Perth Voice Interactive

GRAHAM DOUGLAS-MEYER spent much of his life keeping secrets: first that he was gay, and then later that he’d tested positive for HIV.

But personal secrets have to be pushed aside when writing your autobiography.

Now pastor at the gay-affirming church Open Arms Fellowship in North Perth, he says it’s time to lay it all on the table.

“It was time to get this out in the open so that then I don’t have to worry,” he says. “Once I told my parents I was gay, I didn’t give a damn who knew.”

Having withstood workplace bullying by colleagues who’d suspected he was gay, he says putting the information out disarms his critics.

His book You Shall Walk in the Dark Places tells the story of years wracked by guilt, as his homosexuality grappled with his deeply held Christian faith.

He’d contemplated at a young age going into the clergy, seeing priesthood as a way to escape his sexuality since he wouldn’t be having sex anyway. He quotes Jack Lemmon: “celibacy is celibacy, even if your thing is goats”.

But temptations proved strong. He found himself seeking anonymous gay sex at night, then stopping off for confession on the way home.

Douglas-Meyer also underwent “ex-gay” therapy, a now-discredited course designed to turn gay men straight.

Such courses—still popular throughout the US—are regarded by many as psychologically damaging. One organisation that used to employ the methods, Exodus International, has even issued an apology for “years of undue suffering and judgment”.

Douglas-Meyer was initially advised to keep his HIV+ status to himself but once his parents knew he wasn’t bothered about who else found out, and he ended up working as an advocate for people with the disease.

His struggles with organised religious have been altogether more challenging.

He used to attend Riverview Church and while the leadership was happy for him to sit in the pews, he was not allowed to become an active member, because he was gay. “I couldn’t even pass round the collection plate,” he says.

Not satisfied to sit on the sidelines, he started his own charismatic congregation just over a year ago at the North Perth town hall.

“I felt like I got a tap on the shoulder: ‘You’re the one to start it’. It’s just been right since the very beginning.”

Along with telling the pretty unique story of becoming an openly gay pastor, he hopes the book helps others in his situation who struggle to reconcile faith and sexuality.

“The whole intent has been to make sure that someone else doesn’t have to go through the same type of junk, or if they are going through it to know that someone else has gone through it and they aren’t alone.”

You Shall Walk in the Dark Places is available in print versions by contacting pastor@openarmsaustralia.org (for signed books) or print and Kindle versions on Amazon.

by DAVID BELL