The complexities of human sexuality are no reason to deny people equal protection of the law.

The current demonizing of homosexuals so disturbs me that I am moved to share some of my experiences concerning gays and lesbians.

As an elderly heterosexual and a lifelong practicing Catholic, I didn’t even know homosexuals existed until I was 45 years old. I grew up in more innocent times.

I asked a psychiatrist friend to explain homosexuality. He told me that in sexual development, coming to completion in adolescence, everyone passes through a homosexual phase (reminded me of high school “crushes” on teachers and coaches); that most continue to evolve into heterosexuality, but some remain in the homosexual phase. Occasionally, even in earlier years, there may be a glimpse of this orientation. This is not their choice, nor even self-knowledge; it’s unrecognized until some experience leads them to discover it.

Here are a few of my encounters.

The first resulted from my urging a friend to develop what I believed was a good singing voice. He did so and joined his church choir. As a matter of interest, and perhaps to “cheer him on,” I went to a service of his church and met one of the two finest pastors of my life, a young woman in her 30s. During the service, she would sit on the altar steps and gather the children of the congregation around her. Her parishioners loved her, and she loved them (and even came to love me, perhaps, when occasionally I revisited the church).

A couple of years later my friend, the singer, told me of this happening. During a state convention of her denomination, she was appointed to chair a committee to formulate a policy for the church on homosexuality. She stood up before the whole body of the convention and said it was inappropriate for her to fill that position, since she herself was a lesbian and was living with her partner. She had discovered this orientation when she was 27. This revelation, of course, bitterly divided her parish, and to avoid splitting the congregation she resigned her pastorate and, sadly, left the ministry.

In the state where I used to live, I was very involved in hospice work. At one time, I was asked to do “compassionate visitation” of a gay man in his early 50s. His left side had been completely paralyzed by a neurological disorder, for which no treatment had proven effective, and he’d had to enter a nursing home.

He was desperately depressed by this prognosis at such a relatively young age. For the three years of life that was left to him, except for a brief annual winter break, his partner came every day to see him – a round trip of about 45 miles. Obviously, they couldn’t engage in any sexual activity. I have never seen more committed love in any marriage than between those two men.

As it happened, I was at his deathbed, along with family members and his partner, who arranged the dignified, simple religious funeral service that followed.

Two of my friends, both doctors, after their children had completed college, donated their house to a religious order and went to an African country to practice, teach and establish a medical school. They and their children are committed Catholics. (Now they are back in this country.) Recently, they told me that their eldest son, in his late 30s – who’d had several “dating” relationships with women but never quite decided to marry – had discovered he was gay. He’d met a man for whom he felt a response not experienced with any of his women friends.

Very active in his church, he was serving as a lector at Mass. He felt he should tell his pastor, since he might now be considered disqualified for this ministry. His pastor reassured him, however, and expressed the view that the church would do well to be more accepting of its homosexual members, whose lives are not easy. Fellow parishioners have continued to be friendly.

The most striking, and dramatic, example I learned of, recently, from a friend, a sister of this man. In the course of our work, we lived for some time in a European country where we formed a close friendship with a local couple. The husband, a government official, was an outstanding Catholic. He received a papal knighthood. And at his funeral a few years ago, the bishop concelebrated, a Cardinal attended and the head of the Carmelite order in the country delivered a eulogy. Their children, all married, are active Catholics. One son had a troubled marriage and secured an annulment, the only acceptable Catholic divorce. Subsequently he moved to London to work, remarried and adopted a daughter. Neither marriage had produced a child.

His sister told me that he had recently undergone a complete physical sex change and that his appearance is that of a woman. His wife remains an understanding, strong and supportive friend. He must be nearly 60 now. For all these years, he had been trying to come to terms with his unsettled male sexuality.

These experiences have given me a profound humility about the complexities of human development.

While homosexual marriage is too controversial a matter to make it a prudent course, it is a testament to committed love by those who seek it, and an ironic contrast to those heterosexuals who cohabit but are disinclined to commit to marriage – often producing children who lack the benefit of legitimacy.

Civil unions seem a legitimate alternative. Individual pastors could bless these unions if they choose.

But I am appalled by self-righteous condemnation of homosexual – I’ve read my Bible, too – and the campaign to deny them civil rights, such as access to housing and employment.

Dorothy Prince lives in Auburn.

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