Gaysia (24 page)

‘We want to hear from you, O God!' he said. ‘You and you
alone
!
For you can transform our hearts
,' he said, whispering. ‘FOR YOU CAN SET US FREE!' he said, screaming. ‘Only you can heal our SEX-U-A-LI-
teee
, O God!'

He gestured to us.

‘Every one of you,' he said, ‘whether you're sexually broken or not, you are sexual beings! So this service today is for
everybody
. Look at your friends and say, “You are a sexual being.” Go on!'

I turned to the man next to me. Lionel was a tall, handsome guy with a Sri Lankan background who wore glasses. I had watched him during the hymns, dancing awkwardly in the way tall men dance, keeping their hands close to their body as if they're worried their limbs might cause a scene.

‘You are a sexual being,' I said to Lionel, laughing awkwardly.

‘You are a sexual being,' he said back, in a deep, British-inflected voice.

Two frail white-haired ladies behind us turned to each other.

‘You are a sexual being,' they said sombrely.

‘Some of you
used
to be sexually regular,' Edmund said. ‘But then things began to happen and you became
sexually different
.'

Being ‘sexually different' was bad. ‘Sexually regular' was the ideal, and there were only two ways to achieve it: hetero sexual marriage or celibacy. Everything else was ‘sexually different', a sin in the eyes of the Lord. ‘Sexually different' behaviour included – it was a long list – sex before marriage, homosexuality, bisexuality, adultery, bestiality, paedophilia, promiscuity and polygamy. If you masturbated, you were sexually different. (‘If you are a man having sex with yourself, it means you are mas-turba-
ting
,' Edmund explained. ‘YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE SEX WITH YOURSELF!') Watching pornography was also sexually different. (‘WHEN YOU WATCH PORN, it means you are HAVING SEX WITH THOSE
IMAGES
. Then when you MASTURBATE, you are HAVING SEX WITH YOURSELF.')

There was another category of people who were ‘sexually
broken'. These were sexually different people who wanted to change. This was better than being sexually different, because God could only put you back together once you admitted you were truly broken.

Edmund pointed out it wasn't our place to judge sexually different people. He had dealt with homosexuals, people who masturbated and people who frequently watched porn. He didn't judge any of them. He even had friends who, to this day, remained gay.

‘I even have friends who are
paedophiles
,' he told us. ‘REAL PAEDOPHILES! I'm not like, “Ew, ew, ew. Don't do that.”'

Jesus
, I thought.

‘Because we should be sexually-different-people
friendly
,' he said. ‘We should be able to stand with them, pray for them' – his voice descended into a whisper – ‘
and guide them
.'

There were murmurs of approval and agreement.

Edmund leaned forward, gazing into our eyes.

‘Now,
I
have no right to judge you,' he said. ‘But I'm also supposed to tell you the truth: that based on God's standard, you are
sexually different
. Don't tell me, “Oh, it's okay for women to be with women, for men to be with men, for adults to be with children sexually.” It's NOT OKAY. It's in the SCRIPTURES. It's
against
nature,' he whispered. ‘ARE YOU LISTENING?' he hollered. ‘MAN marries WOMAN.
Period!
There's no other way! Can you say Am-eh-en?'

Edmund pronounced Amen in the same three-syllabled way Californian girls said ‘Heh-loooo-
oooh
?'

‘Amen,' we said.

‘Men has sex with men, it is shameful,' Edmund said. ‘SAY “SHAMEFUL”.'

‘Shameful,' we said.

‘Now most of you know my story,' he said. ‘I never thought I would get a CHANCE to get married. I never thought I'd get a CHANCE to become a father! I thought I'd always be gay and look for Mr Right. I tried that for
eleven years
. It never worked. I was so BROKEN! If I imagined myself being with a woman, sexually' – here he started to dry-retch – ‘I started to get nausea!
Oooooh
, I feel like vomiting.
Disgusted
, you know?'

Some of the congregation laughed, maybe in recognition.

‘So I could not imagine that today, I would be enjoying what God gave Adam and Eve.'

Amanda looked at him with devoted, helpless love.

‘
It's a wonderful thing
,' he whispered. ‘IT'S A WONDERFUL THING, I SAID. SAY “AMEN!”' he screamed.

‘Amen.'

‘Now, I've had all kinds of excitement!' he said. ‘I've had
orgies
; I've had
sex for money
. I've had sex with teenagers; I've had sex with seventy-year-old GRANDPA!' He grinned. ‘Yes! I've had sex with all kinds of people and I'm not proud of all this. I had all kinds of excitement! I tell you: before becoming ex-gay,
I slept with a man every night
.'

I was impressed, then remembered children were in the audience.

‘But when you open the word of God, our hearts begin to beat faster. There will be a
su-per-nat-u-ral
experience for each and every one of us. Let's get
excited
! Not just in church but in your own homes. When you open the word of God,
GET EXCITED.
Some of you have not ARRIVED THERE YET, so start asking: “GOD GIVE ME AN EXCITED HEART!”'

‘God, give me an excited heart,' we said.

‘Say it! “I WANT THAT EXCITEMENT, JESUS!”'

‘I want that excitement, Jesus.'

‘“MAKE ME EXCITED, JESUS!”'

‘Make me excited, Jesus.'

‘Some of you know, your favourite movie is coming out soon,' he said. ‘
Glee
3D.
Glee
movie! In 3D! In the cinema,
wah
! You know, I get so excited about the
Glee
movie! I love
Glee
! I'm excited about that. But trust me-
lah
: I'm
not
more excited about that than the
word of God
. Who can say Ah-meh-en?'

He winked and waved a cheeky finger at us.

‘Amen,' we said.

After the service, Edmund came over to me, with Amanda and the kids in tow, giving me a big hug and kiss on the cheek.

‘
Shalom
, Benjamin! You made it.'

Angel, Edmund's daughter, squealed excitedly.

‘Why are you so excited, Angel?' I said.

‘Because you're here, you're
here
, you're really
HERE
,' she said, then released a groan. ‘This is the first time in my LIFE we're meeting! You're here and I'm meeting you and I'M SO
EXCITED
! Argh!'

I laughed. ‘Argh!' I said.

‘Argh!' she said again.

Edmund then invited me to join them for lunch. Amanda, Angel, Ethan, Angel's best friend Isabelle and Edmund's mother – a regal woman who wore her grey hair in an elegant perm – were already in the family's eight-seat car.

When I opened the door, Angel started squealing again, jamming her fists into her mouth. She had not expected me to ride with them.

‘Argh!' she squealed.

‘Argh!' I said.

Smiling, Edmund started the engine. I asked Angel, Isabelle and Ethan what they wanted to be when they grew up. Ethan wanted to be a professional football player; Angel and Isabelle wanted to be fashion designers. I stuck my head between the front seats to speak to Edmund and Amanda.

‘Your kids are pretty adorable,' I said.

Amanda and Edmund smiled, proud parents who'd scored good kids.

‘Praise Jesus,' Edmund said.

At the eatery, other members of the congregation joined us, including the singer Judith, Sri Lankan Lionel and a butch-looking girl, Ally, whom I'd mistaken for a teenage boy at the service based on her thick eyebrows and short hair gelled into a mohawk.

Over lunch, Edmund passed over his business card that said he was part of something called Rafohs Creative Entertainment. It was a company he ran with Jerry, who was both his assistant pastor and professional manager. When he wasn't preaching, Edmund worked as an MC, actor and singer, and had recently been in a Singaporean feature film. (‘You must look it up on YouTube!' he told me.)

There had been a small glass case back at RLM headquarters that displayed Edmund's merchandise. CDs for sale included his debut album,
Wake Up
– a collection of self-penned Christian songs – and the limited edition EP,
Perfect.
There was also a VCD of one of Edmund's cable television appearances called
It's a New Day: Homosexuals Can Change … If They Want To
.

Later that afternoon, I met Edmund and Jerry again in a canal-side café. They came wearing outfits very different from those they'd worn at church. Jerry was now dressed in a muscle
top paired with above-the-knee denim cut-offs. Edmund was a vision in white: low-cut white V-neck shirt; white beach trousers; white Kangol-style cap; giant white vinyl carry bag large enough to fit a small child. He was dressed like a fabulous retired gentleman on a tropical holiday, the kind who drinks chilled white wine served by handsome waitstaff.

‘So, how exactly do you stop being gay?' I asked.

Edmund sighed, and Jerry started taking photos with a digital camera. When I gave him a puzzled look, he explained they were going up on RLM's Facebook page.

‘It's a
journey
,' Edmund said. ‘It begins with a decision. I mean, if you
come
from a gay background, you
might
know what I'm talking about …'

‘Okay,' I said, playing dumb.

‘Because if you come from that background, you can empathise better. You can be a better shoulder to cry on.'

I asked Edmund whether he felt he'd been born gay and he shook his head emphatically. ‘I
felt
,' he said, emphasising the past tense. ‘I don't feel that anymore. I don't
believe
that anymore.'

Edmund recalled those heady gay days between the ages of thirteen and twenty-four with a smile. He brought friends along to cruising spots and hooked them on the thrill of anonymous sex. Edmund didn't speak of anything with disgust or shame – the group sex, the late nights, the anonymous fucking. Instead, he was smiling, even laughing, reminiscing as if those were the good old days.

‘Well, in a way, it
was
the good old days!' he said, laughing. ‘Of course, I've done certain things I shouldn't have done, definitely. But I don't believe in
regretting
. I've repented for the things I believe are sins today, but those are things that have happened already. You can't do anything about it.'

In the last three years of his gay ‘phase', Edmund pursued three year-long relationships with three different guys. He was looking for long-term monogamy by then, but each relationship ended badly. Incidentally, his last boyfriend's name – the one, he said, who really broke his heart – was Benjamin.

‘Oh!' I said.

Edmund laughed, but said he was shattered at the time.

‘I gave him my most. But it's the same old story you hear: gays
cannot
be trusted. At the end of the day, they can be your friends, but they cannot live with you happily ever after.' He then added quietly: ‘I think I loved him more than he loved me.'

But there were gay couples I knew who had been together for years, even decades, I said, conveniently failing to mention that I belonged to one of those couples.

‘There
are
people who've been together for twenty years,' he said. ‘Yes! They
claim
they're like married couples, blah-blah-blah. They have a house, three dogs – and then, when their partner's not around, they flirt with me! So what does
that
say? To me, it's scary!'

‘Heterosexual people do that too,' I said.

‘I know
thaa-aat
,' he said, singsong. He shrugged. ‘Maybe I've not seen enough gay people? I don't know.'