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Will LGBTQ people of faith actually feel the need to use a site that only seems to be accepting them begrudgingly? While non-religious dating sites or apps might well be LGBTQ-friendly, finding a match as a Christian can be quite a feat. First and foremost, queer Christians aren't exactly a massive population. Even when LGBTQ Christians are open to dating outside the limited dating pool of other queer believers, there's the looming prospect of rejection on the basis of faith.

Two of the key parts of queer Christian identity — faith and sexuality — are frequently framed as being in opposition to each other, for reasons that aren't entirely unfounded: Spark Network's exclusion of same-sex users is merely one example of churches' longstanding discrimination against LGBTQ people. That can raise questions — specifically in the not-super-comfortable context of a first date or message on an app — about how queer Christians are able to reconcile their beliefs with their sexuality, according to Philip Graves, a year-old student from Washington state.

Graves, who identifies as a pansexual Christian, said he's been rejected on a number of dating apps for reasons having to do with some aspect of his beliefs or sexual fluidity, which can get disparaging fast.

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While he's found queer-affirming religious communities that encourage him to practice his beliefs without condemnation, he's found himself routinely having to explain how he's bridged the perceived gap between his faith and sexuality. LGBTQ Christians might know better than anyone that queerness and faithfulness aren't incompatible, but still they're often left straddling two communities that have distinct norms, particularly when it comes to dating. As Lee put it, a gay-friendly app with a hookup-heavy reputation, like Grindr, isn't likely to appeal to, say, a gay Christian guy.

No one came down and said you had to hang out with this or that group exclusively, but if that was your surest path to holiness, most people I knew saw their emphasis shift that way. Add in a burgeoning career and toddlers and a new house and all the things life starts giving you in your late twenties and thirties and pretty soon making time for your community group is about the only thing outside of your immediate family you have time, let alone emotional energy for.

Their evenings filled up. They stopped responding to my texts. I became just another person in the pew they enjoyed shaking hands with on Sunday. Churches who ask celibacy of their gay members take on the assumption that while it might be difficult, with God, a celibate life is at least possible. Well, a couple reasons. And they seem happy! After college I got a job teaching at a local Catholic high school.

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It was the first time I was trying to live out a celibate life alone, and right at the age most Texans start pairing off like exotic birds on a BBC documentary. Every mom in the church seemed to know of the perfect girl. I was young, good-looking enough, and I even used to be a seminarian. Girls would openly admit to being on the lookout for former seminarians like we were a forbidden fruit put back on the menu.

I considered confiding in friends about being gay, but thought better.

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It was a small enough community that word would inevitably get back to the school where I worked. I would see news reports about a choir director or an English teacher shown the door after Catholic administrators found out about a boyfriend or students discovered a hidden detail somehow. People from my church would casually share the story on Facebook with a warning about the creeping lack of religious freedom if anyone wanted the teacher reinstated. But what kept me closeted even more than a fear of getting fired was a fear of losing my community as well.

Texas has its progressive pockets, but they felt lifetimes away from my town.

At least like this I had a happy life on the surface. I was in my early twenties so there were plenty to attend, but I always knew they would be followed by a depressive funk.

Most of my friends were involved in church, so they had been marinating for years in the knowledge that this was a divine act. Not just a decision, but a vocation.

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The priest would preach on the heroic and beautiful sacrifice the spouses were making. They would be open to kids. They would live for each other.

They would be the very foundation of humanity. I sat through those weddings wondering why I was so unsuited for all those things. What kind of person I must be to be incapable of such love. As one wedding ended, when we all bowed our heads to pray, I closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like to be standing in front of the altar myself. My friends and family would all laugh because the priest was telling us to do something but we were too caught up to notice. I remember staying seated as my friends walked down the aisle, my head in my hands and tears streaming down my cheeks.

What I sensed imagining my own wedding was not relief.

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It was the first time I had ever actually allowed myself to picture it happening to me, and it felt like the dirtiest thing I had ever done. There was a lake nearby I would drive to when feeling depressed. How could I be so well-liked on the surface and reviled underneath? I loved my job and accepted that I would have to be single for life, but loneliness would gnaw away at me at night until I began to realize I would not be able to keep up this path for much longer.

A priest once told me that gay couples were much more violent than straight couples, that they had much higher occurrences of domestic abuse. But he seemed quite pleased to have discovered this fact. If gay relationships are inherently wrong, then there must be something wrong about them.

Christians can get pretty abstract when talking about this stuff. You start floating in a sea of terms like procreative and unitive and telos. What I do know is that listening to this priest I looked up to telling me about this violence I had curled up inside me like a dragon sleeping in a cave awaiting anyone foolish enough to say they loved me felt like I was being hollowed out.

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