Who Is Still Here?

 A quick show of hands.  Who is still following this blog?   (leave a comment)

I know it's a weird question since  the last time I posted was just over 5 years ago.  

Now that Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have taken over and people are not likely to get any notification when I do post here, I'm just wondering who actually swings buy here to check up?

Since I left Facebook in 2013 and stopped using Google+ a year before it was shutdown, I've been able to disappear in the consciousness of  the cyber-social world.  Also aided by the fact that this blog just won't show up in Internet searches without using very super specific search terms.   

 It's a dying platform anyway. 

I have no plans to deactivate or delete anything on here but I don't really have anything to say anymore.  This blog did serve its purpose as a place to find my voice, but I'm now content and comfortable with who I am and I don't feel any need to talk about my troubled past.  It's, well, in the past.  I don't think about it anymore.  It no longer haunts me.  It's just stuff that happened and no longer carries any emotional weight.  

I've gone back and read a few posts to see if my attitudes and opinions have changed.  And well, for the most part, they have not.  There are a few minor things I don't feel 100% comfortable about leaving up there but, I'm going to let it stand and I will just deal with the uncomfortable feelings and any blow back if it ever comes.  As for the rest of them, the emotions that were once very vivid and raw, have since faded into indifference.  

In any case, for those that are still here and are wondering how I've been and what I've been doing since my departure from social media, I will summarize with a timeline of significant events that happened since my last blog entry just over 5 years ago.  

2014 August - I never mentioned this in the blog but I bought a house that was closer to the ocean. Not water front, just closer.  I was able to get out of the crappy, leaky roof, mold infested, ant-invaded, shit hole rental and into a newly built house, twice the size and a million times nicer. All for the same I was paying in rent.  That is the reality of rent vs mortgage.

2016 October - My boyfriend quits his job, sells his house, and up ends his world in North Carolina to move in with me in BFE Virginia.  All the while starting up a new engineering business.

2017 August - My employer, trying to win the contract renewal, decided it was really important to move me to a sub-contractor. I got screwed over with a double insurance deductible and had to go off my med for a month until this new sub-contractor got a better insurance company.  (It sucked!) This energized me to suggest to my boyfriend that we should consider getting the fuck out of here.  Of course he would have to give up the beautiful house and the few minute drive to the ocean.  But he recognized the writing on the wall.

2018 December - Because of my boyfriend's parent's and older brother's declining health and his need to be much closer in order to assisted them when emergencies happen, coupled with the longest government shutdown ever, where the sub-contractor didn't have a contingency for paying us in the event of a shut down, we decide to actually start planning our escape from this place.  By this time, my boyfriend had been able to self employ to the point of paying off his debts and was continuing to build his business.

 2019 July - So, my former employer had ended up winning the contract and then suddenly loosing it a few months later when the government decided that the company's direct involvement with a former government employee's illegal activities who's wealthy white privileged ass prevented him from receiving jail time, was probably not a good thing so they awarded it to a different company.  The new company did not recognize the sub-contractor I was under so I had to switch employers again.  And this time I had to use COBRA (very expensive) to keep from completely loosing our insurance because of the new company's absolutely garbage health insurance and their prejudice of not allowing gay partnerships to be on the insurance together.  I started warning my bosses that these events have hasten my departure as COBRA doesn't last forever.  The idea was that I would be training someone.  Unfortunately they couldn't keep any new hires on for longer than a few months and more people were quitting.  Contract changes always cause people to leave because the new contractors won't offer people better wages and often times you can end up with a pay cut. Also many new folks leave because they don't realize what the work was like because they were misled as to what the job entails in the job interviews.  For instance, my official title is Software Engineer but I don't do anything related to that. I told my bosses several times to stop trying to hire software engineers.  This is not a software company!  But I digress.

2020 January - Sold the house within 8 days of it going on the market. (apparently the housing market changed drastically in the five years I was there.) Informed my employer that I've sold the house and I have to leave. (this was 1 month notice)  They offered me a huge raise if I would stay.  Despite the fact I already sold the house. I told them what an insult it was to be bribed like that. And asked them why it took an event like this to get a raise instead of the yearly requests I had been making to get one.  They were sort of apologetic. They cut a deal for me to do remote work full time with no raise and I accepted.  I was ready to quit and be supported by my boyfriend much the same way I supported him when he left his job and moved in with me.  But since it meant continued income and a MUCH more comfortable work environment, I packed up my desk and work computer they supplied me and I left for the new city.  15 years at a place with a vast and deep understanding and willingness to document everything made me too valuable to them.  I feel sorry for the saps that try to be secretive and don't share their knowledge thinking it contributes to job security only to be fired for being secretive and not share their knowledge. I've seen it happen a few times in this job.  

2020  February - loaded up the moving truck and we were gone.  Moved into a rental in North Carolina with the plan to buy a house within 12 months.  (Need to get that one year lease out of the way.)  It's been nearly 15 years since I've been able to safely drink tap water. No more bottled water. 15 years of only bottled water!  How much money am I going to save?  Probably not much.  The grocery stores out here are very high end and I have fancy tastes so that money saved in bottled water will just go to the fancy food now.  Oh well.

2020 April - COBRA ended and I was able to actually buy my own health insurance that wasn't tied to some god damn employer who would only offer garbage insurance that wasn't willing to cover my meds or was so fucked up that every god damn doctor and hospital with the a hundred mile radius of where I lived was considered OUT OF NETWORK. Thanks Obama! The ACA is a godsend.  Also the pandemic forced the state to shut everything down.  What a fucking mess.  Still, many people not taking it seriously including my boyfriends family much to our collected chagrin.  Also got word that my best friend in DC has died a month ago of pancreatic cancer.  We had plans to hook up again and we ran out of time.  Fucking cancer!

2020 September - Dragon Con went virtual and we were able to watch the celebrity panels on the ROKU.  It was weird.  And I missed seeing my friends in person.  Although the "Zoom" calls are actually a thing we can do now that we have real broadband Internet!  Something my home has been without for the last 15 years. (Needless to say I spent many late hours using the 1Gbit internet at work.)

2020 October - Also early voting because of pandemic.  Then in anticipation of not wanting to renew the rental, we started the formal search for a new house. This was so annoying.  House after house after house we found we didn't even get a chance.  Many of them were sold the day they went on the market. Site unseen for cash.  While we were standing in one house with our agent ready to make an offer, another agent drove up to the house and plopped a "sold" sign out front and drove off.  Apparently this pandemic and the new norm of working from home enabled many of the stinking wealthy from the the Northern states to permanently move to their vacation homes.

2020 December - Finally was able to get an offer in on a house that was accepted.   Also, I have been able to get a new and better treatment for my medical issues and I've been feeling absolutely amazing since.  Except for the worsening sleep apnea.  My current CPAP machine is maxed out at 20. I will probably have to get a different machine. 

2021 January - Closed on the house.  And got moved in. I hate moving. They say that two house moves equals a fire.  I've had two house moves with in 11 months.  I have a bit of PTSD about that now. Like wherever I move to will never feel permanent.  Also,  after several years of expensive vet visits with no answers as to why our cat is losing weight and has become excessively incontinent we finally found a vet that diagnosed it.  He has a hyperthyroid.  A treatable condition!  Even the cat was able to get better health care once we moved to the big city!  

2021 February - Almost settled. Still have to remove the remaining stuff from the rental house and clean it before the month is out.  The new house is nice.  Only two years old.  Still needs the have the radon issue fixed. But that has already been paid for and the contractors are just waiting for the weather to improve.

 TL;DR:  My fiance moved in with me, then we moved to a new city in North Carolina.  And we bought a house together.  I'm still working at the same shit job I've always had (going on 16 years now) but I'm doing it remotely thanks to the pandemic.  My heath has been greatly improving ever since moving, partly because of access to better health care and insurance, and no longer being exposed to polluted water.

Incidentally, somewhere in the last few years we have been referring to each other as fiance instead of boyfriend or partner.  As for when we will be getting married?  We haven't set a date.  We need to work some logistics with his family.  We don't want a wedding and don't want to spend money on all the receptions and parties and crap.  And we are trying to find out who should be notified, and the best way to notify them, also without spending any money. 

 Well, that's pretty much the best parts.   I couldn't help but rant about a few little things.  But don't expect me to continue with that again here.  My little rants about life's frustrations are actually not cathartic so I try to channel them elsewhere.

I can't promise I'll be back here right away.  Maybe in 5 years? I don't know.

What's next? Bestiality?

In paraphrase:

SG: "So if gay marriage is legal, what's next?  People are going to want to marry their horse?"
  
OG: "Why in the hell would I marry my horse?  I already own the god damn thing?"

 

It’s Not Over Until It’s Over

So, the Internet is all a buzz over the 9th Circuit Court ruling overturning Prop 8 in California.   So much is being written about its details and specifics that I don’t think I need to add anything to it. 

This is such a bittersweet moment.  I'm happy and I'm sad at the same time.

The talks, discussions, arguments and yes, even the insane, bigoted, demonizing rants from some active LDS members and other religious fundamentalists that I've witnessed, and had to endure, over the last few days on Facebook, all pretty much fit in with the predictable pattern of human behavior that is based on extreme religious fundamentalism such as Mormonism as they go through culture changes.  Even drawing from my own experience as an angry and raging ex-Mormon homosexual who has been continually wronged by the hateful domination of my religious peers, and speaking hateful like language on my own blog towards the religions they've committed their loyalty to, I'm not completely innocent in my own rants.   But what is setting me apart in this is that I’m now aware of my own reality. 

 I can understand where they are and I know what drives their fears,  and I’m not trying to prevent them from living their religion, even if I find it misguided and hateful.  I’m also aware that I used to be one of them.  But now I’ve seen and experienced both sides, and I know that their fear is unfounded.  But they only know the shadows on the cave wall, which now look even more threatening to them than ever before.

We may have won this little fight, but the backlash, bullying, and violence are going to swell because of this.  The twisted, fear-crazed, religious fundamentalists, which includes much of the active LDS membership, right along with other fundamentalist around the nation, most of them in the south and mid-west, are going to be expressing their fear, hate, and rage in ways we've never seen before.   I fully expect to see an acceleration of the continual upsurge of violence toward LGBT people as this so-called "culture war" escalates. 

I know I'm considered a pessimist in this but sadly, this is just the way it is; this is reality. 

It will be several decades before it's even close to being over.  Even if the Supreme Court granted full national marriage rights in 2014, there will always be several generations of hateful and dangerous bigots to contend with.

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

The Question of Choice, Again!

Well, controversy!  It appears that Cynthia Nixon has been saying things that have gotten a few people in a tizzy in the past about the concepts of choice and homosexuality.  And now, this recent article has brought that all back in to the discussion again.  (The money quote can be found in context on page 3 of the article.)

I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice.
And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.
A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.
As you can tell, I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate.

And a few others have been weighing in on it as well:

Sulli: The word "choice"
and
dadsprimalscream: Choices – We’re not All the Same

I like what they have to say about it.  And I agree with Cynthia and Dad, on this as I had pretty much come to the same conclusion myself last year in my post A Question of Choice.

But there is an argument going on in a few Facebook groups about it that I sort of let myself get sucked into.    And I realized that the topic isn't as straight forward for some as it was for me.  But I've been reflecting on it to see where I've come with this since last year. 

Some people feel like she was being a troll in her comment, I don't see it that way at all.  Some are concerned that bringing choice into the argument is dangerous for the younger and insecure kids trying to deal with this while being pounded on by the nasty religious environment they are growing up in, and that her statement is only adding fuel to their rhetoric.  I don't discount that many feel that way.   But I also believe that what they believe is fuel for their rhetoric could also be the very thing that drowns it.

Cynthia has a slightly different perspective than I do as she is attracted to everyone whereas I'm only attracted to my own sex.  Cynthia chose gay over not gay in the end.  But before that she also had to make the choice to accept that part of herself and choose to live it as well.   I also believe that many of the worst homophobes out there may have had the same type of choice.  But they chose to be not gay.  But before that, they chose to reject and hate the gay part of themselves.  

My choice was to decide if I was going to accept it and live as I am or repress it and live as someone who was not attracted to anyone.  I eventually chose the one that would make me happy because choosing asexually for the past 17 years stopped working for me.  So, I tried gay and gay was better.  I never chose heterosexuality because I could never understand it.  I did choose to consider it, date a few women, even claim I was straight, but all that time I was essentially, unconsciously, choosing asexuality when I did that.  And after awhile, I began to believe I was asexual and then eventually identified as such for a time.   I also chose not to live AS a heterosexual because I didn't have or understand what it was.  I chose what I understood.  

For far too long the LGBT community as been on the defensive.   The choice question has been allowed to be framed by the people who want to see choice in terms of right and wrong.  I can say I made a choice and I can defend my choice because I don't let the bigots frame the question of choice as right or wrong.   I did not choose my innate desires.  But I choose how I'm going to live with them.  The LDS church has come to the point now of accepting that the innate desires are not chosen, but that how we act on them is a choice.  Well, of course they are right, HOWEVER, they are also dictating what is the right or wrong choice by giving that choice meaning that is important only to them. And that if we choose wrong by their standards, we should not be respected, supported or loved.  This is pretty much the entire religious right's stance on it not just the LDS view.   

What I'm getting at and what I believe Cynthia is trying to say is that pandering to the bigotry, as if the bigots have any right to dictate what choices people make, is the wrong approach and the wrong way to justify one's own choices.

We do not have to justify our choice to live as we are, even though they are demanding it from us.  They're also demanding the right to have control over people to prevent them from making choices that they don't agree with and that don't even affect them.  That is what needs to be challenged.

Ironically, reminding them that their religious belief is a choice actually doesn't work because they see it as someone making the right choice.  And for them, if it's something they agree with, why shouldn't it be protected? 

Again, challenging their argument that personal choices shouldn't be protected because they disagree with them is really what it comes down to, and it's basically what the whole Prop 8 trial debate has been about.

Those Nasty Recruiting Homosexuals

I have been meaning to post something about my resignation from the LDS church but life has gotten so busy lately that I've, well, sort of let this blog collect spiders.

I'm not really going to disturb the spiders much right now but I wanted to draw attention to this post by Maureen over at My Black Bikini.

Since I've already resigned, I don't have much else to do other than go out, proselytize and recruit others to resign as well by taking advantage of their shaky testimonies and pointing their browsers to the Facebook group "Resignate: Mormon mass resign for Prop 8 pending supreme court repeal" that Maureen talks about in her post.

Just so you know, resigning from the church can be a really easy process but there are some specific steps that need to be carried out to ensure you're legally protected from unwanted contact or in some cases harassment.  For more information on the process, please see: Mormon No More.

I have documented my resignation process and may post it here some time. Although, it's really a dry and boring read.  Hell, it bores me just thinking about it.

In the mean time, join us in the Facebook group.  If you've already resigned, join us anyway to offer support to those who are planning on taking this big step. 

Differences Are Normal

Back in September of 2009, I made a smugly moralistic little post called, "My Two Dates". 

The point of that post was to talk about a little event where I got asked if I would be interested in joining a couple for a little threesome action. I talked about how I learned a valuable lesson about misjudging people.  And then at the end of it, in an attempt to whitewash the fact that I was still a judgmental prick, I said that I was not interested in hooking up with them.  But I never really said why.  And to be honest, at the time, I wasn't really all that sure myself.   I did give some lame-ass excuse about how it would bring up some emotional baggage; as if I had any clue what I was talking about.  

Well, truth be told, 6 months later, I found myself chained to the wall of their play room having a good time.  This happened twice, on consecutive weekends.

Now, here are the reasons why I'm bringing all this up:  1) my conscience is getting the better of me.  Since I had originally said I wasn't interested in doing something only to turn around and do it, I felt like I had some explaining to do.  Not that anyone would have known either way, or that I needed to justify myself, I just needed to be honest.  2) I've finally come to terms with the core reason I was uninterested in hooking up in the first place and I've finally been able to put it all into words.  That is to say, I sort of knew what it was I had been working out back then, but I hadn't fully understood until now what it was all about.  3) I feel rather smugly moralistic about it all, which, oddly enough, is what's motivating me to write this in the first place.

In the 6 months that followed our initial meeting back in August of 2009, I had managed to get over my fears and initial reservations for avoiding them.  Many of my fears had mostly to do with just plain old self-esteem and insecurity. But my reservations or rather, my stated noninterest was rooted in the mindset of looking for my "One True Love".   A belief that had been culled from the many, downright useless, beliefs regarding the purposes of sex, intimacy and relationships, which were all framed within the context of traditional religious ideals, namely, the Mormon kind.  So, naturally, play time with a couple who have been together for 15 years wasn't going to get me into a relationship of that kind.  Although, it could develop into some other kind of relationship, not that this one was, but whether it happened or not, it was not the goal anyway, I was simply not interested in doing anything unless it fit within the set of "values" that I been accustom to.  So, I was willing to pass up an opportunity for some serious adult oriented fun. 

I had grown up around the idea of the traditional Mormon polygamist family and I knew about Polyandry from studying all the many forms of BDSM relationship dynamics that embraced it.  So, back in 2007 when I was first coming out, I was prepared to admit to my mom at the time, that I could not say that such arrangements would never happen and that I could see myself living in a nontraditional dynamic in the future.   It was an attempt to plant a seed in her mind that the rules have changed; the expectations of normality must be adjusted.  There is no "one right way" of defining a family.  To my surprise, she added to that by telling me her understanding of family, which included even more combinations that I had never imagined.  She was already ahead of the game.

However, I still held back.  I still had my doubts if such things really were for me or not.  I realized in the end that I was still in love with the idea of the perfect, white-picketed, fenced-in, nuclear family, that I had grown up to believe was the only way that was truly acceptable in society or at least in Mormon cultural society.  To make matters worse, the gay marriage debate was raging in the media and I found myself caught up in the whirlwind, trying to prove to the world that gay people were normal, that they were just like everyone else.  But, it was like going back into the closet all over again.  I had a hard time figuring out how I was going to get the queer world that made sense to me, fit in with what everyone else expected the gay world should be.  I wanted the freedom to live an honest life but not make others uncomfortable. I don't know how I was going to do that.  I was trying to have it both ways.  And in the end, the big question that I was not asking was, "why do I still try to garner their acceptance anyway?"

In all of this, the core issue to embrace was, if I'm going to live honestly and with any modicum of dignity and self-respect, I will stop trying so hard to live by their "rules".  I am gay, but more than that, I am queer.  There is no way I'm going to fit within the "rules" of the prevailing religious society's notion of the traditional, patriarchal family, no matter what I do.  So, essentially, I get to decide what constitutes the "purpose" of sex within the context of my relationships and I get to decide what constitutes my own family.  Whether it's comprised of a same-sex couple who fosters or adopts children, or whether it's comprised of several same-sex adults who all share partnership roles, or a partner and those that make up the "extended" family.  There could even be a hierarchy just like in the traditional or historical sense but with different names, titles, and meanings.  It doesn't matter.  I get to define what family, friends and sex are within the context of my own values that work for me.  And today there are millions out there, gay and non-gay, who happily and joyfully do just that.  

So, as it stands, the gay marriage debate will continue, obviously, as many people will be seeking to be part of that normalcy and continue to fight for it.  And that's OK.  But I'm no longer interested in fighting.  Because, truth be told, it's all a bunch of crap!  It's not to say that I don't support it or I won't be part of it someday, I may get married, but in the end, I don't believe, considering the way I view and choose to live my life, that my family, whatever form it takes, will ever be treated with any sort of respect whether I'm married or not.  Because the basic fact is, we, as queer folk, are not normal.  We are different. 

There is nothing wrong with being different.  But, spending any more time trying to convince a religious society that can't abide difference is a complete waste of my life.  And that is what most of the gay marriage political debating has been about, gay couples having to put up their best possible face to show the world just how normal they really are.  This for me means compromising my self-expression, my integrity, my sanity, to appease those that can't or won't embrace what they don't understand.  I'm not going to waste my time hiding and I'm done trying to change their minds.

We, queers, must make our own rules and live by them.  And it's not by the norms of an authoritarian religious society that we are to be comparing ourselves.  If we allow that, we are falling into the expectations of those who have never questioned why their normal familial traditions make them so bloody miserable.  And we might as well be miserable right along with them.  Sure, they will judge us by their standards, there is no way of getting around it, but they are in the wrong when they do.  They are the ultimate hypocrites if they think their normality is applicable to us.  And we are wrong if we try to get them to think our difference is not different. 

The great automatons that comprise most of the religiously bound human race are lost in a sea of sameness.  A lack of perspective and creativity in thought and reason, they have failed to embrace diversity, thus they have failed to embrace what's important.  And sadly, they are trapped there, consumed by fear of things they are also afraid to understand.

I know I keep reiterating this but I want it made clear!  It's not my place to fit within their reality, to erase my differences so that they can think I'm normal. The responsibility actually lies on them to broaden, allow and embrace the differences into their definition of normal.  They mistakenly believe that to do that, they would have to compromise their core values, which they say they shouldn't have to do.  Just like how I'm saying I shouldn't have to compromise mine for them.  But what they must understand is that I'm not compelling them to live my life the way they are compelling me to live theirs.  My core values are values I impose upon myself whereas their core values are values they want imposed on others. 

I've been foolish in thinking I could measure up to their expectations because they seek and impose an unattainable perfection.  And as they continue to do so, their definition of normal narrows, which makes their definition of perfection narrow.  Thus, any possible embracement of difference becomes impossible.  I've also been foolish in expecting them to look beyond their fears.  I know how hard it is for them.  I also know that they must make the effort on their own if they ever want to look beyond those fears.  No one can do it for them!  But I can't wait forever.

In essence, what I'm saying is, my search for acceptance from the Mormons has been put to rest.  My ship has sailed.  If they want to leave that "Great and Spacious Building" to get across the river now, they'll have to build one themselves.  They have been given the tools, materials and the plans; all they need is the desire.  Once they do, I'll be here ready to receive them.

National NOT Coming Out Day

Apparently, I'm not as out as I thought I was.  In fact, I'm probably not out at all if being out means I'm going to happily announce on Facebook on "National Coming Out Day" that I'm out, which I'm not going to do.  Besides, if anyone on Facebook actually looks at my profile, he or she will see that my interest is in men and that I have a large mass of LGBT and other sexuality groups that I have "liked".   That's as "out" as I feel like I can do for now. 

I have "friended" many people from work, high school, my mission as well as from other times of my past who I know have not looked at my Facebook profile, and in a way, I'm glad.   I just don't want it to be a big deal.   But, I'm also screaming inside to talk about it.  It's the pains of living alone and isolated.  I just want to talk about it with people I know I can trust, because the rest of them just want to tell me how I need save myself by following Christ, and it's not just the Mormons that do that either.

I had lunch with a co-worker last week, who I also take dressage lessons with, and I mentioned to her my troubles with the "big elephant in the room" and the problems I had living and working out here.  I wanted to talk to her about the incidences I've had with some co-workers and their incredibly insensitive and homophobic rants during some corporate social functions, which HR effectively ignored, and the bullshit, insulting, gay and trans jokes that get tossed around as if LGBT people are just another group of freaks to made fun of.  

I know that simply mentioning that elephant issue made her uncomfortable so I didn't elaborate.  She's one of the many people I know out here that doesn't have a problem with me being gay but at the same time, does.  Still, I give her credit for trying.   But because I didn't say anything, she said that my elephant problem was mostly in my head.  Granted, I admitted that a large part of it is because of my fears, but I needed to explain to her that I've had it all turn bad enough times that I haven't been able to get past how it puts me on edge all of the time.  And then I gave her an example of a mutual co-worker whose entire family has shut me out of their life because of it.  I've written very briefly in passing about him on other blog posts.

She did admit that this place wasn't the best place for understanding.  That is coming from someone who has lived here for over 20+ years.  You would think that such a place, given its heavily touristy economy, would have a bit more diversity.  But I guess there really isn't any evidence to support that.

So, that feeling where I don't know where I stand with people continues.  Every day I have to find out if some new person that comes along is going to either let me live my life and wish to be part of that or they are going to instead turn around and make it needlessly difficult.  Already I've got a new office mate that is proving to be problematic.  And most of the time my solution is just to stay in the closet and not say anything that would clue anyone in.  And in order to do that I have to keep everyone at a distance, even the people who I have gotten to know and appreciate their friendship such as my dressage instructor and the other people I ride with.  Because, like I mentioned before, when that elephant came up, the friendship ended.  So, I keep it all bottled up in side until I'm ready to explode. 

To end a friendship over something as inane as person's innate sexuality is ridiculous.  But it's understandable that it's going to happen when there are people in the world who teach homophobia like Packer, Oaks, Faust, Kimball, Bednar, Ballard, Hafen, Holland, Cook, Monson, Wickman, Clayton, McMullin, Hinckley and many others.  And that's just a sampling of the Mormon leadership.

I've just got to find a way through this.  I don't know what that is going to be right now but there has got to be a way.   This has got to get better, right?  With all of those videos going around the Internets about it getting better, there is got to be a way it's going to get better for me.  So that I will be able to safely make that announcement on Facebook and not give a shit what the outcome is, even if it affects my job.   I want to be able to feel safe when proudly placing that picture on my desk at work of my future Partner/Husband/Boyfriend/Sir/Master/pup/boy or whatever the hell the title(s) will be if that time ever comes, just like every other God Damned privileged heterosexual does.

A wedding day.

I'm going to a wedding party tonight.  And I'm not looking forward to it.  Sure, I'm happy for the new couple but I don't share the same enthusiasm for celebration that everyone else does.  It's a reminder of everything that I don't have, can't have and never will have.

The heterosexual privilege of this nation will see to it that us gay folk all remain second class.  Even if we did have all the rights and privileges under the law, it would be naive to think that it would really change anything.  Just as racism in this country is alive and well, homophobic, bigotry will always be there too. 

So while I'm sitting there at that party, "pretending" to be pleasant and knowing full well that many people there despise my true nature and assume that I'm "one of them", I'll be thinking how glad I am that I'll never have to see any of these people ever again.

Wanna fight?!

For the past several months I've been in one of those moods where I feel like picking a fight with Mormons again.  I get really fed up with the stupidity and I just want to make a point of telling people they are being hypocritical. 

I used to be on a mailing list with several friends.  The list was intended as a social community to stay in touch.  On occasion politics would get brought up and create heated debates filling my inbox with 30 page email posts.  I despise politics. I have a hard time doing nothing more with it than mocking it.  Equal opportunity left and right so I didn't read most of it.  Just skimmed for key words to get the gist of what they were saying. Unfortunately I found that on a few instances a few of them managed to find a way to offend me when they took whole classes of people and demonized them for a political point.  The first of which was right after hurricane Katrina.  The next one was last year when one expressed his outrage that our government was endorsing immoral and perverted sexual behavior in referring directly to gay marriage.  The comment was out of the blue because the discussion was about the economic bailout prompted by some article on a Mormon blog that happen to mention that gay rights were an example of corrupt government.   ( It seems that no matter the topic many Mormons will find a way to make it about "Teh Gays".) 

For the most part I just stay quiet.  And I eventually left the group as I didn't want to be tempted to spew a bunch of angry words as I made the mistake of doing a few times in the past.  I'm still friends with most of the people from that list on Facebook, just not the ones who made those remarks. 

But here is my problem.  On occasion they continue to throw out their view of life and take for granted that they think they are "preaching to the choir".  Every so often they express their disgust for the declining morals of society and then go on to list what they are.  They always seem to include homosexuality as that is one of the many things in the Mormon church's handbook of things that destroy societies.  It's those people I want to pick the fight with. And sometimes all I have to do is post something on Facebook that disagrees with the church and wait for the arguments to start.  It's as if all I really want to do is state my piece and let them make a fool of themselves as they state theirs.  So, which choir do I think I'm preaching to?   

I hope that those people will take me off their friends list rather than just "hide" or ignore me.  That's all I really want.  I feel like I'm walking around amongst people who despise me but rather than be honest and tell me up front, they do it behind my back.  But after they remove me then I can hate them for it.  I never said I wasn't a hypocrite.  I just want them to see where they are one too.  And those that stay with me I would hope that they learned something of the whole discussion and got some perspective.  I hope I get some perspective too.

I've been cranking in my mind how there could be a connection between the people who so strongly believe their religion and those that see religion as a form of mental illness. And that's just it.  If we do see it as a mental illness then the correct way of dealing with it is clinical.  Meaning that we must employ the skills of a psychologist.

It's like the time I realized a solution to the rocky relationship with my dad.  I had for years been expecting a 60+ year old man to have the maturity of a 60+ year old man.  But when I realized I had to handle him with the skill and patience the same way one would with a deeply troubled 5 year old child, things started working out and our relationships improved dramatically.

Unfortunately most of us, including me, don't have the patience and skills to deal with the insanity that is religion despite having dug out of that hole myself.  So we end up fighting with the insane.   Lose-Lose!

*Sigh*

And here I am, trying to pick a fight with insanity.

Maggie Gallagher is a Caricature

I know that I said that I didn't want to talk about current events or politics in this blog and I'm still not going to. But just to give you, the reader (assuming I have any), some background as to who Maggie Gallagher is, she is an anti-gay activist. Well, she would never admit to that title but that is what she is. Why do I say that? Because she is currently President of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) which is an organization formed for the sole purpose of lobbying to prevent same-sex couples from having marriage rights. But this isn't about that.

Recently she was on the MSNBC program Hardball, "debating" with HRC's Joe Solmonese. See for yourself: (as long as the video continues to exist)



For me, watching that was frustrating. Maggie outright lied and contradicted herself but neither of them could call her out on it because she would just talk over them. There are words for that. Sidetrack, deflect, avoid...

But then I'm not sure I'm willing to accept that Maggie is a conscious liar though. She is so proud and lost in her beliefs that she appears to be lying when in reality she is just ignorant and damn proud of it.

I say that because I was accused of being a liar the other day. The reality was I was just stating my belief in something that was a lie. As much as it hurts to hear the other person call me a liar, I realized that him calling me a liar hurt worse to my pride than if I was just told that I was misinformed. I felt like I was being attacked rather than just schooled. I honestly didn't know I was believing a lie.

What I've observed over the years is that when people hold conflicting beliefs, most commonly encouraged by religious or political dogma, the amount of mental gymnastics that a person must perform to link the conflict into something that sounds rational and coherent, gives one a sense of pride for the effort involved. It's as if we believe we are some intellectual powerhouse and we can make perfect sense of the "tough issues". Once we've done that our belief becomes an infallible fact.

I once held a great personal satisfaction that I was able to think I truly understood how my sexuality wasn't gay, despite the evidence to the contrary. Going back to my old journals from 2004, (I avoided the subject before then) I am constantly surprised at the contradictions I would write, many times in the same sentence. I remember my state of mind when I wrote them too. I was consciously denying my reality so that a religious belief could fit and I felt a strange piousness in my heart because of that. Then, I would state the reality with a justification as to how I was a special case and then feel justified that I was on the right path. I was essentially creating deeper layers of lies by patching the inconsistencies with lies.

Looking back I can see the insanity. I was not rational even though I had convinced myself that I was. So, even though my convictions were based on lies, I was not lying because I didn't believe they were lies. But when I state my belief I am lying. But I'm not lying because I believe it to be this way...more mental gymnastics.

It comes down to this for me: when my beliefs are challenged am I going to lie to cover up the contradictions or am I going to acknowledge them and admit that I'm not properly educated on all of the facts? Well, it depends on my mood some days but also depends on how hard I worked to form the belief in the first place. The stupid belief I was called on the other day was not something I spent my lifetime trying to form. It was easy to let it go. But, when it comes to beliefs that I've spent years forming, I'm insanely protective of them.

Even though I'm better at killing my pride now than I was in the past, some days I find that I'm so hurt that my pride is the only defense mechanism that I've got. It's sad that I still think I need a defense mechanism. But when I'm afraid of something and I'm not willing, out of fear, to really look at why I'm afraid(double bind), I really bust open the pride and turn myself into an ever living asshole.

What also frustrates me is that few people ever ask the right question that would really get Maggie to think. And that is: what are you afraid of? Of course, as we see in the video, that line of questioning is always side tracked and never gets pressed. But then with some people, continuing to press it would get tedious which doesn't make for good television. After a few layers of fears are exposed the avoidance would pop-up again and again because the root fears always seem to be horrible shameful secrets. And many of us usually end up forgetting we have them anyway. For instance, like being gay. I managed to actually forget about that one for 25 years. Yeah, incredible isn't it? LOL!

Personally, I feel sorry for poor Maggie. Even though no one outright called her a liar, she got defensive when called on her contradictions (lies). It hurts to be called a liar. And it hurts to realize that you really are one. I feel bad for anyone who is hurt. I get conflicted because I don't want to perpetuate that hurt but at the same time I want to slap them upside the head. But that's just arrogance on my part. But what will it take? It took some serious tragedy (mental breakdown) for me to finally see where I got distracted (LDS dogma). What will it take for her and others like her to see where they took the wrong turn? And will they be willing, if or when their "storms" finally come, to be open to alternative ideas, scientific, political or religious?

Is it ALWAYS about religion? Those who realize that religion cannot be used as a defense seem to be getting desperate and calling on more non-religious reasoning but they are having trouble because the peer-reviewed scientific community, which ironically they do not trust, can't help them anymore like they did in the early part of the 20th century. It looks like it's now turning into pure politics at this point. Unfortunately politics seems to be in bed with religious rhetoric now. What a mess.

Going back as far as I can remember when I started following politics, 1980 (6th grade?), it always seemed to be about countering each other's misinformation and fears. The winner was the one who could out "opinionate" the other by sounding convincing enough that people believed their stores as fact.

I learned to despise politics at a young age.

So when someone brings up the topic of why gay marriage or gay rights in general are bad, I'm immediately at a loss for words because no matter what I say it's only a response to a sidestepping of the real issue. The real issue is really about their deep personal fears about themselves. And because I can't respond to their liking, they declare themselves the winner and boast at how they "confounded the opposition". In reality I was confounded by their utter stupidity and realized that arguing with them was a waste of my time and brain cells. And then I'm angry because I know how they perceived it and that the entire confrontation worked against me. And then I'm double angry because I wanted so much to slap them upside the head knowing full well that it would victimize them for real instead of the fantasized victimization that they are currently enjoying.

No matter what, the loser is always someone who tries to talk some sense into a nut job.

We humans are truly strange creatures.