Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Exorcism

I collect posters, and I decorated my dorm room in seminary with the posters. Most were travel and movie posters. One of my loves is James Bond movies, so I had the poster from "The Spy Who Loved Me". It shows a picture of Roger Moore with Barbara Bach wearing a low-cut black dress. Each semester, we would have open house in the dorm rooms, and I would always win the award for the coolest room. At the beginning of my last semester, I got the flu. I asked the Men's Dean if he could get somebody to bring some food to me, as I couldn't leave my room. The guy that brought it had never been in my room before, and he took offense at Barbara Bach's low-cut dress. They asked me to take it down. I did. They didn't ask the guys in the dorm to take down their Farrah swimsuit posters, but I tried to be nice about it. Then, I started getting notes under my door that guys were praying for me. One guy even performed an exorcism on me so the devil would leave me. One morning around 8, I was asleep and the dean opened my door and woke me up. He asked me why did I come to seminary? I told him that God had called me to be there. He said that they had reread my personality test and found I was unfit to be there. This is 2 years after I had taken the test and had been accepted. I was called before the Dean of Students and was told that, based on the test, I was a drug addict, alcoholic, paranoid and schizophrenic person. In addition, they took a poll of the girls' dorm residents and found that I had not dated any of them, so I was either anti-social or gay. So, in order to stay in school and graduate, I had to do the following: re-take the MMPI test; agree to counseling at their psych lab; and then have a meeting with the seminary president. I was very honest on the test the first time. Had I ever drank alcohol? Yes. Had I ever used drugs? Yes. Had I ever felt I was being followed? Yes. Had I ever had fantasies? Yes. So, now I re-took the test. I answered no to every question except one. The verdict? I must have mis-read the questions the first time. Then, I went to counseling. I went in and after 5 minutes, the counselor asked me why they had sent me to him. He realized I was okay, so we talked about Dallas Cowboys football the rest of the time. Finally, I met with the seminary president. I had known him since I was 5. He was an old friend of my father's. After a couple of minutes, he apologized for all I had been through and told the attack dogs to back off. I did have to move off-campus for the last couple of months, because of the harassment, but I was allowed to graduate. I had a job off campus at Sanger Harris Department Store. I loved that job and my co-workers. One of my friends there was a girl named Karen, although I got to call her Kare. I loved Kare. When the school tried to say that I was gay, they didn't bother to find out that I was dating Kare. She had nothing to do with the seminary. When my parents came out for my graduation, the Dean of Students told my father that my situation was all a misunderstanding. They didn't want trouble from my father who was very big in Southern Baptist circles. Many schools wanted me to teach Drama. Unfortunately, they were all too conservative for me. I had to sign statements of faith, but I am pro-choice, and all of the statements required that I be pro-life. I had principles. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson agreed with my principles, even if they didn't believe in my beliefs. In looking back on it, maybe I should have kept my principles to myself and lied to get a job, but that wasn't me. After I graduated, I chose to stay in Fort Worth at my job and to be with Kare. I was in love.

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