From Fear to Freedom: A JAG’s Journey of Identity and Faith

After growing up in a devoutly religious home and struggling to reconcile my faith and gay identity for years, I could hardly believe this special day in July was actually happening. Sunrays dispelled the week's rain clouds like an omen of good fortune as Carlos, the love of my life, and I awoke for our wedding day.

I brushed my Air Force service dress epaulets, giddy with anticipation for this day that would not only bind the two of us together, but also bring together the friends and family who came to D.C. to support us.

“During your day, pause and reflect at multiple moments,” my military mentor advised me in advance. “You’ve planned every detail, every step. The time swirls by. Deliberately allow yourself to enjoy it.”

So I treasured the trove of moments. My aunts and cousins bundled corsages, ribbons, and boutonnieres, and pinned bouquets to pews and rails flowing with green and gold. Two different spheres of my life mingled — my law school classmates and fellow Air Force officers — as they walked down the aisle or held sabers in an arch. My cousin and his wife flanked my arms as they escorted me to the altar. My soon-to-be-husband Carlos grinned with me as our pastor read our vows and we repeated after her, “I receive you . . .”

I snapped a selfie before we danced and joined our guests at the reception. I smiled, laughed, and cried with the sea of faces from around the country, some meeting each other for the first time. Together, we celebrated our special day and forged overflowing memories of healing, discovery, and hope.

My younger self had only dreamed of such a day, never thinking this would be possible.

Battling With My Beliefs

Growing up, I learned to revere the Scripture as the inspired word of God, to love his law, and know that we are saved by grace through faith and not our own works. All people were created imago Dei and our purpose in life was to reflect his image crafted into each one of us.

When 13-year-old me realized I was gay, fear gripped my soul. I — or at least this part of me — was a fundamental violation of nature according to both the Old and New Testaments. I resolved that courting, let alone marrying, any woman would be unfair to her. Instead, God would be more than enough.

As the apostle urged, I focused my attention to crucify my flesh. I prayed diligently, seeking earnestly to rest under the “umbrella of protection” of family and faith. I chose my undergraduate institution for the strict standards designed to keep its students far from the proverbial cliff of sin.

Accumulating demerits for a wide range of rule violations, with homosexuality among the most egregious, could result in expulsion. But for me, ever the rule follower, obedience was generally not an issue. And there were other ways I thrived; ministering in local nursing homes, investing in music opportunities around campus, developing leadership skills, and building many friendships.

Even in college, however, I began to see how prim and closed off my world was. We spoke of holiness to the extent that the thought of dining with other Christian sects, much less people who wouldn’t dare darken the doors of steepled buildings, felt so ungodly and worldly. While living “set apart” or “in the world but not of it,” were we really engaging with people as Jesus had befriended Mary Magdalene, tax collectors, or the bride and groom at Cana?

While Jesus had deliberately befriended those often on the outskirts of society, we reasoned that it was only because he was God, and we were not. Having gay friends or, gulp, being gay — not to mention seeing LGBTQ+ people as breathing, thinking, beautiful humans also created by God and loved just as deeply by him — was only a blip on my brain’s radar. Burying those notions deep in my mind, I did not allow myself to consider the possibility that it was a part of me that I would need to reconcile.

Legal Education Sparks an Awakening

I went on to attend law school, where I learned about the JAG Corps and found a new dream of becoming a military lawyer. As I dove into my education, my perspective of the world around me collided with the reality that everything we do impacts others in some way. My theology required justice and truth as the standard. However, life’s realities magnified the needs for mercy, grace, and empathy, sometimes to the extent where they required reorienting what justice really means.

Whereas the letters of the law seemed black and white, application of legal doctrine to reality wasn’t always clear. While intended to reach a fair result or to prescribe a framework, the law could often be quite nebulous, incredibly unjust, and, in more ways than I wished, undeniably discriminatory by design.

The study of law taught me that the revered opinions of respected, reasonable people often differ due to myriad layers and perspectives as we seek to balance the scales in an imperfect system. Since that was true about the law, the part of me I had buried for nearly a decade began to wonder whether my theology of imago Dei had been misplaced. While I ardently strived to follow God all along, perhaps I was fighting against the Potter who had made me — the clay — in a certain way.

I still remember the day I drove onto Holloman Air Force Base for my first duty assignment as a new military officer fresh from training. Emerging from a blinding hailstorm in the Sandias, I approached the white sands with excitement. I was giddy as I passed the khaki-colored buildings and wound through the manicured roads, thrilled that my dream of becoming a lawyer in the military was finally a reality.

My JAG team helped me learn and navigate this new world of law. In this world, we advise commanders who are striving to maintain good order and discipline as they accomplish the missions entrusted to them — and inspire morale that keeps Airmen and Guardians connected and strong.

I grew as a young JAG and my team’s friendship, alongside their personal and professional support, demonstrated that if I ever needed them, they would be there for me.

Coming Out Despite the Costs

In December 2017, about a year and a half into my time in the military, I decided to come out. I had quietly started dating my then-boyfriend Carlos, and when I made that decision, he stood with me every step of the way.

Coming out was hard. Fellowship, friendships, and relationships ended. Words fueled by my belief system — and either ostensibly or fervently soaked in prayer — were hurled in my direction, and they were deafening. Places of community where I once experienced rapturous joy were eclipsed by dread and condemnation.

Words of grace and mercy, mostly from people I hadn’t before considered as part of my belief system, comforted me. My military teammates who saw the tumult and effect it had on me, gave me a card that said, “You Matter.” I still take it out every Pride Month.

Despite the losses, I felt free. I didn’t know where my faith was, or if it was there at all, but I did know that I didn’t have to hide anymore. Justice-seeking, redemptive, and restorative aspects of my work became more meaningful and impactful to me. Implicit biases that once felt like common sense started to unravel as I began to deconstruct presumptions, assumptions, and conclusions established under my former beliefs. What I learned from people around me helped me reevaluate my foundation and rediscover my dignity.

Others like me, from my own former belief system and from other faith systems, had their own stories. We found each other as I moved from New Mexico to Utah and then deployed to Qatar. We found common threads of experience — abuses and traumas, the need to recognize when we were triggered by those things, ways of coping, comforts of music and tradition, the newly discovered beauty of just being human and not tied to divine dictates. While I felt the loss of my religious community, I felt embraced by a new community that valued every part of me and encouraged me to embrace myself.

Finding Faith Again, With Love and Dignity

It wasn’t until I was stationed near Washington, D.C., that I decided to give faith another try. A downtown church I had known about since I was very young because of its historic preacher, Peter Marshall, seemed accepting.

The first day I walked through the doors, they welcomed me with warm, quiet arms. It’s the same way they welcome unhoused people throughout the week, provide clothing to displaced migrants from around the world, and give safe haven to LGBTQ folks. They assure them that they are seen, known, and loved, through fire and flood. This was a step forward in reigniting the hope that imago Dei could include me — all of me — and now in a dynamic way I had never even considered.

Carlos and I decided to have our wedding ceremony in this church in July 2024. We shared that experience with family and friends who had grown to walk with us and support us over the last seven years. It was not only a moment of healing for a still-unvoiced hurt, but also an expression of thanksgiving, peace, and freedom.

We had the Psalmist read: “If I ascend up into heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

Maybe one day my faith will have me feel as though I can move mountains, but instead of a clanging cymbal couched in fear, I wish to be a force for the freedom that comes with love. At the end of the day, when faith, hope, and love remain, the greatest of these is love. May it be so.

About the author

 

 

 

Major Sean McDivitt is an attorney in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps. He entered active duty through direct appointment in 2016.

Originally from Fircrest, Washington, he is currently stationed in Washington, D.C., where he resides with his husband Carlos and their two dogs, Lancelot and Percival.