My Recruitment Office Was In The Church

Anita Bryant, the acid-tongued former orange juice mouthpiece turned born-again Christian anti-gay savior of the children, once said, “Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit. And to freshen their ranks, they must recruit the youth of America.”

What a load of fear-inducing horseshit!

I am a homosexual. I am QUEER!

I was born. Two parents: a mom, a dad. Loving home. Raised in the Baptist church.

Homosexual. Queer.

I was not recruited. I just am.

But do you know who recruits—that is, indoctrinates—children? The church. Yes. The church indoctrinates children because they want them to believe a certain way and to accept—without question—that their God is real and that a man named Jesus died for their sins and that homosexuals are godless sinners. They have to replenish their numbers to keep their hate strong. That’s recruiting.

The church was the place where I found my first sense of community. But, in the opinion of a person who walked away from that community, the foundation is built on quicksand. One must follow and conform and walk the “straight”and narrow path.

(Horseshit)

In reference to my Baptist church upbringing: I am still recovering from that. As a queer person, what I learned in my time there about their God’s wrath, punishment, Hell, fear, and blind faith continues to affect my life. I haven’t attended a church service regularly in just about 35 years. But the teachings remain imbedded in the adult mind of the child who absorbed them.

I was indoctrinated, for sure. My attempted recruitment to be a soldier in the “Army of God” failed. Thankfully. But the recruitment attempt happened during the formative years of my life and therefore still fucks me up.

Back to Anita Bryant, it seems to me that fear played the biggest role in her ridiculous passion play about saving the children. Maybe she was afraid of what she didn’t understand. Maybe she was grossed out by the idea of homosexual sex. Maybe she truly believed the shit she said. She recruited people to her cause by using the fear tactics she no doubt learned in a church service.

(And if you believe in karma then it truly is a bitch because Anita Bryant has a gay granddaughter. Suck it, Anita!)

I was not recruited to become a homosexual. I was not recruited to become a queer. I was not recruited to become non-binary.

I was not molested.

I was born.

(And once upon a time I was Born Again. I reject this.)

I continue to fight to accept myself. I continue to fight against the need to be accepted—I want to be accepted for who I am, but I want to not need that acceptance.

And sadly, I continue to have to fight the fear.

I walked away from the church years ago and a community that pushes for believing without question and doesn’t accept LGBTQ humans. But I continue to walk through my own life—albeit on a curvier much more spacious path—with heels on my feet and polish on my fingernails, questioning everything.

Queers do not recruit.

Christians recruit.