BRATTLEBORO — I would like to sincerely offer another view regarding same-sex marriage and homosexuality.
I am 52 yrs. old, born and raised in Brattleboro. I was baptized at St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church when I was 17 days old, confirmed at 16, and an agnostic before I was 18.
I left the church and my faith soon after for 30-plus years to live a homosexual lifestyle, a self-absorbed life of drinking, drugging, partying, countless anonymous sexual encounters, numerous failed same-sex relationships, fornication, and bondage to an addiction to pornography.
I thought the Catholic Church hated me and that God had condemned me so I might as well enjoy myself. I searched everywhere for meaning, fulfillment of the void that was in me. I tried becoming a Wiccan, followed Buddha, read up on Taoism, and took up yoga, Hinduism, and chanting but nothing satisfied the thirst I had or caused me to change my egotistical, selfish, and materialistic desires. Only by the grace of God am I still alive and healthy.
Evan as a staunch advocate for the gay lifestyle, same-sex marriage never made sense to me - it was weird, an oxymoron, and so unnatural to me, and I thought to myself, “How offensive this must be to straight people.”
As it happened, one night about five years ago, after waking up, passed out on the floor, I felt a presence I had never felt before. A voice within me asked, “Have you had enough?” The Holy Spirit of God led me back to my faith.
I met with the priest and made a general confession of my sins from the previous 30 years. Instantaneously, yet very gently, all my addictions and disordered desires, the bondage of pornography, and my obsession with gay sex and that lifestyle were pushed out of me.
Literally, the light of the love of God filled me and all the darkness.
I now carry the cross of same-sex attraction for the love and sake of my Lord Jesus Christ. It isn't a burden or a struggle. He helps me carry it daily, and I joyfully live a life of continence for Him, with Him, and in Him.
The “New Age” liberal ideology of this town and in fact much of the country is evidenced in your use of the term “Catholic practices” in your letter, Richard Levesque. It is evidence of your bias toward or, respectfully, your ignorance about these “practices” - they are the commandments of God and the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This liberal ideology of today's culture of death and this nation's public education system professes the heresies of indifferentism (the notion that all world religions have an equal chance at getting someone to heaven), secular humanism (the fallacy that man can love and esteem himself more if he doesn't have to share that love and esteem with God), and relativism (which says that “everybody's truth is valid”). All are lies and if believed and followed are guarantees of self-condemnation.
I don't know you personally, Mr. Levesque, but I love you. I love you because you are my neighbor. I love all of you reading this letter because you are my neighbors. I love you with the love of Christ. It is wanting the best for you unconditionally.
And what is that best? It is to be with God in Heaven, to behold Him face-to-face, free of suffering and pain for eternity.