I was born in a small New Jersey town in November 1956, the eldest son of a Presbyterian minister and his wife, an Italian-American Roman Catholic who converted to marry my father. Raised in Philadelphia, my parents separated in 1970 at which time my mother, my two younger brothers, and myself relocated to Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania where I spent my teenage years. Always something of an entrepeneur, I started an after-school business wholesaling jewelry making supplies to jewelers and craft shops. The business grew so swiftly that I quit High School in the middle of the 11th grade in order to devote my interests to it full-time. During this time, the year 1974, I met a man and his wife who lived in a nearby town who were already established in a similar business. He eventually became my primary supplier of goods. What I didn't know at the time was that his wife was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Although he never became a Witness himself, he encouraged me to sit in on their weekly Bible studies which an elder was holding in their home. I was feeling spiritually unfulfilled at the time, having become disillusioned with the Presbyterian church because of its condemnation of gays at that time. I have known I am gay from a very early age, and was involved in my first relationship at the tender age of 15 with another boy my age. The elder was a master salesman, and he knew all the right things to say and all the right scriptures to read to convince me that Armageddon was right around the corner. During this period, the Jehovah's Witnesses were convinced that Armageddon was going to occur in the fall of 1975. They were equally convincing to me that I had just enough time to join. Although I never admitted my sexual orientation to the elder, he seemed to know anyway, and told me during several consecutive study sessions that in order to guarantee my immortality, all I had to do was to "stop being gay" for a few months, and after I survived Armageddon, I would be "perfect", so my sexuality wouldn't matter any more. I was sold! I had never had anyone offer me immortality before, and not only was this precious gift being offered to me - I believed I was being handed a sacred trust -- the opportunity to share this immortality with others. I had finally found a purpose in life. Of course, in the back of my mind, there was a constant terror of annihilation which this elder had carefully inculcated into me.

A Watchtower artist's rendering of Armageddon

So, with both zeal and terror living inside me, I broke up with my boyfriend, telling him that if he didn't change his ways, he'd be destroyed in the Great Tribulation. I never saw him again. The South Congregation in Reading, Pennsylvania was building a new Kingdom Hall and they asked me if I'd like to help. Of course I said yes. I was beginning to feel like a part of the congregation. The hardest thing for me to do in breaking my "worldly" habits was to conform to the strict JW dress code. I had shoulder-length hair, and getting it cut to "JW length" was heartbreaking for me, but if it would help guarantee my survival at Armageddon, I was willing to go to any lengths. I completed studying the "True Peace and Security" book and joined the Reading West congregation (that served the area in which I lived). I was filled with zeal and began preaching house to house almost immediately. I also began my day every morning by doing street work. I became a fixture at the corner of 4th & Penn Streets in Reading Pennsylvania, so much so that on the rare days I did not show up, regular passersby would come up to me upon my return and note my absence. I was baptized at a District Assembly in the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn in Allentown PA at a mass baptism on July 4, 1975. My first words after coming up out of the water were "I made it!"

The Kingdom Hall in Reading PA where it all began

I became an "auxiliary pioneer" as soon as I was baptized. I wanted to pioneer full time but couldn't due to my business obligations (I was on the road most of the time). Although Armageddon failed to materialize as scheduled, I must say that my first two years as a JW went pretty smoothly. I had numbed myself to all outside influences and was immersed in the "truth". Little by little, I began to feel different in the congregation, like the outsider looking in. This was not due to my sexuality, but due to the fact that very few members in the congregation ever invited me to any social gatherings. Looking back retrospectively, the elitist bourgeois mentality I experienced was not unique to the congregation to which I belonged; those who are proselytized (especially if they are individuals and no other family members join them) are treated quite differently from those who are born into the Organization. There is a hidden "caste system" which insidiously pervades the Organization. I began to feel lonely. This was during the period where Citizens Band radios were popular. I had owned a CB radio long before their popularity took hold (thanks to movies such as "Convoy" and "Smokey and the Bandit"), so I was a firmly established CB'er and found it the ideal diversion for my lonely periods. Eventually, I met a man over the air with whom I had much in common. We spent a great deal of time together and became best friends. In order for the JW's not to accuse him of being a "bad association", I started a Bible study with him, although he really wasn't interested in anything other than my friendship. The inevitable happened: I fell in love with him. One night, both of us got drunk on beer, and we found ourselves in bed making love. I woke up the next morning in absolute terror. I thought I had utterly destroyed my chances of surviving Armageddon. I immediately went to the elders and told them what I had done. They weren't concerned with the drinking aspect of my "sin" I had gone to the elders before and told them I had a drinking problem, but I was just told "Well, then just don't drink so much the next time". The judicial committee was very interested in hearing every lurid detail of our sexual liasion. Because I was considered "repentant", I was only administered "Private Reproof", but word spread through the congregation like wildfire, and I was treated like a leper except while out in field service. My boyfriend and I parted ways and, broken hearted, I went back to being a faithful Witness, though somewhat less zealous, and a whole lot more fearful.

Then my spiritual world caved in. I was still faithfully doing street work, when one day a man approached me seeming very interested in my message. During the course of our conversation, I invited him to start a Bible study, to which he quickly agreed. Excitedly, I asked for his address, whereupon he told me "Wernersville State Hospital", a nearby mental institution. As it turned out, he was a permanent patient there, having lived on the long-term ward over twenty years. Nevertheless, I approached another brother (as yet unbaptized) in the congregation and asked him if he would care to join me for a Bible study there, to which he enthusiastically agreed. Little by little, other long-term patients on the ward joined in our study, and it made my heart glad that I could offer hope to these seemingly hopeless and abandoned people. Eventually, I approached the unit supervisor and requested day passes, two at a time, for the patients, to take them to Sunday meetings at the Kingdom Hall, which were granted. The gentleman with whom I had originally studied with came with me every time, but he had one serious idiosyncrasy: He had a loud, bellowing laugh, and often laughed at inappropriate times during the Sunday talks that would send the congregation into hysterics. One Sunday I found myself surrounded by elders, all asking why I was bringing these people with me to the Kingdom Hall. Astonished, I observed that these people needed salvation most of all, to which the elders retorted "Yes, but they cannot understand our doctrines". I asked if that would exclude them from ever being able to become Jehovah's Witnesses, therefore condemning them to die at Armageddon, to which I was icily told "Yes". It was at this point that I began to question my beliefs.

By this time, I was drinking alcoholically on a regular basis. The elders were still ignoring my drinking problem, but they were watching me like eagles lest I "slip" sexually again. I had befriended another brother in the congregation about my age, and one night, both of us decided to go see the movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". I was drunk and remember little of the event, which is why I couldn't understand my being surrounded by elders the next morning with newspapers in hand demanding to know why I would attend such a film and allow the reporter to interview me, thus tarnishing the congregation's "good reputation." I had no memory of the interview, which, by the way, made no mention of the fact that I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses, so I had no reply. Still under "Private Reproof", the elders decided that the only way to restore the congregation's reputation was to administer "Public Reproof". My name was announced from the platform that Sunday morning as having engaged in "Conduct unbecoming a Christian."

Very shortly after this happened, I had a serious falling out with my business supplier, left Pennsylvania, quit the jewelry business and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. I was honest with the Atlanta congregation upon my arrival about the circumstances behind my Public Reproof, but instead of condemnation, I found support and sympathy, especially from one elder who was not only instrumental in restoring my zeal, but got my reproof lifted in a matter of months. Unfortunately, that didn't last long.

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arose for me to relocate to the Caribbean. A zealous, restored Witness once again, I tearfully bid good-bye to Atlanta and moved to the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I lived on St. Thomas for 13 years. Shortly after my arrival, the elders inquired about where I had come from, and they sent for my records from the Atlanta (Lakewood) congregation. Apparently that wasn't good enough for them. They saw in my records how I had been reproved, so they sent a letter of inquiry to the Reading Pennsylvania congregation, who fired back a nasty letter stating that the Atlanta congregation had no right to lift my reproof without consulting them first, demanding my reproof be restored immediately. It was. That was the beginning of the end, and I was getting real disgusted with being treated as a pawn in a power struggle between three bodies of elders.

That is why, when a co-worker invited me out on a double date with himself, his girlfriend, and another young lady to go to Safari (the gay disco on St.Thomas at the time), I jumped at the chance. I felt at home immediately upon walking in. Seeing men dancing with other men just looked and felt so natural to me. The next weekend, I timidly went back alone. The Memorial was coming up, and by this point I had pretty well lost all enthusiasm for being a Witness, so I decided to do something which I thought the elders would find totally obnoxious in a deliberate attempt to get disfellowshipped (no one ever told me you could disassociate yourself) - I went out and got my ear pierced, and showed up at the Memorial sporting a new, gleaming gold earring in my right ear. In the 1970s, a right-ear piercing on a man signified you were gay. Of course, I was called before the judicial committee immediately. Because I was "unrepentant," I was disfellowshipped on the spot. I was told "Jehovah no longer loves you, not for what you do, but for who you are." I was further told that unless I came back married with a child of my own fathering to prove to them that I was no longer gay, I would not be accepted back into the congregation!

As an interesting side note, only days after being disfellowshipped, one of the elders on the Judicial Committee came to my door alone, in casual street clothes and no Bible or book bag, asking me very intimate questions about what gay men do in bed. Although there is no way to prove it, I am certain he was trying to seduce me. Fortunately, a friend came to the door in the middle of the conversation, and the elder excused himself and left abruptly. He never returned.

Only a couple of months after I was expelled, I met someone who became a very important part of my life. Rick and I remained together for 14 years until he passed away in 1994. During this period, I came out of the closet to both of my parents, who told me that they would rather have a gay son than a Jehovah's Witness son. It was not easy for me to recover from the influences of the JW's. Belief that I had been abandoned by God took its toll on me. I began using illegal drugs, drank even more heavily, was hospitalized several times, and attempted suicide once. I started a support group for gay & lesbian former Jehovah's Witnesses while living on St.Thomas, even getting interviewed in the gay press, but due to my low income and heavy drinking I was unable to sustain the project. I turned the group's mailing list over to another gay former Witness to continue the group. I secured a copy of the book "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality" by John Boswell. That book, along with my independently studying the Bible passages used to condemn gays in the original Hebrew and Greek, finally resolved my questions about whether or not I was condemned, and I learned I was not! The process of self-acceptance had begun.

I moved to San Francisco in 1993, and while reading the Bay Times one afternoon (one of San Francisco's gay weeklies), I saw an advertisement for a support group for gay Jehovah's Witnesses and called immediately. John Wirtanen answered the phone and we talked for hours. There were three of us at the very first meeting, and our group has grown ever since. I'm also happy to say that I have been clean and sober since 1987, and fully accepting of myself exactly as I was created by God: a gay man. I will say that the thought of "maybe the JW's were right" dogged me for a long time, but after reading Raymond Franz's book "Crisis of Conscience", and with my research on the internet, I have learned all about the Organization, and have no desire to "repent". The God I love and worship today is a God of Love, not the JW's god of doctrine and punishment. I have found real purpose in life, being of encouragement to other gays and Lesbians needing escape from behind the walls of the Watchtower. I welcome correspondence from anyone. I am grateful that the day has finally arrived where support groups such as ours are flourishing worldwide!

Author's addendum:

The above essay was written in 1994. Many things have happened since then. I am happy to say that I have found a new partner with whom I have been together since 1998. Together, we have moved back to Pennsylvania from San Francisco and bought a house on the edge of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. The little group that I started in 1980 has grown into a support network called A Common Bond and has active chapters around the world and a multi-lingual website. In the past fifteen years, I have corresponded with somewhere between two thousand and three thousand gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender former and active Jehovah's Witnesses from every continent except Antarctica. A Common Bond holds annual international conferences, and has done so since 1999. I've been called everything from an "apostate" to "the antichrist." Although I'm not as active with A Common Bond as I once was, I continue to correspond on an individual basis as well as help organize ACB events as I am able. Life after the Watchtower has been a happy one for me. I look forward to what still lay ahead.

Hear in my own words my apology to those upon whose doors I once knocked.

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