an unconfession

photo: ramón velasquez

In the fall of 1990 I walked into a church in Natchitoches, Louisiana, entered a dark wooden booth no larger than a closet, knelt beside a priest sitting quietly in a separate compartment, half-hidden from my view, and confessed to him my deepest shame through the grate of a small sliding door. “Each of us has a cross to bear,” he whispered back to me. “This urge is your cross.” Then I cried and asked for forgiveness.

Yesterday the citizens of North Carolina voted to amend their constitution to specifically prevent gay people from ever becoming married, in essence relegating gay people to a lower class of citizenship, a class with fewer rights. Gay people, mind you, were already prevented from becoming married, but the citizens wanted to make extra sure that this could never happen. Many people voted against the hurtful amendment. Linda Toanone was one of them. She said, “We think everybody should have the same rights as everyone else -- gay, straight whatever.” Unfortunately, her side was greatly outnumbered at the ballot box.

Why do people feel the need to plant such obstacles in the path of gay people’s pursuit of happiness? Change the voting booth to the confessional booth, and the sentiment is the same: We must suppress the gay. We must stamp out the gay. Let’s protect ourselves from the gay.

People pretend that marriage is such a fragile thing, that if gay people were allowed to do it they would ruin it. They say that marriage is one of the most important things you can ever do in life, but not if you’re gay. If you’re gay, tough luck, you can never become married. If you’re gay, you must bear it like a heavy heavy cross. People are mistaken, of course. Finally we are beginning to realize that gay people are as deserving of happiness as anyone else. Gay people are as worthy of marriage as anyone else. You can whisper it in confessionals all you want. You can amend your constitution a hundred times. No matter how many times you say it, that doesn’t make it right. 

I have many a cross to bear -- we all do -- but being gay is not one of them. I let go of that cross a long time ago, in 1991, barely a year after my sobbing confession. Still, even all these years later, the old feeling can still come up from time to time, like it did again this morning, when I cringed at the news from North Carolina, and I remembered that dark confessional.

I searched online to see if there was a process for retracting past confessions. I thought it might be a nice way to finally bring closure. I didn’t turn anything up, so I figured this was as good a forum as any. May 9th, 11:30 AM, I, Jude Theriot, hereby rescind the confession I gave in the fall of 1990. I take it all back. Turns out, I’m not sorry for being gay. In fact, I quite like it.