didn’t yet fully understand or reconcile my sexuality and just wanted to figure out what God wanted for me, who wanted to make my parents happy, it hurts that people can’t understand why a gay kid would end up at a school like Olivet.

Students don’t choose where to go to college based on their sexual orientation. A number of factors influence this choice including location of the school, programs the school offers, great sports team, cost of tuition, opinions of ones family who are often funding the education, extracurricular activities, and so forth. For some including myself, a faith-based education is the only one their parents will financially support. To say “why would you even come here?” is simply petty and unfair, and it refuses to confront the real issues  that LGBT students face at Christian colleges.

Most gay students here either try dating members of the opposite sex, believing that they’ve fixed themselves, or they commit their lives to celibacy. Also, I don’t think you can underestimated the roles of local churches in this forced celibacy, as many of us would lose our church memberships that we’ve had for all our lives if we came out in favor of same-sex relationships. (And forget leadership roles.)

Many of the celibate gay Christians I know claim that they freely choose the celibate life because it most correctly reflects God’s purpose, but as someone who grew up in that environment, I know that they simply don’t want to lose their church, their friends, their family, and potential career. No “free choice” involves losing all of those things.

I am thankful that I took the plunge, because I’ve been with the woman of my dreams for two years and couldn’t be more fulfilled with her. But so many of the celibate gay Christians are cruel to us. I can only guess that this is because they are so scared of being grouped in with us “sinners,” they want to put as much distance between us as possible. I’ve seen them point at us, and many of them won’t speak to us, even separately. Sometimes I feel like a total freak, but I have to remind myself to feel sorry for them, because they are simply desperate to have a normal family, a normal life, while everyone around them is saying they can’t have that unless they “pray away the gay.”

This also encourages a culture of secrecy, wherein many of the gay people in opposite-gender relationships simply turn to Grindr or Tinder for sexual fulfillment. There are several people in seemingly blissful relationships whom I know for certain use those sites to hookup.

To the faculty’s credit, most of them are more accepting than the Southern Baptist Convention would prefer, and this is why I have not transferred. As a graduate student, I hope to set a good example of a woman who enjoys a Christ-centered relationship with another woman. Since the closeted or celibate gay Christians will not speak to me, I can only hope that they notice that my girlfriend and I are not the evil, broken, God-hating liberals that they are told we are.

I apologize for the long-windedness of this story, but I wanted to provide a fuller picture than I thought the original article presented. I think many straight people, or liberal people, or people from Northern areas really have no idea just how many gay Christians still enter straight relationships as late as 2016, or how limited our rights are on Christian campuses.

As for gay couples, there were actually a few of those there—unacknowledged, of course. They all lived off campus, and while on campus they did nothing to draw attention to themselves. They seemed content enough.

If you were gay and lived in a dorm you had to be very careful. A couple of guys down the hall from me were quietly expelled. It was cruel of the college to kick them out; they were both seniors. I don’t believe I ever heard the full story, but I know they weren’t that cautious about their orientations. They enjoyed hanging out in the showers every morning taking some obviously admiring looks at us. It was creepy, but I know I secretly enjoyed it.

In my senior year, my roommate and I had a few mutual masturbation sessions that were our first sexual experiences. We were cautious about it and got away with it the whole year. Had we been caught, it would have been catastrophic: We’d have been expelled, and I know my family would never have accepted it, and I doubt his would have either.

It was a good school, academically speaking, and it got me off to a good start in life, for which I’m grateful. I’m now married to a woman I met at that college and we’ve had a good life. I’ve felt some attraction to men every now and then, mainly to guys who reminded me of my old roommate, but I’ve never acted on them. As for my roommate, he also married a woman from that college and went on to lead a good life, though I haven’t seen him in years.

I’ve wondered whether attending a state or secular college might have enabled me to live a more open gay sexuality. Perhaps, but remember this was just about the time the AIDS epidemic was getting underway, so I might easily have become another statistic. I’ve visited the college a few times since graduating, but I have no idea whether their policies on sexuality on campus have changed.  

If you’ve had a similar experience you’d like to share, let us know.