My Nonprofit Reviews

I married a man, even after having been in a lesbian relationship for six years. She had been raised Catholic, and I was raised in the SDA church, so we had convinced ourselves that we were simply two women who happened to fall in love with each other. After she married a man, I figured that was what I was also expected to do. After all, the church taught that God would put "the heterosexuality of Jesus on you" if you obeyed and married the opposite gender.

Loneliness set in after I left a job I loved and all my friends and family, to move across the country because of my husband's job. Once we bought a VCR, I rented a movie called "Personal Best" and admitted to myself that I've always been a lesbian. During my coming out process, I saw an ad in the back of MS. Magazine for "Adventist Lesbians" and thought at first that it was a trick by the General Conference to catch sinners like me. But I needed to know if there really were more people who had grown up Adventist and then realized they were lesbians, so I rented a post office box and made up a pseudonym.

SDA Kinship turned out to be an actual support group of and for SDA & former SDA gays, & lesbians, as well as their friends and family. With all the support I received, I found the courage to get a divorce, after which the SDA church threatened to bring up the issue in a full membership meeting after church, unless I would willingly request my name be dropped. That felt like having my identity yanked right out from under me, leaving me gasping for breath.

The longer I've been on the outside looking in, the less likely it is that I will ever choose to re-join the SDA church. But the longer I've been a member of SDA Kinship, the more I feel like I have a family of choice.