Considering the medieval church had laws against sodomy, why was there such a thing as gay monks?

When one thinks of the middle ages, one imagines an absolute absence of any kind of LGBTQ+ representation. After all, the Catholic church had laws against sodomy and had about a thousand years of control over all of Europe. Still though, one learns of the existence of gay and lesbian monks and nuns, gay popes, and all kinds of gay art and fiction left behind from that time period. <br><br>Now, I understand that given the nature and attitudes of the time, many people wouldn't have been openly gay. Still though, given the levels of persecution, the idea of gay people being able to practice their sexuality in monasteries of all places seems so contradictory and impossible. Give that the church was still an all powerful institution, and there existed laws against sodomy, shouldn't the monks and nuns have been the most strictly heterosexual people in all of Europe?<br><br>Furthermore, wouldn't the church officials have clamped down on any kind of homosexuality in the clergy? It doesn't make sense to me that clergymen, of all people, could have been openly gay without being persecuted.