Please Stop Treating Them Like Lepers: A Challenge to the Church from a Parent of a Gay Child

By Gaius D Jenkins Sr.

Jesus Christ took a trip to Calvary to pay a price for mankind. This trip to Calvary redeemed fallen men and brought each and every one of us back into agreement with God.

Unfortunately, there are those who feel that his trip to Calvary did not include the members of the LGBT community. This book challenges all those who may believe this.

If Christs trip to Calvary excluded any one person or persons for any reason, then his trip was in vain, and we all need to question our salvation. His trip to Calvary was, in fact, all-inclusive! No one was exemptno one!

This book reminds us of that and challenges all of us to reach out to each and every member of the LGBT community with the same heart and compassion as we would to anyone else. This book is written from the perspectives of a minister and a parent of a gay child.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524509354

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Now My Story

My Secret Crush

My wife, Connie, and I grew up about a mile and a half from each other. She lived on the other side of I-4, the interstate that ran through Eatonville, Florida. I would later find out that we were in the same class as toddlers in day care.

But my first recollection of her was when our junior high schools played each other in basketball.

I was in the eighth grade at Winter Park Junior High School, and she was a varsity cheerleader at Lockhart Junior High School. The game was played at Wymore Tech (a high school) gymnasium, about two blocks from my home.

Connie lived on the other side of Interstate 4. Those who lived on that side attended Lockhart Junior High, and those on my side attended either Winter Park or Maitland Junior High Schools.

As I sat in the bleachers every time the cheerleading squad came onto the floor, she was directly in front of me. She was easily the prettiest one of the group and the only African American. As the game wore on, I found myself enamored with her. Of course, my thoughts were only one of fairy tales. That night, their JV squad trounced our team. Prior to this game, our JV was undefeated. Lockhart had two eighth-grade players on the varsity squad that were moved down for that game. One of those players (Al Blue) would later earn high school all-America honors as a defensive back and go on to play for safety for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama.

Our school was so upset that our JV squad lost that game and in such a manner. Our JV was undefeated and was blowing out every opponent away easily. But in this game, we lost badly. Everyone was talking about how Lockhart ran all over our team and made us look silly. Even a week later, while everyone was still talking about how the JV lost, all I could think about was that cute little varsity cheerleader, the one who cheered about fifty feet in front of me every time they took the floor. Our varsity team won their game. No one talked about that, only about the thrashing our JV took. And all I was thinking about was that cute little cheerleader. Actually, as the game wore on, I soon forgot how our JV lost and, for the most part, was not much interested in the varsity game either. My attention was on that cute little cheerleader.

Two years later, I moved onto Edgewater High School in Orlando, Florida, where I played junior varsity football.

On the day of our first game, we would be playing at Lake Brantley High School. I awoke that morning and put on my football jersey (number 74). I would be playing left defensive tackle, and I would be starting.

I went to the bus stop right next to Macedonia Baptist Church on Kennedy Drive in Eatonville. By this time, school was in session about two weeks. Mr. Williams pulled up, and we all began to enter the bus and find our seats.

I could not help but notice that a junior varsity cheerleader in uniform was on the bus in a red Edgewater jumper. In the two weeks we had been in school already, I must not have noticed her. She was sitting three seats behind the driver, whom I would find out later to be her dad.

Being on the JV team, I found myself staring at her and wanting so desperately to say something to her.

As the bus ride to school drew near an end, it came to me that she was the cute little cheerleader from Lockhart from two years prior.

I could not believe it! That cute little cheerleader that I was so enamored with when our basketball teams played against each other would now be cheering for me that night in a football game against the Lake Brantley Patriots, a game we would lose.

Talk about a small world!

As the season moved on, I found myself looking over on occasion after occasion when I was not on the field to watch her cheer. I never was able to build up the courage to approach her or to even say hello.

There were times when I would follow her after she would exit the bus. I would follow her through the halls at a distance. I knew where her locker was, and I knew where her first-period class was, but I could never find the strength to say a word to her.

As it would turn out, my tenth-grade year was the last year I played football. I moved up to the varsity squad for the last three games. In the following spring training, I was injured, had surgery, and never played again. So she did not cheer for me the following year (her senior year).

In a rather strange twist of fate, she informed me that she was cut from JV cheerleading during her sophomore year, which had to be odd, seeing that she had been a cheerleader in junior high school.

I now realized that God allowed this to happen so that she would be cheering for me when I arrived at high school. If she had made JV cheerleading her sophomore year, she would have been a varsity cheerleader during my sophomore year and would not have been cheering for me during my sophomore year.

We both finished our times at Edgewater, went our separate ways, and married other people in life, and a word was never spoken.

In all this, I kept my feelings locked up to myself. I never shared them with anyone, not even my closest friend, Todd.

After High School

After high school, I enlisted in the Marine Corps and served five and a half years. I decided to get out after becoming angry with President Reagan's handling of the Lebanese crisis (I lost some friends in that bombing).

I returned to Florida and was hired by the postal service as a letter carrier in Leesburg, Florida, about fifty miles north of Eatonville.

I served five years there, and after a painful marriage and an even more painful divorce, I decided to relocate so that I could start my life over again.

An opportunity to relocate to the Philadelphia area presented itself, so I took it.

I had never been north of North Carolina prior to this move. It was a move that took a lot of adjusting at first, but after a while, I was able to settle in and become comfortable.

How We Met

In July of 1997, we had a brutal summer. Every Fourth of July, Philadelphia has a celebration on the Ben Franklin Parkway. They bring in accomplished entertainers and just celebrate the summer. Thousands of people would pack the parkway for the live entertainment. Vendors would line the streets; people would be dancing in the street and just having a good time. I remember that year, they brought in Dionne Warwick. Dionne was discovered by Burt Bacharach, the pianist/composer.

My favorite sister (I know I'm not supposed to have a favorite, but sometimes we do), Esther, lives in Dallas, Texas. Well, Dionne Warwick was one of her favorites. I remember, as a little boy, her playing Dionne Warwick's albums. The sound of Alfie still rings in my head as I make mention of this.

Well, because of Dionne Warwick performing, I decided to watch the celebration on TV. It was so hot! It was so very obvious that she was uncomfortable. Sweat was streaming down her face as raindrops. She had a handkerchief in her hand as she performed wiping her brow occasionally.

One night that summer, I went to sleep under the air-conditioning and woke up the next morning with a stiff neck. This would be later diagnosed as cervical torticollis.

I remember having this problem once or twice before. It would be mild, and it would straighten out in a matter of time. However, on this occasion, it was more painful than it had ever been before, nor did it straighten out after a couple of days.

Delivering mail in this condition proved to be a challenge. I was always up for a challenge, but this was one that I was losing. So a trip to the doctor was in order.

The doctor ordered an x-ray, prescribed some medication, and rescheduled a subsequent appointment.

A week later, there was no improvement. The x-ray revealed little or nothing. So time off from work and physical therapy were prescribed.

Well, physical therapy didn't work. I would go to physical therapy, and my neck would relax, and right after I would leave, it would return to its stiff form. This would go on for about two weeks. Now I was frustrated.

I returned to my doctor with my frustration. By now, I had been out of work a couple of weeks. He calmed me down and suggested that we get an MRI.

He wrote the script, and because MRIs were relatively new at that time and none of the imaging venues I contacted would accept my insurance, I was bumping into walls.

One of the imaging venues, sensing my frustration, suggested that I call my insurance carrier and find out where I could get this procedure done. That turned out to be a very good suggestion. So I did.

I was given the number to an imaging center in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia as well as HUP, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

I called the one in Roxborough first, and they gladly arranged an appointment. I was so happy because I wanted to get this thing taken care of.

But I figured that I would call