I think most would agree that I am confident in my sexuality. Why wouldn’t I? It’s who I am. However, that hasn’t always been the case. There were moments I had my doubts about whether I was actually gay. Having been raised in a conservative Christian household there, of course, was going to be a level of uncertainty.

I had heard the verse to justify the hatred many times, and the words my mother regurgitated from some radio preacher. As a result, I wanted some kind of answer, so I sought out help at the local Christian book store.

Oddly enough, I found a book that was written by a “converted” man. I did not purchase it, thankfully, and instead just perused the pages for what he had to say.

To this day I still remember his words. That could be because I found myself staring back up from those pages, or because even in my certainty I felt that it could be plausible.

The author, whose name I did not bother to retain, said that when he was a child he was molested.

I don’t remember if it had been an adult or someone of his own age. Regardless, he attributed his desires for the same-sex to have stemmed from this event.

The author thought that because he was molested by a boy he got confused about what he was supposed to find attractive and ultimately chased after people of the same sex to fulfill this fantasy he had been shown.

Even now, as I write this, I find it utterly ridiculous. I can because I see the fallacy in his argument, but I wasn’t always this sure. I found doubt in my own identity as a homosexual because I too had been molested as a child by an older neighborhood boy.

For so many years I thought there was something wrong with me because of what happened, but what I was doing was blaming myself for something I had no control over.

In a truly human fashion I bore the weight of the guilt because, obviously, it was my fault that it happened.

What I failed to see at the time and for the subsequent years, is that I was a child and didn’t know what was happening, and even if I had, probably wouldn’t have been able to stop it.  I was only four.

Now, I can just say that it happened, because it did. I refuse to let any kind of baggage follow me around for the actions of someone else. He should be the one with the guilt and the shame because he hurt a child.

The thing that came to me after reliving the author’s own justification for his “sin” was that why would he choose a lifestyle just because of what someone showed him? Heterosexual people are confident in their own sexual preference without someone of the opposite sex “showing them.” But I’m sure that the response would be, “We’re ingrained with the attraction, but the devil blah blah blah.”

This for me is the justification most people of faith will make toward their sexuality.  Their forcing themselves into a mold that does not fit them, and they will go to great lengths to take that shape. They’ll find their “root cause” of what turned them into a “sinner.” Only then can they exorcise the “demons.”