Do I belong in Hell House?

If you like being scared at Halloween, you can visit a haunted house or a hell house. In a haunted house, someone will come at you with a rubber axe, a few goof walls will tremble, eyes will move in a portrait, you'll hear a "Shh, they're coming -- do you have your mask on?" \n In a hell house, more complicated tableaux might well greet you. The profound detritus of ungodly choices are on display this year at the Ellettsville House of Prayer Hell House. In an article from The Herald-Times' Lifestyle section, Oct. 17, a hell house is defined as dealing with the topics of today -- prejudice, school shootings and homosexuality, among others.\nLater in the article, we learn that new to this year's hell house is an AIDS scene in which a man dies from AIDS as a result of engaging in homosexual intercourse. Which can happen, by the way.\nWe might question why this dying man wasn't a Wall Street broker getting a hooker job under the West Side Highway in Manhattan; an IV drug user trading sex for a fix; a housewife whose husband found conventionality so imperative that he married, and cruises for men in public parks; a child in Africa; a cowboy in Argentina with a little too much gaucho in his swagger; a high-fashion model.\nReligion is an emotional institution and it demands emotional reactions. For the same reason that some people like to read new Jon-Benet murder theories in supermarket tabloids, some people enjoy having their moral outrages depicted outrageously. The birth of Christ is a circus, the Crucifixion a tabloid-ready event. \nThe outrageous attracts the eye, a pattern repeated in nature through tropical birds, reef fish and various reptiles. The specialized are easily noticed.\nThe fact that gay sexual behavior is linked to HIV, or condemned, or causes moral outrage isn't a story anymore. The fact that some gay men have HIV or have died of AIDS-related complications is a fact. No arguments.\nThe real story of the House of Prayer isn't that it concocted this little piss in the eye of reality, but that it had the moxie to do so publicly. In doing so, it tableau-ed its own misconceptions about HIV, demonstrated its lack of understanding of recent trends in infections, showed how vulnerable it could be to the epidemic.\nIt could very well be that no member of the House of Prayer will ever have gay sex, and not a one of them will ever desire it. This is fine -- leave the swimming pool to the swimmers. \nThey might never be adulterous, get drunk and have unprotected, ungodly, unsanctioned sex (with the opposite sex, of course). And, if needles are the fangs of the devil, they'll give them a wide berth. \nSuch a life of virtue, and a strict adherence to virtue, is difficult for me to think of having, and I couldn't have it anyway. When I've written about my own feelings of God in my life, I usually receive an e-mail from a well-meaning strict constructionist of What God is All About. Yes, they say, God loves you, but you can only be saved by: A. being homosexual but never having homosexual sex; B. not being homosexual and turning away from your sinful choice; C. asking Christ to forgive you at about 10 seconds before death for your bent ways and deviant life. I've got salvation problems, they tell me, from the get-go. \nIt isn't relevant to the House of Prayer that I don't think they get it. I'm not anxious to defend the fact that people, of all sexualities and situations, continue to acquire HIV and die -- at least we agree on that one. \nOne silly little fag on a hell house floor in Ellettsville -- I mean, one silly little dead fag -- won't stop reality, various realities, from overtaking the House of Prayer. \nIt might stop some gay teen from a House of Prayer family from ever connecting with gay life. He or she might think twice. He or she might raise a real family, not a made-up one. Love will overcome longing.\nHe or she might grow up with that revulsion of homosexuality that is manifested on the Hell House floor. Objects of disease, they might feel the calling to do the work of the Lord and wipe them out. \nHe or she might find those parks where men who aren't gay cruise for sex with men who aren't gay, or are out doing their civic duty: relieving the godly of a bit of their virtue. \nI've tested some fundamentalist children at Positive Link -- I'm not making this stuff up.\nIt might be tempting for us to say as in the advertisements for a drug-free America: This is your brain, and this is your brain on Christ. It feels a little tingly good, I have to admit. \nInstead of that, let's take this opportunity to simply choose not to go. The Hell House will have its visitors, but they won't be us. This message is sometimes better than confrontation.\nLet's raise money for public education and fund our testing clinics, and be ready for the next wave of infections. Let's keep the doors open late on transmission education, so these stragglers can still make it in. They will be experiencing guilt and remorse, tempted to turn away from God and everything they believed. For them, HIV will be the sure marker of disfavor for their lives, their choices and their sins. \nThey will need us, and we need to be ready for them.