[Update: It is now public information that Brian has divorced his wife Monica, and affirms gay relationships. Like most other publications, Spiritual Friendship does not remove posts from our archive, even when the authors change their views. We maintain our view that marriage relationships should not be entered lightly and that all Christians are called to chastity and faithfulness, whether married or single. — Ron Belgau]

In the court of public opinion, nothing is more perversely pleasurable than exposing a hypocrite. Celebrities, politicians, or those least favorite cousins who live in the next town over. It doesn’t matter. People enjoy a hard fall from grace, no matter who it is.

In arenas like politics, few seem to care about the risk of a character-razing. They probably expect it at some point in their career. When someone gets burned, it’s the cost of doing business. They know that with the right blend of charisma and contrition, almost anyone can return to public service. The risks don’t outweigh the benefits.

But that’s not the case for many of us who find our lives at the center of the cultural spotlight. For those who are gay and Christian—who are attempting to live out a traditional sexual ethic—the threats of becoming another headlining hypocrite are enough to keep us from opening up about our own stories.

We know that our sins aren’t private like they were just a decade ago. We worry that, with enough effort, someone might find the eternal debris of our weakest moments.

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[Update: It is now public information that Brian has divorced his wife Monica, and affirms gay relationships. Like most other publications, Spiritual Friendship does not remove posts from our archive, even when the authors change their views. We maintain our view that marriage relationships should not be entered lightly and that all Christians are called to chastity and faithfulness, whether married or single. — Ron Belgau]

In high school, I would cry quietly in my bed. I felt like an outsider in my faith community. I felt a measure of rejection from my family. I felt confusion, shame, and insecurity about my sexuality. All of these added up to one simple feeling: I was lonely. So I wept and prayed every night for Jesus to show up, physically, in my room. He never did.

Throughout my twenties, I’ve gone through periods of asking for that same thing. The reasons have changed, as have the pressures and responsibilities of life. But that silent, desperate plea has not. Please, Jesus. Now. You did it for Thomas. Can’t you do it for me? Just for long enough to know that you’re really here; that my life really matters to you; that this painful obedience and denial is worth something immeasurable to you. But still he resists.

Loneliness persists.

I’ve had a thousand reasons why I’ve felt lonely over the years. When I was young, my dad left, so I felt lonely when I looked up at the family pictures in my friends’ houses. I played classical music and enjoyed musical theater, so I felt lonely when my friends met up after school for garage band sessions. I knew my sexuality was different, so I felt lonely when I couldn’t talk about that boy in the back of that class with my friends because not only was it weird to them; it was a black mark of a sinful disposition. As kids, our loneliness can feel insurmountable.

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[Update: It is now public information that Brian and Monica have divorced, and Brian affirms gay relationships. Like most other publications, Spiritual Friendship does not remove posts from our archive, even when the authors change their views. We maintain our view that marriage relationships should not be entered lightly and that all Christians are called to chastity and faithfulness, whether married or single. — Ron Belgau]

In the last few weeks, we’ve published a number of posts tackling different practical questions about celibacy, mixed orientation marriage, and committed friendship. Today, we’re introducing another mixed orientation marriage couple, Brian and Monica Gee. As with the Nate and Sara Collins interview we published last week, this post is taken, with permission, from an interview by Preston Sprinkle for his blog, Theology in the Raw. We’re grateful to Preston for being willing to share this interview with us, and encourage you to check out his blog.

Preston Sprinkle: Thanks, Brian and Monica, for being willing to answer some questions on my blog. Would you mind starting off by telling us about how you both met?

Brian Gee: Thanks for having us on the blog. We’re both nerds at heart, so it’s no surprise that we first met each other through our shared Biblical Greek and Orchestra classes at a small, conservative Christian college in California. For a full semester, we knew each other from an arm’s length, but we didn’t really get to know each other. I also didn’t know that by the end of that semester, Monica had developed a crush on me.

By that point in college, I had been out as gay (actually, at the time, I would have said that I was same-sex attracted) to myself and to a growing group of others for some time, and I wasn’t looking to date or marry. Based on my conservative theology and commitments, I generally assumed I would be celibate. I remember telling God that while I also wouldn’t outright dismiss heterosexual marriage, I wouldn’t consider or look for it unless he made it very obvious that it’s what I should do.

At the start of Spring semester of 2005, I had at least eight friends in a span of two or three weeks ask me if I had considered dating Monica. The night that the eighth friend asked me, Monica and I were both at a friend’s recital. Afterward, we were standing outside the recital hall when Monica came up to me and said, “Brian Gee, what makes you tick?”

At that point, I had started to pay more attention to Monica. I wanted to know what she was all about and whether or not God was actually taking my caveat more seriously than I had thought he would. When she asked me that question, I told her that I’d need more than a couple of minutes to talk about it. That question led to our first four-hour conversation where we both realized how we were probably meant for each other. I also started to experience something I very much was not expecting—attraction to her.

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