By Holly Toal
The Journal-Register
MEDINA —
Maintaining a relationship with God can be difficult for anyone who is tempted by the distractions of everyday life — money, sex, addictions. But faith goes deeper than the labels affixed to these indulgences and the churches people go to seeking guidance.
One person who knows all to well about this is Medina native Steve Natale. His first book, “My Sexuality ... My Canoe Trip” addresses the misconceptions and challenges he’s faced living a life as a homosexual who spent years experimenting with drugs, sex and, of course, spirituality.
“God has been with me throughout,” Natale recently explained. “He never forsaked me, my own free will got in the way. ... God knows how my story ends; I don’t know yet.”
Natale’s story began in Medina where he was baptized as a baby into the Catholic church. He attended St. Mary’s Catholic School until 4th grade, when he began going to public school.
As a young man Natale was recruited into the Army where he spent 10 years — three in active duty and the rest in active reserves. During this time he did a lot of traveling, doing drugs and trying to understand his homosexual feelings. He spent many years waging a personal war between his spirituality and his sexuality.
“My desires were contradicting my beliefs,” he writes in his book. At times he was living what he calls a “triple life.”
This, he said, helped him develop character. “It got me out of the file and label mode,” he said. “We’re all created as unique as a fingerprint. No label can be correct.”
Natale finally decided to confide in someone and seek spiritual guidance. This is when he met a priest.
The reverend was one of the first people to comfort Natale. He told Natale, “God is a God of love. I was created the way I was. Homosexuality was my cross to bear. I wouldn’t go to hell.”
However, that same day, the priest would take Natale to his home and abuse him. This abuse continued over a number of years.
In the early 1980s, Natale said the Army went on a “witch hunt” to get rid of all the homosexuals and he was taken off of a job site one day and turned over to the military FBI. They took away his active duty option, claiming he was unfit because of homosexual activity.
“I was a good soldier,” Natale said. “I was considered unfit because of a label.”
This sent him into a spiral of depression, anger and disillusionment.
Eventually, he would be rebaptized in a non-denominational church in the woods near Bremerton, Wash.
One of Natale’s favorite passages in the bible speaks to loving all of God’s children: “Live. Live your faith, learn more about loving everybody, not just who it’s easy to love.” He explained, “Homosexuality is considered unlovable.”
In his mid-30s, Natale took another hit when he learned that he had AIDS. “Most people didn’t want to know, I did,” he writes in his book.
Initially, Natale opted not to take medication. He said that when HIV/AIDS medication first became available, doctors were overdosing people on the drugs. But then he became fatigued, and his dreams were becoming more haunting.
“I had a dream that I was in St. Mary’s cemetery in a casket,” he said. After that, Natale went to the VA hospital in Buffalo to get medication.
He still goes to there today; in fact, Natale credits the VA with helping him to get back on his feet. “They got me going again,” he said.
Natale eventually returned to Medina where he currently lives. He considers Holy Trinity in Medina to be his “home church.”
He has been working on his book for a number of years.
“I want to share what I’ve been through and learned,” he said. “We all have a story and as far what people think, I’m so far beyond that.”
In his book, Natale writes, “ Don’t take what people say for gospel. It’s most likely opinion or hearsay. Sure it’s work to diligently search God’s Word for truth. Only because English is lacking around 2,000 words in translations from Greek and Hebrew. No wonder all the Club Houses squabble over human made ‘doctrine.’ It is nuts. It’s so much deeper than that.”
Steven Natale will be available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 11 at The Book Shoppe on Main Street in Medina to sign copies of his book and talk with interested readers.
