I never had a cold. For years, until I got to college, I never had a cold.

Sure, I had the belief of a cold plenty of times. Even occasionally the claim of a cold. But a real, actual cold? Never.

That’s because in my family colds weren’t real. Neither was any disease or problem or unpleasantness. Because anything that wasn’t perfect wasn’t real. And perfection was what my family was all about.

I was raised in a religion called Christian Science, to the silent horror of both sides of our Conservative Jewish family. Christian Science is not Scientology, though like Scientology is now, Christian Science was all the rage among the celebrity set in the early part of the last century.

The Christian Science seal. Healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers and casting out demons—it’s not just for Jesus anymore!

Christian Science was “discovered” in the mid-19th century by an austere and ambitious New Englander named Mary Baker Eddy who believed that any disease or disturbance could be healed solely through prayer. This was based on the belief that anything imperfect was not of God, and therefore unreal.

The corollary to that, of course, is that only “real” things – godly things – are perfect. And because disease and other forms of imperfection are experienced in the physical universe, the physical universe is also not real. It can’t be. Your body, the computer you’re reading this on, matter itself, are all figments of our collective imagination.

“Knowing the Truth” about what our false human senses tell us is what Christian Scientists believe helps them overcome any “imperfection.” The church teaches that anyone can theoretically use this knowledge to attain the healing abilities of Jesus himself, who was merely the first – and so far, best – Christian Scientist.

Never let it be said that my parents didn’t think big.

Until I went to college, my life was made a daily exercise in “knowing the Truth” about everything, even though I could clearly see that the Truth didn’t work – I got over colds (excuse me, beliefs of colds) no sooner than my medicine-taking classmates, my disabled sister for whose sake my parents converted was still confined to her wheelchair, and I was still getting the shit kicked out of me at school no matter how much I tried to “know the Truth” about my bullies.

The few times I’d allowed myself to get in trouble by fighting back, I was told that I had failed to understand that error (unreality, imperfection, matter) must be counteracted by Love (reality, perfection, God). Using physical violence implied that material means could solve things, and I didn’t want to give legitimacy to matter, did I? How would my sister ever walk if I rejected the divine law that would one day surely heal her? Just as my sister was still crippled because of my parents’ still insufficient understanding of the Truth, I kept getting my ass kicked because I wasn’t praying enough. Obviously.

Forbidden things in Christian Science #1: Caffeine and other “drugs.” Coffee isn’t a drug. Drugs are bad.

Credit: Flickr user Ballistik Coffee Boy

Of course, I knew I was gay, as did everyone else. Kids can always tell, and me being sensitive and awkward didn’t help matters any. After all, this was southern New Jersey in the 80s. “Faggot” was the standard insult, and “gay” meant “stupid” or “dead.” Coming out was simply not an option.

I nearly flunked out of school because of the constant abuse, but I never breathed a word of it to anyone, especially my parents, because I knew that every beating I didn’t prevent through prayer would be viewed as a failure of my faith, while any attempt to fight back would be seen as a rejection of it.

Looking back on it now, I wish I’d fought everybody.

For years I gently poked my parents on the issue of homosexuality, but they never wavered. My dad was more of a “punch em in the face” homophobe, while my mom threw around phrases like “downfall of society,” though she was always quick to add that she loved every child of God very, very much, no matter how in need of healing they were. This was often accompanied by a meaningful look at me.

Our family’s Christian Science practitioner, Mr. Adams, healed a man of AIDS and homosexuality, my mother once told me admiringly. (Practitioners are church-trained “healers” and spiritual advisers.) I don’t know whether she said this because of her hopes for my sister or her suspicions of me, but it was always clear that nothing was beyond God’s power to heal.

So you can imagine the turmoil I caused when I finally came out to my parents, having happily abandoned Christian Science a few years before. My refusal to seek “healing” for my “belief” of homosexuality was doubly painful for my parents. Not only had I rejected their religion, my coming out also exposed how weak their faith had been all this time. No wonder my sister was still not cured – their devotions up to now hadn’t even been enough to prevent their able-bodied child from turning out horribly wrong.

Now they had two children to heal. Because, of course, you could change other people if your faith was strong enough. If you didn’t, it wasn’t God’s fault; it was yours. My sister was still crippled because of my parents’ “negative thoughts” according to their practitioner, which neatly explained why his own prayerful work wasn’t having any effect.

Forbidden things in Christian Science #2: Medicine. Yes, that even included fluoride, until it invaded every brand of toothpaste as well as our drinking water.

Credit: Flickr user CarbonNYC

But regardless of my parents’ insufficient faith over the course of thirty healing-free years, false beliefs of imperfection would still not be tolerated. Their “real” daughter could walk, just as their “real” son was heterosexual. It was just a matter of them seeing the “Truth.”

So they became even more fervent. A faithfulness that had been merely bizarre became genuinely disturbing. The touches of lightness and humor my parents once had deserted them completely, leaving a sense of weary obligation, if not outright despair, that I’ve never been able to puncture to this day.

My father, previously lukewarm in his faith, became resolutely observant. My mother filled the house with piles of religious books and periodicals, nearly every one of which she scribbled with notes and bookmarked with scraps of paper she mangled through repeated visits to this passage or that in hopes of finally grasping the perfection she was entitled to, the divine promise only a pure faith could realize.

Anytime I would mention a date or even a gay friend on the phone, I would be met with silence. When it happened at home I realized the silence was actually prayer, right there in the middle of our conversation. Nothing enraged me more than to see my parents suddenly turn their heads and stare motionless at the wall, lips slightly parted, their breathing slow, intent, defiant. I eventually stopped speaking to them altogether.

Shortly after my mom died of a neglected but easily treatable medical condition (a not uncommon fate for Christian Scientists), I found a notebook where she did her “spiritual work.” Most of it consisted of religious articles that her practitioner, perhaps having run out of ideas for his needy “patient,” assigned her to copy verbatim.

However, one page in particular caught my attention. Mostly because I was looking for it.

It was titled, “The Real Michael.”

It doesn’t matter what the rest of it said—just a list of qualities that my parents’ real son had, qualities a lot like the ones their gay son had. Except the gay part, of course, though that didn’t upset me. By this time I was beyond offense. But not pity.

Forbidden things in Christian Science #3: Doctors. Nothing strikes dread into the heart of a Christian Scientist as much as the thought of being treated by a doctor. But how can you not love that face?

Credit: Flickr user Bethany L King (license info)

All this is a roundabout way of answering the question that nearly every gay person is obliged to confront in a world of religions steeped in heterosexual privilege: How do I reconcile my sexuality with my religious experience?

My queer identity is an acceptance of truth – not the fantastical “Truth” at the heart of my religious upbringing. But that experience did ultimately teach me how to accept regular old truth – truth that is not necessarily pretty or perfect all the time, but one that is, at least, real.

It is the truly real that I love because it comes with no promises or guarantees, free of the limitations such empty assurances bring. When I came out, I was terrified because it was the first time in my life my actions would not be backed up by a heavenly promise. But I quickly discovered that speaking a truth that could no longer be denied was its own reward.

While my story is unusual, I feel no compunction applying the lessons I learned to the “normal” religions out there. You know, the ones that condemn people to an eternity in a lake of fire because a snake told a woman to eat an apple, the ones that justify a “chosen people’s” atrocities against their neighbors, the ones that justify their neighbors’ atrocities in return.

The truth is, every religion imposes a “real” vision of the world on its followers, and everyone who chooses to share that vision becomes incapable of seeing anything else.

And I refuse to limit myself to somebody else’s way of seeing the world. That’s why my queer identity makes it impossible for me to have a religious identity—I value reality too much, not the fantasy “reality” every religion invents for itself.

The common reality we experience and try to make sense of is often messy and hard to explain. Religions don’t like that. They run away from challenge and uncertainty. They believe in providing as many easy answers as they can, dodging the inevitably unanswerable questions with demands for more faith. But no matter how much faith you give in pursuit of the perfection you choose for yourself, it will never be enough.

It’s kind of like this boy I met a party a few months ago. Cute, smart, funny, random things in common, we were really hitting it off – until he mentioned that he was a faithful churchgoer. Disappointment crept in, but I tried to salvage our nascent connection by quizzing him about his need for religion.

“I just think there’s got to be more to life than this,” he said, sweeping his arms dismissively around the crowd, the room, everything.

We were interrupted, luckily for him, because I was about to ask just what was wrong with “this”? What was wrong with these people, our world, this life?

Was his reason a bother? His heart a burden? How could the the Earth be more suited to his comfort? How could the mystery of existence be made more amenable to his tastes? What exactly was lacking in the vast and infinite universe, wondrously formed, in all its majesty and splendor?

What more did he want?