Yup have known of 5 cases. When they eventually came out as gay I was hardly surprised.
Anyone have an obvious gay or lesbian in the congregation?
by mickbobcat 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Iamallcool
I did. He was df’d 3 times and he is still a JW. He was MS but after he got reinstated the 3rd time, As far as I know, he doesn’t have any privileges in the congregation. He is currently Pro JW. He has 2 siblings that has been out of the org for many years! Go figure!
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BluesBrother
What is “ obvious “? You can never tell unless proven
Reminds me of a young sister who was , well, masculine. She always wore men’s shoes and stuff and just seemed mannish. I even heard other young sisters giggling that when looking at a clothes catalogue she liked all the men’s wear.
What happened ? She moved away, came back to visit and brought a husband, he was definitely male....
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Rafe
Sure some got married to woman to only eventually come out the closet leaving their female wives for male partners .
Kind of felt sorry for those woman.
One guy I remember was known to be homosexual but didn't act upon it, who eventually became an elder, go figure.
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mickbobcat
Being married to someone of the opposite sex is not a sign they are not gay. I know of many who married someone of the opposite sex so they can hide out or fit in. Their real sexuality is suppressed
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IWant2Leave
I’ve known several. Some even went to Bethel, but got kicked out for watching gay porn and starting a romantic relationship with another brother. I know an elder who has admitted being gay but is fighting it. I know of an elder years ago that got caught with another gay man. The elder was a married man, his wife had a nervous break down after this became known.
Decades ago a sister could not divorce their husband if they were having a relationship with a man or even practicing bestiality. It was not considered grounds for a scriptural divorce.
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mickbobcat
My dad had an experience that was with a person from Bethel. He came to stay over at his house where he lived with his mom and dad. He got the wandering hands treatment and punched him out. LOL.
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joe134cd
Just adding to the 5 cases I mentioned above. I know a further case of an elder. Outwardly he just screamed gayness. His now wife,before she married him, was warned by her parents about his femininity. He has now been happily married for 50 years to his childhood sweet heart, and has grandkids.
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fulltimestudent
As I get older, I'm starting to forget as memories fade. But here's a few.
1. I was an inexperienced young guy when I got mixed up with yhwh's mob, But, being in a congregation that was very near to the then location of the Aussie bethel, I also got mixed up with the bethel mob. And, I once volunteered to help an older bethel bro. pick up a shipment of books from the docks. As we waited for our turn at the docks this older man turned the conversation to more personal aspects of life. It made me feel uneasy! The unease grew as he started to rub my leg. I don't know how I would've coped if his hand had got higher - but our turn came and the conversation and the leg feel-up passed.
2. Of course, some brothers may have been (or had) SSA (same sex attraction) before they became witnesses, and not necessarily be effeminate (as some of the above observations noted). I'm thinking of a guy who had been a missionary and a C/O in OZ. (He was quite manly - had fought in WW2, been captured by the Germans, escaped an survived in the hills for a long time, until taken off that island by a British submarine). His wife was in a gossip session in field service one day with several sisters, and she let slip a bit of gossip about her husband. Before they got converted she recalled, they were at a party with some of her husband's former friends, and she saw him involved in a long, deep kiss with another young man. So, was he SSA, or what we describe as 'bi' or what? I do know (he told me so himself) that he'd been involved in the Sydney arts scene, before he became a witness, as he'd been trained as an Opera singer by a leading member of that Arts scene. so maybe he was SSA, or just sharing in a common practise among guys in that scene.
3. And, that guy was involved in another interesting experience. A certain Gerald G, was a young circuit servant (as they were called then) who left the truth in non-discussable circumstances. But the bro, (in 2. above) told a group of us one day, that he'd been able to help the young ex-c/s to come back to the 'truth.' He'd heard somehow that bro G.G was working as a barman in a gay bar in inner Sydney, so he went into the bar, talked to GG and persuaded him to come back to the truth. Bro. GG did become a C/O again but the last time I heard of him, was that he'd died. Of what, I never heard.
4. In one congregation I was in a couple of women, one older, one young moved into our territory. Their circumstances caused gossip, so the Cong. Servant (still the old arrangement, at that time) spoke to them suggesting one should move out (He saw only one double bed in their small flat). That caused an almighty row with the older woman, but the younger woman did move out and later married a friend of mine. I never heard anything to say they had engaged in any sort of sexual misconduct, so maybe the older woman was in the right when she blew up and told the 'conservant off.
It's all intriguing, especially when we consider that Palestine in Jesus time was thoroughly Hellenised, and that in Hellenic culture, SSA was acceptable. Even their gods engaged in sex with other men. Zeus, Apollo and Dionysus spring to mind.
Human sexual attraction, (Aristophanes declared) was/is inspired by our attempts to recapture the personality wholeness humans had before Zeus bifurcated primal humanity. Or stated another way, Eros enables lovers to regain the 'lost paradise' of spiritual and physical completeness. So any person's decision to 'join' themselves to another human - is a decision based on their own (likely innate) need for completeness.
Living in a Hellenised Palestine would mean that most Jews likely knew the Greek stories and myths. Note that when (In Matt 8 and Luke 7) Jesus healed the 'Pais' of the Roman Centurion, it is entirely possible that he was healing the Centurion's young lover. So why, does Xtianity make such a bloody fuss about 2 people of the same sex loving each other and never give a shit when people learn to hate other people and when their nations go to war, despartely want to kill the others?
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Pete Zahut
There was a very flamboyant/eccentric effeminate skinny (kinda' creepy) older man in our Congregation who was a wealthy hairdresser and was married to an elderly non JW woman. He admitted that he was attracted to both men and women and unbelievably was somehow DF'd several times for carrying on with both sexes. The last time I knew of, he was in his high 70's and was involved in a car accident in the wee hours of the morning while drinking and driving and his young female passenger ( a bar-maid) was injured and he had a stroke. He recovered but eventually he died of old age and l understand he left a lot of his money to different collection of young single brothers he had befriended over the years.
There was a boy in our Hall who was an elders son and he was a sweet kid but was more like a girl than a boy and stayed that way as he grew up. In his late teens, much to everyones surprise, he got engaged to a very nice heavyset girl at the Hall and his father was over the moon about it. When he told us about the engagement, he said "Yes...he is a Man after all !!"
They couple got married. He with his dyed blonde hair and she in an enormous white wedding dress. We wondered who would carry the bouquet. Unbelievably, they soon had a son but not surprisingly, they ended up getting divorced a few years later. Over the years he was shunned by his family. He eventually married another man and he is a very nice person but is still unbelievably effeminate, so much that you have to wonder if he's mentally "all there". He and his gay husband and his former wife (who remained single) and their now grown son (who is also gay) are all on good terms and seem to be doing well. Decades later, the Elder father passed away so now his mother and the rest of his family are back in contact with he and his gay family members. They seem to be making things work.
You can't make this stuff up.