Gay and in Love at an Evangelical College
“How’d you two meet?”
For most couples, this inane query is met with a well-rehearsed response, the warm retelling of a story somewhat enhanced in the familiar way memories evolve with the passage of time.
For us, a gay couple, it’s a tale of beating the odds and the raw thrill of breaking the rules.
Such has been my experience as a music and worship student at Liberty University, the world’s largest Evangelical college, known both for its Trumpist president and its founder’s involvement in the formation of the highly partisan Moral Majority. It is in no way hospitable to LGBTQ+ students or faculty, leveraging its exemptions as a private institution as a means of exacting discriminatory policies.
There is no officially recognized safe-space for LGBTQ+ students. Instead, we live and befriend each other on the underground, using a variety of social media as our means of networking. Coming out, if you have the privilege, comes with incredible cost. Unless you were already surrounded by affirming voices, your social life is compromised. Leadership opportunities generally afforded other students are suddenly out of reach, with scholarships and university jobs potentially lost thanks to your moral indiscretion.
If you’ve spent any length of time in private, Christian education, you’ve likely been confronted with a proprietary code of conduct or something of the sort. Provided it was conservative in its theology, you knew what kept you “in”.
On the other hand, you knew just how quickly you could be “out”, and if my experiences have taught me anything, it’s the fragility of Christian community when the tribal epistemology is challenged.
Liberty’s own code of conduct is known as “The Liberty Way”, serving both as the butt of jokes and the means by which an evolving behavioral standard is arbitrarily enforced. Depending on how seriously your RA takes their job, you may never be confronted with its boundaries. It expressly prohibits any sexual activity beyond the confines of heterosexual marriage, going so far as to use the odd phrasing “natural-born man” and “natural-born woman” as a means of insipidly ruling transgender individuals out of the conversation.
If you’re an LGBTQ+ person in an Evangelical setting, this all likely rings familiar to you.
This narrow set of guidelines makes the idea of non-heterosexual relationships tricky. Once reported for “inappropriate behavior”, a Liberty student could be fined, given additional community service hours, outed to their parents (if the offense and student’s age qualifies), and forced into pseudo-counseling that serves as a form of functionally neutered reparative therapy.
The queer students in my social sphere have been targeted by their peers through false allegations reported to Student Conduct, forced to sit through highly invasive interviews and answer probing questions about themselves and friends. Students are required to record everything they say in a document in case followup reveals something of consequence.
Trans students are not recognized or respected upon self-identification; instead of receiving support and love from their community, they’re treated as “disordered” and further traumatized by stigmatization. In one story with which I’m familiar, the trans student ultimately left because the university refused to acknowledge their gender identity.
For students whose biology and politics align with the institutional ideals, a place like Liberty is the dream.
Otherwise, it’s hell.
In conservative, Evangelical college environments, sexual minorities are a problem to be solved, collateral damage in a culture war.
The consequences are life and death.
In these dangerous spaces, it’s a challenge to find outspoken allies, even more so other queer students whose experiences reflect your own.
But finding love?
Well, it’s possible.
I’d had a couple romantic interests in my first couple years at Liberty which, for better or for worse, were entirely one-sided. The first was a best friend of mine living on my hall, and so strong were my affections for him that I even pursued Reformed theology, experiencing a brief Neo-Calvinist “phase” in pursuit of shared interests. The intensity of these feelings was a first for me. Having never allowed myself to experience this, I didn’t really know I was “in love” until the relationship began to fracture. I simply lacked the language to identify what was happening to me. It was never intentional — it just happened.
Though I was not yet affirming, it was through this time that I began taking my sexual orientation seriously. This process would lead me through my faith deconstruction, affirmation of my sexuality, and first intentional romantic pursuit. If you’ve ever experienced the pain of being in love without any chance of having it reciprocated, then you know just how deeply it hurts. Traumatizes, even. These would be some of the most difficult months of my life, facing pain on every front in more ways than I would know how to process.
Depressed, exhausted, and wary of boys, I expected to remain single and lonely, blending in to my environment in an effort to keep the peace.
This was short-lived.
My partner and I met on our dorm through what’s called a “Community Group”, part of the university-sanctioned system that places every residential Liberty student in a small group for the purpose of spiritual formation and relational development. It’s the quickest way, given Liberty’s size, to build friendships. You don’t really need to make an effort — just show up. Community Groups are led by members of the hall leadership team, serving as the front-end for a large resident-life apparatus.
Our group leader, though kind, appeared reticent to engage with anything too uncomfortable. Platitudinous superficiality ultimately defined the small group setting, and given my circumstances, I was keen.
We sat directly across from each other in his common area, seemingly experiencing the same jaded detachment from the situation. He seemed mysterious, made all the more pronounced by his utter silence. Filipino and Korean in ethnicity, he was handsome, artfully tattooed with an athletic build. He wasn’t the kind of guy I would find myself initially attracted to, but these feelings would yet flourish as our friendship deepened.
He got my number through our group chat, reaching out to see if I’d like to get tea some time on campus. We’d bonded briefly at a restaurant while on a late-night group outing, but having never held any deep conversation, I agreed with the thought I may have found a similarly-minded friend.
At the time, I had no idea he was gay. It wasn’t until he began describing his experiences in school that I picked up on the possibility, and upon prompting him, he came out to me. I reciprocated, and having found an affirming gay friend at Liberty University, of all places, I was ecstatic. It was an easy, light conversation. We sat for three and-a-half hours, covering as much ground as time afforded us.
We connected deeply and quickly, and even without the romantic involvement, I was thrilled to have found someone with whom I could so effortlessly relate.
As time passed and we hung out more — whether talking, getting food, or just hanging out with mutual friends — I noticed his developing interest in me.
This was quickly confirmed in an accidental text that, quite literally, said “I really like you”.
(It’s a running joke to this day.)
The “oops” and silence that followed allowed us to process briefly what had just happened. I wasn’t sure how to respond. My feelings are hard for me to process, and given my total lack of experience in a genuinely romantic anything, I had no idea what to do.
But we talked, fostering a deeper honesty with one another that eventually gave way to a romantic relationship.
Our first real date was to “La La Land”, an experience I’ll never forget in part because of how anxious I felt the entire time. Still a little unsure, I remember positioning myself in the theater seat in such a way that he wouldn’t be able to hold my hand (should he have had any ideas). He was even adamant about where he would place himself — he’d fallen head-first in the shower that morning, giving the left side of his face otherwise undue prominence.
Upon arriving back at our dorm, I walked briskly into my room and leaned back against the door, looking sheepishly towards my roommate.
“I think I just went on a date.”
Fearful of giving myself lofty expectations or setting the whole thing up for failure, I refrained from telling people what was happening. This was for me and me only. No one could know, and that was perfectly acceptable.
After a couple awkward conversations, long walks, and endless waves of insecurity, we set up another date, this time for a showing of “Lego Batman” followed by dinner at a local Japanese restaurant.
This time, I was ready.
Much like any cheesy young-adult novel in the throes of teenage love, we held hands in the middle of a movie theater. It’s a small thing for most, but it was an enormous leap for me: This was the first time I was ever physically affectionate with a boy.
In a peculiar way, it was wonderfully underwhelming.
There were no sharp pangs of a guilt-ridden conscience, no spiritual lightning strikes sent from on high — no, there was a total absence of shame in any form.
It felt natural. It felt right.
That following week and a few random nighttime drives later (it was the only place we could hold hands without being seen), we made it official. Sitting in my car on an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we gave what we had a name.
“Boyfriend.”
Still sounds nice to me.
Now, just over nine months later, we’ve done a lot. In that time, I’ve publicly come out, shared my experiences online, attended D.C. Pride, and made countless other unique memories just being together. We used to park in one of the emptier lots overlooking campus, making light of ironic discrimination by Liberty’s police officers when they assumed two guys in a car was nothing to worry about.
Dumb things like that, moments when we subvert the system, give us a lot of joy. It’s been beautiful. Real. Challenging. I’ve learned what it is to love and be loved in return, how that reciprocity informs every part of both relationship and individuality in a healthy fasion. Given our experiences together, I don’t think we’d change anything even if we could.
So — what’s it like as a gay couple in an Evangelical college?
Well, it’s complicated, and we should talk about it.
Queer couples aren’t afforded the same diverse privileges as straight couples, even those as benign as holding hands on campus. To display any form of affection in public would be to rebel against the institution’s policies regarding sexuality and relationships.
Instagram posts, tweets, vague references on Facebook — these are risks.
Whereas straight couples announce their relationship, engagement, and important anniversaries with the bluster of social media, LGBTQ+ persons stay quietly in the shadows. To do otherwise is to threaten one’s livelihood. Something as small as a selfie on Snapchat can be a problem if just the right person sees.
Given what we know of other students’ experiences— and even what my partner has experienced — we’re out, but we’re quite careful. We don’t disclose too much, but with balance, we stay safe enough to avoid threatening our livelihoods. Unless it’s on personal social media, I don’t share his name or face, and we’ve never acknowledged our relationship on Facebook.
My partner and I have learned when it is and isn’t okay to be affectionate, being particularly attentive to our proximity to campus. Given Liberty’s size and presence in the Lynchburg community, it’s entirely possible the guy next to us in line at Walmart is also on a hall leadership team, potentially giving him the ability to report us to Student Conduct for transgressing The Liberty Way.
Simply acknowledging our relationship online is a risk.
With the willingness to be more public — particularly online — comes a social cost. Some simply pretend we aren’t together, or display an obvious discomfort if and when we’re more relaxed around them. Many of our friends have ghosted us, distancing themselves in every possible way as if to make implicitly clear just how little they regard us. Even those who’ve stayed have received poor treatment by those who find us problematic.
And this isn’t fair. It’s unjust. That we even have to weigh risks pertaining to something so insignificant as holding hands — an expression of love and affection — portends a troubling reality: We’re not seen as equals. Instead, we’re a threat to a system of power whose success depends upon further marginalizing the marginalized.
We have every right to be angry, to object to the poor treatment we receive day after day thanks to a violently oppressive institution with little regard for equity as a legitimately Christian precept. That self-giving, self-sacrificing love is seen as an evidence of the world’s fallenness, that we’re treated as lost and corrupt souls destined to an eternity in hell — all for loving? How is this anything like the Christ these churches and schools claim to follow?
Instead of being affirmed for participating in a life-giving relationship, we’re told what we call “love” is entirely illegitmate, a wholly ignorant and arrogant thing to assert.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
As any LGBTQ+ individual attending an Evangelical university knows, simply to exist is to rebel. To breathe is to resist. Finding love? It can happen, but it won’t be easy.
It’s okay to resist.
It’s okay to stand out.
But take care of yourself — there’s no pressure. Do what’s best for you.
If you’re an ally and willing to speak up in defense of your LGBTQ+ siblings in Evangelical spaces — especially colleges — please take every opportunity you can to do so. Silence in the face of injustice costs lives. We deserve the freedom to live without fear of a punitive institution, retributive policies, and judgment from our peers. We can’t be expected to perform this labor on our own. It’s a community effort, and you can help.
If anything, I’m optimistic that change is coming. I see it. I feel it. Slowly and with immense effort, we can embody a supreme Love in the face of adversity.
And I believe that at the end of the day, Love wins.
Reaching Out is a publication dedicated to gathering LGBTQ stories from people of all faiths under one roof and around one table.
