Out & Amish
by: James Schwartz
4.2.07 marked the 6th month anniversary of the Nickle Mines, PA. school shootings. On 10.2.06 Charles Carl Roberts IV, shot ten little girls (age 7-13), killing five in the rural schoolhouse. The tragedy made international headlines including the Old Order Amish community reaching out to the killer’s family, bringing food and uniting in their shared grief. 50,000 voters via Beliefnet.com named the Amish community “the most inspiring person of 2006″ for their “incredible Christian forgiveness, charity and love” USA Today reported 12.14.06. What the OOA cannot forgive: homosexuality.
There are no “gay Amish / Mennonite” on record…except me, as least as far as I can Google. Even after every United State offers full marriage equality they will never condone homosexuality as anything other than sinful. Biblical Scriptures are not open for debate or questioning. I was a mincing contradiction since birth although my flame would burn out in ten years. When I was nine, my beloved mother Wilma Schwartz passed away after a battle with cancer. I was traumatized with grief, overnight becoming a robotic shell that operated to only get through the day, night and year. I was not encouraged to discuss her death or my feelings in any way. The Amish way of life is not an affectionate one. Cue a repressed, isolated childhood. I saw a therapist wrapping up my teenage years, giving my pain and sorrow an outlet. I could move on…and come out as accepting of my sexual orientation.
When an Amish youth reaches sixteen or so (s)he will begin “rumspringa” [rough translation: run around], attending parties and given freedoms. The parties take place in barns or garages with beer, country-western music and hetero socialzing. That all changed when I made the scene– DJing techno, luring jocks in the cornfields for hook ups and generally behaving as if from another planet. Planet Gay!
I laughed through the docu Devil’s Playground, which depicts rumspringa in LaGrange, IN. about twenty miles from where I was raised…I even spotted ex trade in the big party scene!
A gay Amish teen coming out will lose their faith community (all they know), their family and friends. If they would have joined the church they would be ex-communicated and shunned. I formally came out in my 20s although I was never “in”– just repressed. Had any of the slain Amish girls been a family member I would not be welcomed to mourn with them, publicly or otherwise.
I had an Amish friend in the 8th grade I’ll call Melvin (not his real name). I was allowed to stay the night at his house which, like mine, was scrubbed clean, plain and boasted a library of old National Geographic magazines and German hymnals. Alone in Melvin’s room we fell into the throes of twink passion and were overheard. My in-laws-not-to-be forbid him from even speaking to me. Weeks later I cornered Melvin and he confessed he was afraid of “hell fire” and that “what we did was wrong”. These days Melvin has the farm, wife (rather frumpy thing) and litters of children whom will be taught homosexuality is a sin. Scriptures will be quoted. This too is a tragedy.
Do you know any Amish guys in there 30′s or 40′s?
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