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.

Reclaiming Complex and Nuance

This post is about my anger, frustration, pain, anxiety, fear and all that baggage that is associated with my inability to know what to say about my dear sweet friend who attempted suicide yesterday. 

But before I get into my shit, I want to direct you to Mr. Doodle's:
Top 10 Reasons Why I Left the Church
Top 10 Reasons Why I Came Back to the Church

Feel free to leave Mr. Doodle a comment or write your own blog post about your top ten reasons you left.   If you haven't left the church then write a top 10 reasons why you stay or came back.  But by all means, avoid calling people to repentance if they don't agree with you.  It's not going to convince anyone.  Mr. Doodle has every right to do as he please for whatever reasons he has.   As do I and as do you.  But just know, if you say I should do things a certain way, convince me first how your life's path can possibly have anything to do with the reality of mine when it comes to your own self-awareness of what I perceive.   In other words, if you can get inside my head, you would know what to say to convince me. 
  
I don't have a top ten reason why I left myself.  It's more like a top three.
#3 Co-dependency runs rampant and is self-sustaining.
#2 A dogmatic culture of "one life fits all" philosophy.
#1 It's a twisted, abusive, homophobic, fallacy, of conditional love which imposes unnecessary complexity and nuance into the social lives of vulnerable people where there otherwise would be a naturally simple existence. (see #2 & #3)  

Yes, I'll say it; my life is still being complicated by the baggage that comes with deeply imposed, completely unnecessary, fallacies of religious belief, which create a complex and nuanced social climate that only an omnipotent god could navigate, a complexity and nuance that must be danced around and walked on like a fucking, god damn, eggshell so as not to frighten the overly sensitive egos of the superstitious, busy bodies.   If you are offended by that classification, ponder it for yourself why that is the case.  You may have a blog post you could write for your own blog. (Post a link to it in the comments if you like.)

I used to love the word 'nuance'.   As a music composer it was the nuance of the performance and harmonic selections that separated a good piece of music from a great one.   I used to love the word 'complex' because, as a composer, I could stun my rhythmic sensibilities with layers of poly metered rhythms that was both invigorating and meditative.

But I've learned to distrust these words.   I've seen them used against me.  Thrown back at me as yet another means by which I am to compromise my feelings, sensibilities, life experiences and just plain life, so that fearful superstitions will not be challenged in their inability to look at anything other than the shadows on the fucking wall.   

Navigating these waters, wading through the mud, balancing on a pin head, opening a fucking window, is now this delicate and unattainable "complex and nuanced" perfection that must be played in just the right way or they revoke their love, shut off all dialog, close down all ability to communicate and then they take their ball and go home, a ball that was gifted to them by the one seeking an understanding dialog in the first place.  All the while, as they leave, they are screeching the need for empathy and understanding.   

Empathy?  Yes, amongst the complex and nuanced wash of social engineering is the word empathy, a concept that is imbued, in this case, with conditions that only go one way because only one side of that dialog understands and practices it.   The other side can only pay lip-service to it.  

I sit and watch with full understanding, yes, even empathy, all of the struggles and fears that have embodied those who can only pay lip-service.  And I can understand why they can only pay lip-service, but I can't say a single thing about it.  I can't tell them what my path of life has been, I can't talk about my experiences, fears, struggles, joys, loves.  I can't even begin to express how our experiences are wrong for each other.   All I can do is just listen and let them tell me I'm a perverse and evil miscreant because I cannot believe and live as they do.  I understand why they believe and say that  but I can't say anything about my reality.  They won't listen.  They can't listen. They can't understand.    They are like little babies who only know the world as it exists inside of their heads.   I understand why they can't understand even if the words fail me in explaining it.  But I can only sit there for so long before I have been drained of my will to live.  I resent having to babysit these adults. I've got a life to live; I can't waste it away trying to open a dialog with unreason.  And yet I keep trying.  It's leading to insanity.

I have, for the most part, learned to no longer believe that I am a perverse and evil miscreant, but only when I'm rational.  But the strange nuanced and complex world of the human psyche can still be triggered into readopting those old beliefs, and often in subtle and gradual ways.  Before long, the mind has switched into a new consciousness, into another space, another reality where I only know, understand, and experience these irrational beliefs and nothing else.  If the head-space is irrational,  I can't think my way out of it.   I become the baby who must be babysat.  And now I'm the social burden that only a nuanced and complex pandering of my fragile ego can pull me out of.   And if I'm lucky, I'll get the empathy I need before I've convinced myself that I must die.  This is fucked up!

Nuanced social navigation is an unnecessarily activity when religious dogma is not imposed on a person's identity, thus warping the very reality that is our existence.  Life is not complex when religious dogma is not imposed into every aspect of it, especially aspects of life where it  cannot offer anything of value, which is all of it.

I would love to say that religious dogma is to blame for this social dysfunction but I can't.  All it really does is use us and abuse us and keeps us stuck in it.  There is no way around this.  We are like this because we evolved to be this way.  What I can only hope for is that we will eventually evolve out of it, so that the words 'nuance' and 'complex' can go back to being words to describe aesthetics rather than the navigation of social dysfunction.  But, religious dogma doesn't believe in evolution.

Spot of Dirt

I find it really hard to be impressed by a religion that builds commercial centers for wealthy people and invests little to no money in homeless shelters or soup kitchens.  Many times my old ward would set up service opportunities wherin we would volunteer to work with another denomination's soup kitchen.  All time and money came out of our own pockets.  No LDS church funds were ever used to assist.

"City Creek Center, by contrast, was/is being built at ~$3,000 per square foot, or nearly 5x more expensive than the next nearest comparable property, and that’s assuming that the City Creek Center utilizes every square foot of the approximately 20-acre development site."

Source: Truth Hurts: Church Finance – Part IV

Imagine the possibilities of what this kind of money could do if it were spent in ways that really helped people. People who, from no fault of their own, truly needed it?

Source: MormonGags.com

The Question of Choice

It took me awhile to become aware of my gay behaviors.  But from day one, they were gay.  Such as, whom I checked out, crushed on, felt emotional, physical, and spiritual attraction too.   They were all gay behaviors.  But I didn't see them as gay. I wasn't aware that I was doing anything different from anyone else for many years until expectations from the church told me otherwise.

But even then, I didn't understand, nor did I think that much about what I was doing vs. what they think I should be doing.  I was only aware that the way I perceived the world seemed to be unique.  I felt different, weird even, or at odds with those around me.   I wasn't attracted to anyone male or female in any sexual way for reasons I thought had to do with the religious demonization of sexual coupling in general.  I later realized that my sexuality was much more complicated than that.  It wasn't about the sex itself. 

So, from that alone, I am confident that my innate sexual orientation is not a choice. And I'm confident that many of the innate behaviors associated with sexual orientation are not consciously chosen.  But Elder Oaks and Wickman would never believe me, nor would they believe anyone of any educated repute on the subject.  For proof, see LDS.org for more of their mind fuckary on the topic of homosexuality.  Little of it based on reality.  But then, if you believe in the fairytales of that religion, Oaks and Wickman will be fucking with your mind and you won't even know it.  

But there does at some point in life come a choice. And I will grant them that but only so far as they understand the basic definition of the word 'choice' and nothing more. 

The choice comes when acting on it is done consciously.  In that case, it's no one's business what choice I make.  It's my life.  I rule my domain only.  No one has any authority to make that choice for me or even suggest what choice I should be making.  How could anyone know how truly to make a choice for someone else when it comes to how we play out our internal attractions and innate needs and desires?  So, ultimately, the entire argument of choice, whether to be gay or to act on gay feelings, becomes completely irrelevant. 

Let's keep in mind one more thing here, the word 'lifestyle'.  If the religious types want to use the word 'lifestyle' when talking of homosexuality, to reinforce the concept of choice, than they must also accept the term to be used with heterosexuality.   No matter what 'lifestyle' one chooses, a choice to act on one's innate desires has been made either way.   But, why won't those living a heterosexual 'lifestyle' see that they have made a choice?  Because they have never had their choice questioned, ridiculed or demonized.  Those of us in the homosexual 'lifestyle' have. 

So, as a result, we've had an additional choice to make that the heterosexuals do not which is, the choice not to let all of the ridicule, demonization, hatred and bigotry spewed at us every day to stifle our happiness.  So that we may be able to fully accept ourselves. Fully embrace that we are indeed gay and that we have the right to choose that path.  After that, we can then choose to live as we are, openly in a homosexual 'lifestyle'. 

Many heterosexuals don't have a clue what that's like because it has never occurred to them that the heterosexual 'lifestyle' has been shoved down their throats since the day they were born.  Why does that not bother them?   It doesn't bother then because they are not homosexuals.   

UPDATE (Jan 28, 2012): More recent perspective here: The Question of Choice, Again!

How Not To Love

I have a complicated ego.  (Don't we all?)  It shields me from reality, keeping me lost in the sea of its preconceived notion of itself.  And then shields me from the crap that its preconceived notion emits by rationalizing it into something else. Ultimately, how I end up seeing myself is completely different from how others see me.   Who gets the correct view of whom I am?  Neither.  Both are pretty much fucked up.

When it comes to shit like that, friendships can be, and will get, utterly destroyed.  And my ego, in its attempt to take the moral high ground by attempting to not judge their responses, can't see what harm has been done to that other person.  Completely oblivious really.  It's so messed up.

What it ultimately comes down to is my ego butting heads with someone else's ego.  And my ego will not let me see that that is what I'm doing.  Yes, my battered and bruised ego, injured from decades of abuse, screams out acidic tirades in frustration, all the while telling me it's simply expressing a truth that other people need to understand.  No concept of whether it's appropriate or even relevant.  It's oblivious to that reality.  And then my ego has the audacity to be confused and offended, if that screaming is rejected, dismissed or challenged.

So what am I going on about?
Me shoving my Dirty Laundry into other people's faces.

No one likes that shit.  No one.  It's a lose-lose.  Always has been, always will be.

I would have imagined that in time I could open up to people.  Come out of the closet about this blog.  To remove the anonymity and let it stand as a connection to my past.  Show how I've worked through things, and come to learn who I am.  But now, I'm not so sure this blog should exist.  It may need to disappear completely and permanently off the Internet.  I may need to disappear completely and permanently off the Internet too.

All the plans I had, wiped out by my own arrogance and smug self-righteousness.  Oblivious I was.  Fucking oblivious.  Patting myself on the back for all the great work I've done only to find I've done nothing but make enemies where I had none before.  They had done NOTHING to me.  They had been patiently putting up with my bullshit for DECADES.  They had defended me and stood-up for me when I was at my most assholishness.  They didn't give a shit that I was gay.  They didn't give a shit I left the church.  And then, I turn around and spit on them to feed my little bruised ego.  What was I trying to gain from that?  A reason to say, "Oh poor me. Look, see, no one really likes me."   Self induced pity.   This entire blog has turned into a pity party for me.  What the fuck was I thinking?

I don't care if people think that they shouldn't have been offended by what I was doing.  That's no excuse.  Why? Because deep down I knew that what I was doing was going to offend.  I may not have known why, or how or who specifically, but I did know it would offend, on purpose.  I was trying to push buttons. 

I have written and spoken at times about how it is not my responsibility to protect other people's view of the world by compromising who I am.  I still mean it.  It's just that in this case, I crossed the line and compromised myself in an attempt to selfishly destroy someone else's view of the world.  That's a big difference!  When my view of the world changed, it wasn't because someone was shoveling it on me.  I did it on my own because I needed to do it.  But then I snapped.  Something had triggered my pain. I quickly forgot my experiences and selfishly expected that others needed their world view changed.  Even when it was working perfectly well for them, maybe even better than the one I was currently trying to shovel.  It was pure hypocrisy from a lapse of self-awareness.

I can say it like I see it but it doesn't matter if buttons are purposely pushed.  They will only create conflict and close hearts, hearts that have been so willing to work with me and let me be myself.  Hearts that put up with the button pushing until it became so toxic that they had to shut down to protect themselves from annihilation.  Pushing to that point is poison.  It's healthy to remove toxic people from your life.  But I didn't realize that I would be the toxin.  I lost my awareness of that.

But get this, even though I had been pushing buttons for decades, the weird thing was, only recently had I become aware I had been purposely pushing buttons.  That seems odd, doesn't it?  The ego was in charge, and I was oblivious. I had not understood how stupid it was.  How destructive, how evil.  In fact, my ego thought it was just the way I do things.  I even told people in all confidence that I'm the type that needs to test people.  As if "on purpose" wasn't really "on purpose".  I really thought I had figured that part out. I was proud of myself.  Oblivious to what it really truly was.  Oblivious to what others already knew.  A character flaw, personality disorder, mental illness, whatever.  It is all those things but most importantly, to the unbeknown victim, it is the definition of an asshole.

But then I realized what I was doing was wrong.  I understood that it was a flaw, I understood its error and acknowledged it, I even stopped doing it, or so my ego told me.  No, I hadn't stopped doing it at all.  I had only stopped doing it to new friends.  I was still doing it to my old friends.   I wasn't aware that my habitual, destructive behavior had not gone away.  I was still a raging asshole.  After all these years, after all I've gone through.  Still, a raging asshole.


I need to forgive myself and move on.  The damage is done.  No amount of apology will be believed at this point.  I brought that on myself.  It's over.  Some may forgive me.  I may never know.   I don't know what else I can do other than take the punches as they are returned.  And they are still punching.  It's their right.

I could say that I love my friends but if I really do, then I would be letting them live their life just like they have been letting me live mine.  So until I can lean to do that, I'm not capable of truly loving someone.  But, I want to love, so I'm going to keep trying.


You know, this entire blog was set up to air my Dirty Laundry.  I haven't always used it for that but that's what its main purpose was.  Why on earth would I think that anyone would want to read it?  And I hope that no one finds it.  Because if they think the shit I put on Facebook was offensive, most of which I don't even write, wait until they read the drivel here.

And that's another thing, if I could just fucking stop airing my Dirty Laundry on Facebook.  Of all the places not to do that, Facebook would be the one.  There really are places I can go which would be appropriate, for one, the therapist's chair, and here, once I make it a private blog.  It will do no good to try and erase the past.  The internet has made that impossible.  I'll have to own up to it eventually.

I do not pity myself for all this mess, so for hell's sake don't pity me.  I believe this is the essence of the human condition, to live, learn, and love.  I'm doing my best with what I have and there are bumps along the way.  And what I've learned so far is how not to love.

The Family

Hypatia has posted another thoughtful little piece on what it means to be in "The Family". In this case, a typical Mormon family.   This is real stuff people.  This is how I remember it to be when I was growing up.  And we ex-Mo's have every right to feel the way we do for good reason.  

TBM's will no doubt find her post offensive and disagree.  There will even be some who would try to sympathize or they may even attempt to empathize, but with reckless abandon they will load it all with conditions and apologetics.  Yawn!

Well, TBMs, you can say all you want but it won't change the fact that you're all batshit crazy.

Anywhoo, thanks Hypatia, for another great post on Mormon co-dependency!

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.

WTF?

This just hit my email inbox a few minutes ago.  I will not reproduce it in full but merely offer you the money quote.

"I came out to my bishop today. Told him that I have been toying with suicide. After all was said and done he told me its best to follow through the suicide then to give into men."

WTF?

And the Mormon Church would have you believe that Bishops are inspired and have the gift of discernment.   If that is the fruits of the "gift" of discernment, I have NO use for that Bishop's gift, that Church or that god.

As the email continued I did get the impression that all was going to be OK.

But still, WTF?

Face Slapping

To some, my mere existence is a slap in the face of god.  To that I say, HA HA HA HA HAH AHA HA HA HA HA HA HAH AH A!!!!!

*Slap* *Slap* *Slap*

Now, turn the other cheek!

*Slap* *Slap* *Slap*

Ok, now the other cheek!

*Slap* *Slap* *Slap*

keep turning...

*Slap* *Slap* *Slap*

Ok, now that you're done slapping me, can I slap you?   No?

So much for the golden rule, eh? 

Boyd K. Packer

The rhetoric of Boyd K. Packer this year was needlessly caustic.  And while he may have never mentioned the words, "gay", "homosexual" or even the insidious phrase "same-sex-attraction", we all know what he was talking about.  We all know of his utter disdain for those that don't fit into his idealistic notion of gender, patriarchy and willful ignorance of the world at large.

Boyd K. Packer is just one of many I hold responsible for the damage done to the souls of gay individuals, young and old, in and out of the church.  Such damage that I still grapple with from time to time. 

Boyd K. Packer is the one I personally hold responsible for the encouragement of physical violence towards gay individuals, young and old, in and out of the church.  Such threats that I personally experienced and still find difficult to process.  Let us NOT forget that one of Mathew Sheppard's murderers was a Mormon.

Boyd K. Packer is just one of many who, when he speaks, will incite fear, hatred and malice towards the LGBT community.  The many who I hold responsible are the church members who say 'Amen' with enthusiastic unison to Packer's hostile words. 

If, in some small way, I can save one soul from the anathema that is religion, Mormon or otherwise, my life will not have been a complete waste.   I honestly don't know how I'm going to do that, but it's ok.  At least I managed to save myself for I am one of the lucky ones who found the self-awareness to understand my responsibility.  But many people aren't as fortunate, and many may never get to that point in their lives where they can learn how to repair the damage inflicted upon them, because many of them will have died by their own hand before they could get the support they desperately needed. 

Mormons often wonder why those that leave the church can't leave the church alone.  So they feel picked on by us angry, gay, ex/post-Mormons.  But, I don't care.  I am a product of that religion and culture, 40+ years in the making; it has permeated my DNA and it's not something I feel like I'm ever going to get over in my short lifetime.    Besides, they are the ones who can't leave US alone.  So, if the Mormon church is not willing to take responsibility for Boyd K. Packer, the damage he and many others have done and still do to the LGBT community, but instead continue to blame the victim or Satan, I'm going to continue to poke at their abhorrent hypocrisy, which could very well mean I may never leave them alone.

Demagogic Seeds

This post over at USU SHAFT spawned a random memory from my past.

Back in 1985, I attended a Mormon fireside in one of the North Logan, Utah stakes where some music "expert" talked about how the evil music industry used reel-to-reel recorders for evil and other such nonsense, reasoning that because they had the ability to play the tape backwards, it allowed them to create or manipulate this so called "back-masking".  He used several examples including the infamous Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" to prove his point.  (See videos posted at USU SHAFT)

The Akai GX-4000D,
one of my many tools
I used for Evil.

When he ran the tape backward the first time, I personally
couldn't hear anything in it.  However, before he played it again, he made sure to read to us what it was suppose to say. Then, while he was playing it, he would lip-sink to it to make sure the suggestion registered.  I thought it was a stretch but many in the audience gasped in horror during the demonstration.

I lost a friend that night because I just happened to own a reel-to-reel recorder.  Never mind that the model I had was incapable of reverse playback, it didn't matter, he berated me in front of everyone, then got in his car and left.  He was my next door neighbor.  He had driven me there; he was my only ride home.  I was left to ponder his and the speaker's words with frustrations and shame on that long, cold, dark and lonely walk home.  For a few months after that, he continued his efforts to embarrass and shame me in front of other peers at school and church.  The bridge was burned.  No matter how nice he was to me later in life, I never gave him any more of my time.

Looking back, that whole thing reminds me of something...  ah yes,  Alma 32:28-43, where Alma compares the word to a seed.  Go ahead and read it, I'll wait.  I'm not going to get into a detailed word for word analysis, instead I'm going to simply state my own cynical and biased summary of it which is:  Plant that seed whatever it is, and nourish it with your own misguided beliefs, fears and prejudices, and it will grow into whatever irrational zealotry you want it to be.  And no, I don't care if you believe that that is a gross misinterpretation.  It doesn't really matter.  As scripture, it makes as about as much sense to me as JRR Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".

But, I digress.

That night at the fireside, the words of a religious demagogue with his fears and prejudices were planted in the mind of my former friend.   The words appealed to his ego so he nourished them until they bore fruit to which he based his faith upon.  The result, conflict where there never was before and would never have been at all.  So, is that a good seed or a bad seed?   It's hard to say because for him it was a sweet fruit, for the rest of us, it was rotten. 

I think too many Mormons are oblivious to the fears and prejudices they use to nourish the word because of how easy it is to get caught up in the fears and prejudices of the people they trust.  It's not hard to see such fruits in the Mormon church when it comes to pretty much anything involving homosexuality.  Fear, fear and more fear.

When I got to college, I was able to escape much of that stupidity, but my fear of rejection had been amplified that night.  Sadly, I still don't have it all out of my system.  I still get paranoid that I'm going to be rejected for something stupid like, for instance, being gay.  I really don't need to go on anymore about what those demagogic lunatics, Mormon or otherwise, have to say about homosexuality. And since I never know what new shit they are going to stir up, I'm constantly playing it safe, especially around the ultra-religious people I have to work with everyday.

Nonetheless, I get the urge to want to poke them a bit to get the rejection over with quicker rather than tip toe around all of the time.  I really get tired of holding back my life to make sure someone else's life remains comfortable.  I'm tired of nourishing myself with my own fears and prejudices just to protect someone else from facing theirs.  I want to move on and put all these people behind me for good.  But, I don't do it.  I don't poke them.  I'm too afraid to be alone.

Lying for the Lord 2

I just want to draw everyone's attention to a sequence of blog posts that appeared yesterday, all with the theme "Lying for the Lord".  These caught my attention because a few weeks prior I had just posted my own take on "Lying for the Lord" so when I read these I was curious what direction they would take.  Part of me was wondering if they had read my post and were going to talk about what I said.  Yeah, I know, a bit narcissistic but it was really more of a worry than a hopeful aggrandizement of my ego.  Yeah, ok, that's still narcissistic. 

Anyway, sometimes I feel like I should take a more intellectual approach to these subjects but I find reading about them to be much more satisfying.  Besides, I think they all do a much better job intellectually addressing the subjects than I would, considering my flair for dramatics.  And I would rather use my blog as catharsis anyway. 

Here are the posts: 

1. Craig posted about Robert Millet..
2. Molly had more to say about Craig's post.
3. Then C.J. followed Molly's with a clarification and more thoughts of her own. 

Part of the Problem

So, I see this little link pop on Facebook: Another Victim Bites the Dust

Well, I just have one thing to say to Mr. Fales about that.  FUCK. YOU. ASSHOLE!

Mr. Fales has probably never in his life felt the deep depression that precedes suicide.  And if he has I think he has quickly forgotten that when someone is in that state there is no rational thought at all.  I have been there many times in my life.  I do not seek help during those times because I'm oblivious to it.  EVEN if the god damn suicide hot-line is staring me in the face!  And I can, as well as the next person, put on a cheery happy face and laugh and have fun while I'm secretly planning my suicide attempt.  It's real, it's irrational and there is no other way of thinking while in that state.   So, people who get on their high horse such as Mr. Fales just adds the problem and drives people who get that way into further despair. 

And one more thing that I think Mr. Fales doesn't understand is that there is, even in this day and age, a massive stigma associated with depression and other mental illnesses.  That is one of the reasons I never sought professional help during my moments of rationality and why I still don't seek it.

I don't know what the hell Mr. Fales thinks he is doing claiming that the vigil has anything to do with politics and creating an enemy, and then that stupid statement he made about it being  "...narcissistic “Look at me, I’m gay!” when he uses the Mormon church and his sexuality as the basis for his bloody career.  Holy shit, that kid really needs a kick in the ass!

UPDATE (26 July 2010):  Words from the organizer of the vigil, Eric Ethington.

Lying for the Lord

Main Street Plaza's

A few years ago when I first came out to a 'friend' about being gay, he said to me that as long as I can answer the temple recommend questions I have nothing to worry about.  This 'friend' was a real letter of the law TBM type of Mormon.  In the long story of that coming out moment, it ended the conversation and we sat for a while in profound and awkward silence for the rest of the car trip.

Since I was just starting to push the boundaries of personal honesty with myself and my dealings with the church and church members, his statement about answering the temple recommend questions really bothered me.  Aside from the severe resentment I felt by my friend's ignorant and arrogant statement which implied that my value as a human being was based solely on how I answered a set of questions regarding my loyalty to a particular religious practice, I also realized I had never in my life answered those questions 100% truthfully.  But at that time in my life, I was still very deeply afraid of being ostracized by all my friends and family so I was feeling rather shamed and self-conscious about how I would still need to lie in the temple recommend interview which bothered me quite a lot.

In the end, I stopped going to church well before my temple recommend expired in order to avoid the renewal interviews.  I let them all assume that I had moved away.  That is until nearly a year later when they got my resignation letter.   Good times.

Anyway, the last time I had a temple recommend interview was 2006.   And since then, I've thought long and hard about those temple recommend questions and the agonizing interviews where I would fight with my own conscience, struggling to stare that interviewer in the eye and hope that he couldn't discerned my deceit.   So, in looking back, I'm going to right the wrong and finally tell the truth as my Inner Dialog "Hi!" was trying to get me to do all of these years.  "HA! It's about time."  Yeah, yeah, I know.

Warning: It's long. There are 15 questions to get through here so just deal with it.  Also, I'm not really going to write anything all that intellectual here.  "Dude, no one cares; get on it with it already."  Ok, ok.  It's really a bit of a rant layered with sarcasm and offensive language and it rambles a bit.  And yeah, it's going to offend.  "Dude, offend away! It's not your problem."

Ok, let's get this over with, shall we?  "Finally!"

Question #1:  Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost? 

Answer:  Yes. "Liar!"

Ok, ok.  So I lied.  Believing, or in my case, pretending to believe in the most fundamental doctrines of the church is also fundamental in fitting in to the prevailing culture.  If you don't believe, you don't belong; you are treated like an outsider.  To be treated as such in a community made up of 95% Mormons, ranges from simply being ignored to back stabbing to being overtly snubbed.  But that's only after they realize you didn't want to be a Mormon.  Besides, the remaining 5% were all beer drinking, adulterous, coffee drinking, intellectual, drug pushers who molested children and turned them into evil fornicating, feminist, homosexuals. And they all smoked to boot!  You don't want to be lumped in with them now, do you?  Yeah, I didn't think so. I think I'm justified in lying on this question. 

Question #2:  Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer?

Answer: Yes. "Liar!"

I never did understand the whole concept of Christ's Atonement and all that.  It just didn't make sense to me.  If God was an all loving, all powerful being, why in the hell did he need to have someone take the fall?  Really.  The entire Christian Gospel plan, Mormon or otherwise, still makes my head spin when I try to make sense of it.  But, as I said before, I'm going to pretend that I have a testimony of this ridiculous shit so that I won't be treated like an outsider.

Question #3:  Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?

Answer: Yes. "Liar!"

Sigh!  Forget about me going to hell for not believing in this stuff, I'm going to hell for being a big fat liar. "You're darn tootin', mister."  Isn't that a Laurel and Hardy movie?  "What?"  Never mind.

You know, there was a time when I believed this one.  But I realized I only believed it because I was in love with the idea of it.  When the facts hit the fan, so did my love of the idea.  

Question #4:  Do you sustain the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator and as the only person on the earth who possesses and is authorized to exercise all priesthood keys? Do you sustain members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators? Do you sustain the other General Authorities and local authorities of the Church?

Answer: Yes. "Lie!  Dude! You're creeping me out!"

Oh my fucking god! What am I doing here?  Why am I doing this?  What the fuck?  I'm actually a bit creeped out by this question.  I've known too many people who have suffered severe spiritual abuse at the hands of these men.  Sadly, I didn't recognize that I was suffering the same abuse even though that creepiness feeling should have been an indicator that something was seriously wrong.  Still, I lie.  And I lie to myself.  It's no wonder I'm a bitter old man and I want to attack the Mormon church!  After all, they started it!  "Dude, you're not old." 

I just made the mistake of being born into it.  Yeah, mistake.  They told me that I got to choose my family in the preexistence because I was more valiant than the other souls.  Really!  So, it's my fault.  But these men also told me that because I was born under the convent (my parents were sealed in the temple before I was born), that I was double special.  But what they didn't know, HAHAHA, was that I was sealed to my parents later when I was around 4 years old.  I was never born under the convent.  So now what?  I guess that downgrades my specialness.  Why would an all loving, all powerful God, pick favorites for something so arbitrarily as that?  Honestly, what a complete asshole God is to his children. 

Question #5:  Do you live the law of chastity?

Answer: Yes. "Hey dude! You told the truth, HA! Well, sort of."

Ok, I didn't lie within the context of the intent of the question. But I wouldn't say it was by choice that I was celibate.  I didn't find having sex with women to be a temptation anyway. Hmmm, I wonder why. Is it because I'm righteous?  "No, it's because you're gay, dude!"  Ok, if I was gay then why didn't I have sex with men?  "Because you're righteous?"  Oh shut up, Internal Dialog!  The real reason was because I honestly didn't know it was possible.  That is really true!  "Ha! So THAT'S why they don't want people associating with The Gays! They might get ideas!  They might get educated or worse, recruited!"  Scary thought, isn't it?  Keep them in isolation; it will save their souls.  It's a testament to the level of repression and denial I was suffering.  And I do mean suffering. 

Still, I found a way to be "unchaste".  I used lots of mirrors!   "Dude, you really don't need to talk about this."  As a result, I have since expanded my definition of masturbation to be "solo sex" or sexual relations with myself, so I guess I did lie, just a little bit.  A tiny "white" lie.  "Dude! TMI."  Fine.

In any case, I'm bothered by the idea of sexuality as a basis for moral righteousness when it's really the lying, the deceit, and the manipulation, where sex is merely a tool, which really destroys lives.  But NO, it's all about sex, isn't it?  Sex IS the sin.  Sex is put up high on a pedestal and treated like something much greater than is really is or ever could be.  It's practically worshiped!  It's so sacred you are never to talk about it or utter the word!

SEX!  Say it!  SEK-SHOO-AL intercourse.  HO-MO-SEK-SHOO-AL.  SSSSSSSSSEEXXXX!

Seriously, stop using chastity as a euphemism for SEX!  It really makes it sound like we're trying to appear better than everyone else.  Oh, wait, we're Mormons, we are!  "I like sex."  I know you do, sweetie.

Question #6:  Is there anything in your conduct relating to members of your family that is not in harmony with the teachings of the Church?

Answer: Yes. "Truth!  Oh, shit, wrong answer."

Wait, what?  Can you repeat the question?  Seriously.  And please explain what you mean by "...not in harmony with the teachings of the Church" because there are some teachings of the Church that are not in harmony with the teachings of Christ.  I'm actually a bit offended by this question and because of that, I answer truthfully to point out the stupidity of it.  "Dude, you're not going to get anywhere with this. Sometimes the truth is not very useful."  You're right.  I'm joking, ha ha!  Everything is fine with regards to the family.  We're cool.  Sigh.  

I knew a fine lady who had her temple recommend revoked because her husband was abusing her.  The logic here was that as long as there was strife in the home, there was no way that she deserved the blessings of the temple.  And that she needed to go back and honor her husband so he had no reason to treat her the way he did.  Yeah, take a way an individual's only grounding spiritual avenue from an abusive situation because, after all, it's really the victims fault.  That's the sort of spiritual abuse I'm talking about from Question #4. 

I think our family did much better when we, for the most part, avoided the church as a source of any guidance in that regard.  I'm happy to report that things are cool now.  My response to this question was in looking back to the early 90's when things were really, really, really, really, really, really, bad.  Yes, that's 6 'really's.  In the 80's I would have used something like 47 'really's.   In 2006 it was still bad but I wouldn't use any 'really's.   "Really?"  Yeah, really. 

Question #7:  Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Answer: No.  "Dude, you might be lying here. Perhaps you should ask for clarification."

No, I will not ask for clarification. Remember what happened in question #6?  "Oh yeah, forget it."   Why is this even a question?  You need to explain to me EXACTLY what this has to do with my worthiness.  This question really fucking bugs me to no end.  I supported, affiliated and agreed with the most Christ like person I know, who just happens to be an atheist.  He was my grandfather.  You people seriously need to teach people HOW NOT to judge rather than make this entire gospel discourse about HOW to judge.  Question #7 to me really runs at the heart of why most Mormons are not capable of being Christians.   

Question #8:  Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?

Answer: Yes.  "Dude, you almost had me fooled there but your still lying."

I'm getting good at this lying thing in that I really believed I was telling the truth when I said yes to that.  But honestly, I would rather sit in the foyer talking to friends than in the chapel pretending to care.  And no, I don't have time to do that calling you asked me to do.  In fact, I think next Sunday I'm going to be out of town or something.  Yeah, my job, you know how it is?  At least I showed up to church and got counted and then did all that financial clerk crap that I was called to do.

Looking back, I was always looking for excuses, and quite often, I would make up shit to get out of going to church and avoid church callings and all that other crap.  I'm a bad person. "Awww."  As in Awesome.

Question #9:  Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?

Answer: Yes. "Truth! Except for that one thing..."

It should be blatantly obvious by now that when it comes to dealing with the church and people in the church, I'm a lying sack of shit!  Honesty only exists outside the context of my religious circle.

As a side note to this, there was once a Mormon city official my brother had to deal with who believed that the above question only applied to dealings with people in the church.  Outside of that, it didn't matter.  People who weren't Mormons were dishonest and the only way to deal with dishonest people was to be dishonest right back.  My brother finally got that particular Stake President fired from his job and then released early from his highly esteem church calling.  Those Utah Mormons can really be a handful sometimes.  Oh my goodness! 

Question #10:  Are you a full-tithe payer?

Answer: Yes. "Truth! HA HA! Suck it, sinners!"

Ha ha!  See, I'm a good Mormon!  I didn't lie.  And because I pay my tithing based on my gross income and then round UP, that right there makes me better than the low-life's who don't!  And it makes up for all the lying to boot!  Also, here is a little extra to help the poor.  Wait, what?  You can't help them unless they are active, full-tithe, paying members?  What the fuck!?

Sigh.  I deeply, deeply regret that I was a full tithe payer.  "And a snooty one at that."  Yep.

Question #11:  Do you keep the Word of Wisdom?

Answer: Yes. "Uhmm, this is a half-truth. I think."

Word of Wisdom or WoW.  Wow! Seriously, WoW!  Get it? "Dude, that's stupid, no one cares." 

Anywho, the entire WoW has been reduced down to the big four: Coffee, Tea, Alcohol and Tobacco.  Forget about all the other things stated in there, the big four are all this question is really asking.

Since I can't abide smoking or tobacco anyway, that's a nonissue.  Also, I don't like the taste of tea so I can at least feel smug about that.  However, I love my coffee.  Yeah, I'm going to tell people I like it but I'm not going to tell anyone I actually drink the stuff.  I mean, really, what good would come of it?  Remember that 5% I want to avoid being associated with?  I'm going to drink my coffee in secret! 

As for alcohol, the last time I drank that stuff I was around 10 or 12 years old I think.  It was a cheap but tasty red wine that my dad let me have.  I never got around to drinking much alcohol after that nor did I have much opportunity because I could never risk getting caught buying the stuff.  That made it easy to avoid.  I also didn't have many friends who drank.  The ones who did kept it to themselves because we would shun them when they did. You know about all that "avoid the appearance of evil" crap?  Yeah, we are real assholes, but we were righteous assholes.  So, except for an occasional coffee I was good to go.  Right? 

Apparently, coffee wasn't supposed to bar me entrance to the temple. But I could never know when I would get interviewed by some Mormon Nazi who would decide that coffee drinking was a greater sin than me lying about not having sex with myself.  "Dude! You never had it that bad."  Yeah, I know, but lesser things happened to other people and it really bugged the ever living shit out of me and put me on edge.

Now, I have a beer occasionally. And I'm not afraid to drink it right in front you!  Ha!  Would you like one?  There is still some in the fridge.  Or I could open that new bottle of wine I just bought that's sitting next to the coffee maker.  Hey, where are you going?  Oh yeah, you're avoiding the appearance of evil.  Touché. 

Now, what about the rest of the WoW?  It also says to eat lots of veggies and grains and eat very little meat.  And I do follow that. Well, not because of the WoW but because I feel like eating that way.  Some days I may actually go an entire day without eating meat.  I'm just not in the mood for it.  However, I'm a glutton for peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookie-dough-ice-cream so, no, I don't keep the WoW in its full context. Wait, the WoW doesn't say anything about gluttony?  Well it should! 

"We really need to move on here."  No, wait, I'm not done.

You know what else?  I don't think anyone really knows what the fuck the WoW is really all about anyway.  You know? For a short time there in the early 1900's, beer was acceptable under the WoW and refined flour was not!    And then there is this indecisive issue with caffeine and soda drinks.  And back to my previous point about all of the other stuff not being considered anymore.  What the...why the hell has it been twiddled down to the big four anyway?  Come on people!  Make up your mind!  Either get a revelation from God that sticks to something or forget about it!   Is God really that wishy washy?    "Actually, he is." 

Moving on... 

Question #12:  Do you have financial or other obligations to a former spouse or children? If yes, are you current in meeting those obligations?

Answer: ---

I was never asked this.  They all knew I had never been married so they just skipped it.  I wished they would ask, that way there would be more questions where I didn't have to lie. 

Question #13:  If you have previously received your temple endowment: Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple?  Do you wear the garment both night and day as instructed in the endowment and in accordance with the covenant you made in the temple?

Answer: Yes. "Lie? Well... yeah, you lied."

Ok, this is where it gets all weird.  I don't really remember what covenants I made in the temple; I was very young and naive back then.  I went through twice before leaving on my mission and have never gone back.  The experience was creepy and I never felt comfortable with it.  Besides, I only needed the temple recommend, not the temple experience, to look like a good Mormon.

As for the magic G's, quite often I would go around wearing only the top when I did wear them.  Does that count?  I thought of it more as a t-shirt to keep my sweaty armpits from leaking to my outer shirt but most importantly, it was to fool people into thinking I was a Mormon In Good Standing™.  As for the bottoms, I preferred that sexy animal print, string-bikini underwear for the sexiness and the support.  Besides, those darned magic G's would chafe my thighs like a motherfucker and the seams were always falling apart!  "Dude, I think you're going too far with this one."  No, shut up, Internal Dialog, I've got more to say about this.

I always thought it was ironic that people would tell me to buy those "mesh fabric" Gs because it feels like you have nothing on!  What the fuck?  Seriously, what the fuck?  I honestly can't figure out how to process that information.  Underwear that feels like you are not wearing underwear?   Here's a clue, why don't you simply NOT put any underwear on!  Yeah, I know, protection from harm and evil and all that hocus pocus.  So then, how come when I was on my mission and wrecked my bike and landed on my shoulder, there was a huge hole in my G's and my collar bone dislocated?   "Oh, please don't go there."  Was it because I was an unrighteous, lying, masturbator who didn't have any self control?  Just like all the other missionaries?  "No, Dude, that's not it.  Let it go."  No, it's because it was all a bunch of crap!  It was just another idea that I was in love with only so that I could convince myself that it might possibly be true.  What was I thinking?  Logic and reason, out the window because I was in love with the idea of personal body armor. "You weren't that bad about it." True, because I preferred my armor to look more like those sexy Star Wars Storm Troopers anyway.  "Ok, we need to move on."  That magic G armor was not sexy at all. In fact, it was anti-sexy.  But Storm Troopers, now that is what I call sexy body armor. Yeah, it's useless for blaster fire but who cares, so are magic G's.  I would totally do a guy while we were wearing outfits like that.  The base layer is Spandex for crying out loud!  Those magic G's were anti-sex.  Hey, I suppose that makes sense in the context of protecting a person's chastity.  Err, I mean sexual virginity.  Stick ugly underwear on them and they're fine.  Hmm, doesn't explain those gay guys with magic G fetishes.  What's the deal with that?  I don't get it. 
 
"Moving on?"

Sigh.  Moving on...

Question #14:  Have there been any sins or misdeeds in your life that should have been resolved with priesthood authorities but have not been?

Answer: No. "Yeah, Dude! I think you might be telling the truth with this one. I think."

Yeah I'm telling the truth because I'm starting to see where this is all left to my interpretation.  What is the context of "sins", "misdeeds" and "resolved"?  Other than my habitual Lying for the Lord™, I don't know what else I would mention.  I did tell my mission president that I masturbated.  But have I resolved it?  Does simply talking about it mean it's been resolved?   I still masturbate in ways that would make your skin crawl and your sensitive little heart go running off screaming to ask God for mercy if you were to see the things I like to do to myself.  So, you really want to know?  Seriously?  I have pictures. "Dude! Don't even..."  And for something that gives me a profound spiritual experience, how do I know it's even a problem?   And that begs the next question, what is meant by "problem"?   No, I'm doing just fine. 

Question #15:  Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord's house and participate in temple ordinances?

Answer: Yes. "You speak truth! I'm proud of you dude!"

Yep, I believe I'm worthy to enter the Lord's house.  Besides, if my adulterous uncle is worthy, even while standing in the Celestial room of the temple, telling dirty jokes, than I believe I'm worthy too, even more so than he.  But the better question to ask is if I WANT to participate in temple ordinances?  And if that is asked, I'll probably lie.  Again, I want to fit in, despite the fact it is 2006 and the last time I was creeped out in a temple was 1991.   "Are you sure?" No, wait.  The last time I set foot in a temple was 1995 in Bountiful, Utah. But it was only the temple dedication and not an endowment session so it doesn't count.  "Oh, yeah. That doesn't count. Not as creepy."

Ok, well there you have it.  I've gone through the temple recommend questions, holding myself accountable for the lies I told.  And not only do I feel better about myself, I'm better person for doing it. "Dude, you're so cool, I love you."  I love you to; want to have sex?  "Dude! This is not the place to for that."  TMI?  "TMI."

Apologies to my uncle for bringing up his past transgressions. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have had that cognitive dissonance welling up in the back of my mind all these years.  Those jokes he told in the temple were very distasteful, even for me.

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.

Where am I going?

It's happening again.  I'm finding that I'm withdrawing into myself.  I'm not out seeking people to talk to, despite my increased activity commenting on other's blogs; I'm not interested in a dialog.  I'm just talking.  Talking for the sake of wanting, needing, having something to say.  And I've been saying a lot.

It seems silly to write huge comments on other's blogs when I not looking for interaction. Better to just write a big long post here that says the same thing and have it all in a concise easy to find location.  I have a hard time remembering where I've posted my comments many times.  Subscribing only works for a while and only if other people make comments.  But, eventually, the activity dies down and it's all forgotten.

Looking in my Google reader, I am currently following 226 (and counting) blogs.  Granted a few are Info/News sites and about a dozen or so of them are BDSM related, but the rest are very much the MoHo (Mormon Homosexual) blogosphere.  I spend a lot of time poking into other people's lives.  Mostly lurking, looking on from the outside.  But I'm also moving further to the outside.  Further away from the blogging community that I've currently found myself in.

I never set out to get blog listed into the infamous MoHo blogosphere, but it's there.  I don't really know when it happened.   I just noticed it one day.  I was both honored and irritated by it at the same time.  It honored me to get exposure, irritated me because it drove me to write things that would appeal to that particular audience. I felt a bit cornered.  And I think it kept me from phasing out of the MoHo blogosphere arena as my ideas evolved.  I don't consider myself a Mormon. I had resigned from the Mormon church the previous year before officially starting this blog.

So, as I've been commenting on other bogs I'm realizing more so now than ever before that I think very differently than most MoHo's.  I don't connect with those who are still seeking acceptance with the religion and their religious family.  I was never fully part of the Mormon culture growing up and I had given up even trying to be accepted by the culture long before I ever dealt with my sexuality, which then cemented the dichotomy into permanence.  Ironic in that it took me years to discover and undo the habitual faking behaviors that I had developed as a coping mechanism to at least get by.  Even though I wore tall black boots and long hair, I still had to conform in some things to keep the peace.

My family has been supportive for the most part but, by the time I got to dealing with my sexuality, I had essentially stopped caring about their acceptance anyway.  Well, except for my mom, but she's the one who help me accept my homosexuality so her acceptance quickly became a moot point.

So, I don't really feel like I'm understood or accepted in the MoHo community because my experiences have been unlike what most are dealing with.  And my spiritual journey, which does not involve Christianity, seems to be too esoteric (if not outright disturbing) for many.  I've always felt like I've been on a different road and my adventure into the MoHo community was essentially a brief intersection.  It's just I've sort of lingered here for a bit watching the action when I really should have just kept on driving.

It's not just the blogs; I'm also on various MoHo Yahoo groups too.  I've become too liberal for them too.  I've become even too liberal for Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons.  I used to think they were too liberal.

Perhaps, I'm over generalizing people.  I'm still connected to the MoHo world because I'm still very much a product of the Mormon culture from which this all has its roots.  I'm just on a completely different road "out of here" than what it seems most people are traveling.

But I do keep reading them.  I keep following them.  Why?

I'm looking for people who are on the same road as me.  I'm hoping that I will find someone I can make the same journey with on the same road "out of here".   Each person out there who writes something that provokes a thought, an emotion, even a hidden resentment in me; I hope that they could be someone whom I can share the lonely road of self discovery.  But when I open up and share my perspective, blank stares ensue.  Granted, whenever someone expresses their hope that the church will someday grant them a gay temple wedding, I have a blank stare of my own.  I'm a hypocrite.  But I'm not going to try and convince them it's a lost cause.  I do remember how hopeful I felt once.  It's not my place to crush other people's dreams.  I'm too busy letting my self-doubt crush mine anyway.

Ugh!

But that's not all, there is also this:

I'm also spending time watching my email inbox and Facebook page, and waiting for people to talk to me.  But when they do, I ignore them.

My Facebook inbox has messages waiting for me.  People poking, inquiring, wanting to know what has been going on in my life.  My email inbox has a few people waiting on me too.  Last Sunday I finally replied to someone after ignoring him for two months.  I'm sure he gave up on me.  Still, I have another one that I dropped the ball on 18 months ago.  18 MONTHS!   And I have it highlighted in my inbox reminding me to reply.  But none of these people are the people whom I want to talk to.

If I could just get honest with myself right now and admit that I'm really waiting for a particular person to call or write to me.   And at the same time, I'm dreading it.

This person whom, over the past year I've developed feelings for. We used to have long and interesting email and phone conversations.  He has been the closest and most intimate contact I've ever had with a potential partner since the mid 90's.  And yet, we live on opposite sides of the country across three time zones.  We are 17 years apart in age and we have never met face to face.  We both set a goal together to meet up and attend Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco this year, a goal that I still have no idea if I can turn in to a reality.

The last few emails I've sent where short, sort of a "hello I'm still here" type of thing.  They were weeks ago.  We are 'friends' on Facebook.  He spends a good deal of time on there posting comments about food, cats and politics.  I sometimes write flirty comments on his posts.  They seem to be ignored most of the time.  I fear that he will delete them.   (God, I hope he doesn’t read this.)

I worry that I've developed feelings for someone that will not or cannot reciprocate.   My fear is that I've let myself fall in to another desperate, one sided, needy, pathetic relationship.  He's busy yes, so am I.  But the amount of time he spends on Facebook has given me doubts as to his honest interest in me.  Especially if he will not reciprocate even a simple flirt on Facebook, even though he has told me in past emails he thinks of me often.  But, those emails were weeks and months ago.

I can't even begin to touch on the things that irritate me about him, which causes me to hate my predicament even more.  Seems unfair to be going through this seeing as we've been only acquaintances for about a year.

I'm desperate, one sided, needy and pathetic, indeed! 

Is this what relationship angst feels like?  I don't recall ever going through this stuff in high school or college.  Is that what teens and young adults experience?   It this how it works?

God I've rambled on.

Claiming My Life

This blog isn't working for me anymore. In particular, the current format of trying to maintain my anonymity.  What was this anonymity suppose to help me with anyway?  It's has a good side but it's mostly been a curse.

The good side is that I was able to work out my feelings somewhat publicly and vent my real frustrations openly and without restraint and fear of retribution from someone that would take offence of what I would say.  Although there isn't that much evidence that I'm in any danger of retribution.  But, I certainly don't want my co-workers, relatives and friends to read a lot of this drivel.  Even so, a few co-workers and family have read this blog.  But then I actually went as far as inviting those people to read it.  Duh! 

The curse is that I feel restricted in what I can talk about as long as I'm trying to stay anonymous.  I thought anonymity would make it easier but the way I see it, the situations, conversations and events that happen in my life, the ones I want to write about, are so bloody public already that mentioning them here would give me away.   There are many things I would like to have posted but didn't because the events were too specific.  I've tried to avoid mentioning specific people and, if I do, avoid using real names, but even that isn't good enough.  I realize the chances of the wrong person finding these posts are slim, but they are not none. 

But one thing is for sure, this anonymous game has taught me that I'm still in the closet.  I'm still trying to live a double life. The life of how I really feel verse the life I want people to think I feel.  But ultimately, it's apparent that anonymity isn't my real problem.  It's just the symptom.

My real problem is that I worry about what people think.  Especially if I believe it's negative.  I don't usually get hurt by negative comments like I used to but I still have my moments and naturally want to avoid them, especially here when I'm trying to express my more authentic self.  

Most of the rude and negative people I've had to deal with were in email, on Facebook, and in person.  So, I naturally assume that the same thing is going to happen here.  This is 100% public.  Not limited like Facebook and email.  Any crazy asshole can post here.  But, it's not the assholes that worry me.  It's everyone else.  The ones I care about.  The people that have gotten to know me here.  And the ones I know in person.  I care about people.  I care too deeply.  And I'm embarrassed because I haven't been 100% truthful.  I'm still hiding myself, I'm still afraid of letting people into my life and letting them see all that I'm about. 

So, part of me is bristling to shed the anonymity and bust out of my shell.  The other part is still scared as hell of rejection.  The more people I know who read this blog, the more I plague the course of my writing with assumptions about what I suppose people want or don't want to read.  I thought by making it anonymous I was avoiding that.  But it didn't matter.  They didn't even have to say anything.   I assumed what they were going to say before they even say it.  And 100% of the time, my assumptions are wrong. 

So, when the comments came, very few were negative, most were encouraging.  The ones that were negative came from my mom. But she didn't post a comment; she called instead.  What she said actually didn't bother me.  This seems ridiculous but what she said actually didn't bother me, it was the positive comments that fed my ego.

By avoiding certain subjects or areas of my life, I could continue writing about things that would appease to get more pleasant comments, rather than go in my desired direction.  I did more than keep the status quo.  I started to gear it back.  In one of my posts, I even made a big deal out of not taking a direction that I really wanted to take because I was afraid of possibly displeasing my readers and eliciting negative comments.  I even found a way to convince myself it was what I wanted to do.   Looking back at that, I am still angry with myself for copping out.  This non risk-taking pattern had been building for the past three months in all aspects of my life.  As I fell into the trap of not thinking for myself, the frustration and anger built up and I exploded. 

Even so, the comments that I've received have meant such a great deal to me I can't even begin to explain how.   Even the simple acknowledgments that I'm not alone are very rewarding.   But I continue in fear that I will write something offensive and drive someone away.  Hell, it may have happened a few times in the past as I've seen my followers list shrink.  But then I've stopped following blogs before, and getting upset for losing a follower makes me a hypocrite.  They went a direction that didn't interest me so I left, ironically the ones that have offended me I still follow.  So, I would hope that they left because I'm not of interest as opposed to being offensive.   Yeah, I see it as rejection either way and I hate it but I hope I'm getting better at not caring about it. 

Some aspects of my self-esteem are still dependent on outside validation.  And thus, I want comments.  I want to know what others think.  I want people to interact with me and be frank and honest.  If they don't like what I say, and feel a need to disagree, then by all means I want them to.  So far the only comment that came close to stating a disagreement was in green and purple's comment when he said, "I agree with almost all that you say."  I'm curious what the little bit was he didn't agree with.  He's right in that it doesn't matter, but still, my curiosity gets to me and ultimately the disagreements can be learning experiences in and of themselves as they challenge my ego; help me understand the holes in my self-esteem. 

But, with that being said, I've started to get a sense that the comments left by readers are not always there for me.  They're for the readers.  As I've been poking around the blogosphere making comments on other people's blogs, I've noticed that when I've written comments I was essentially venting.  That, in effect, actually helped me clarify a thought in my head.  In the end, the comment was just something I needed to get off my chest and didn't matter if the author of the blog read it or not.  Although, whether they agree or disagree, it's still quite satisfying when the blogger or someone responds to it or references it in a future blog post.  At least it's evidence that someone noticed it.

The other aspect of all this is that I'm lonely, desperately lonely.  I'm acutely aware that my desire to fill that loneliness hole, a hole that severely depresses me often, feeds my desire for comments.  And that is a hard thing to admit openly because this depression and unhappiness is all some people in my life need as evidence to fuel their anti-gay religious shit and throw it in my face.   If I can put on that happy face they have no case and will leave me alone with their silly "wickedness was never happiness" bullshit and how turning way from God and the church is the reason I have these holes in my soul. 

It's so fucking pathetic.  I'm right back to where I was a few years ago when I was a miserable, Mormon, fuck with a plastic smile so that I wouldn't make the church look bad.   Now I'm a miserable, lonely, fuck with a plastic smile so I don't make the Gay, ex-Mormons look bad.  Fucking bullshit!  And I'm being a drama queen!  Yes, it still makes me angry; I still have a lot of bitterness left in me.  But I should be 100% honest, I'm not as miserable now as I was then.  But still, any misery sucks and I hate it and I just want to scream.

But, as of late, not all of the bullshit has been related to Mormons or their silly beliefs.  It's been bigoted and ignorant co-workers, slummy landlords, thieves breaking in to my house, distant family, shitty job, distant friends, my shrinking bank account, and no one to talk to about any of it at the end of a hard day.  For the last few months I've been wondering, what I am going to do? Where am I going to go?  And with all of that, there is the added frustration and anger of not finding an answer.  Again, another aspect of all of this apparent misfortune is that those silly Mormons are going to use it as evidence that God is punishing me for leaving the church to have gay sex. 

It just keeps coming back to worrying about what people think.  And it goes back as far as I can remember.  Hell, just read some of my past posts!  I totally dwell on shit from my past over, and over, and over...ad nauseam.  Yes, we all know now that my past sucked and I'm still not over it.  Give it a rest, right?  Easier said than done.  Besides, I get to decide when to give it rest anyway.

I've been struggling for a long time trying to find a way to reconcile or connect in constructive ways with my past.  I wanted to remember all of those times were I got misdirected so that I could change or realign the beliefs I formed around them, beliefs that misinformed me later in life and continue to do so; such as why I still care what other people think of me.  But it got daunting.  My past was so vast and my memory so jumbled and broken, I was getting frustrated with that alone. 

A few days ago, I stumbled across a photo album that my dad sent to me few years ago.  In it were miscellaneous photos of me mostly between the ages of 3-16.  Many of these struck me as odd because I had no memory of the event captured in the image.  Others, I had a clear memory of them and was surprised by the memory.  Some were good, many were bad.  But all of them invoked a thought or emotion of some kind.   I realized that some of these pictures captured events in my life where a belief was forming or being exercised, a belief about myself, about the world or about life.  Some were positive.  Most were negative.  That's probably why I had the photo album shoved deep in the back of the filing cabinet rather than on the shelf or with all of my other pictures. 

I've been told that worrying about the past is a waste of time; it does nothing to serve the present moment.  And exploring those moments would just be wallowing in the past.  So, I've convinced myself that these moments are not important.  These moments are all just shit that happens.  They don't affect me now.  But is that really true?  I feel like I'm wallowing in my past more than ever because I refuse to accept it.  All this drama I face in my life came from somewhere and the same shit keeps happening to me over and over again.  Why?

So I'm going to call bullshit on the non-importance of my past.  I've come a long way by looking at my past, piecing it together, and figuring out what happened.  How dare anyone tell me it's a waste of time.  It's bad enough that the feelings are not easy to confront, I don't need people telling me that I'm doing it wrong just because they think they know what's important to me. 

Fuck them.  This is MY life. 

Through the course of writing this post, I continue to have moments of worrying about what people are going to think.  It's always been my problem even before I realized it.  I'm more conscious of it now.  The anger for it has surfaced so as I move forward, I'm going to be confronting that head on, even if it means starting every post with the phrase, "This is my life, if you don't like it, then fuck off."  Anger serves a purpose.  I have not been honoring it and so now, it is seething.  If I don't let it out, I will continue to wallow in it.  I definitely know that that doesn't serve the present moment.

Because my life is so multifaceted, so esoteric and so gut wrenchingly depressing, sometimes I'm pressured to spare people the "Too Much Information" (TMI) that will eventually come.  Of course, I'm only assuming it's going to be TMI mainly because I've had many people who were eager to point that out to me.  Having people do that only feeds my habit of editing myself, smoothing things out or censoring things so that I can spare other people my most intimate details, the most important things to me.  What I end up with is a thick layer of orange paint that covers or obfuscates who I really am.  And I resent that.  Orange is a nice color; it's just not MY color.  This orange paint represents that nasty habit of self-deception, a habit that has managed to totally fuck up my life and continue to make it difficult.  Well, no more.  If anyone thinks that any aspect of my life is TMI, then they too can just fuck off.  

Happy New Year!

Before I go off on a heavy handed tyrannical rant, I would just like to pre-apologize for the offenses that I will deliberately be dishing out.  OK, to be honest, this is only a partial or rather fake apology.  What I'm really getting down to is that this is just a preamble to some serious and offensive ranting and I'm not holding back.  Why I'm even bothering to warn the reader?  Why don't I just start ranting?  Because I seriously don't want to hurt anyone's feelings with what I'm about to say.  As I'm currently in a state of some deeply hurt feelings myself, I wouldn't wish such things one anyone else.   With that being said, I'm going to start off my little rant by first inviting anyone who might be offended to seriously fuck off.  I'll recap on that later.

Anyway...I just got past the holiday season.

Oh My Fucking God!

I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year.  But this time around it's mostly the hate.

How did the year end and how did the new one start?  It ended with a crash and a bang and bunch of other complete bullshit.  It was an otherwise great year that came together in the most fucked up holiday season ever.  And it's still not over yet.  In fact I think I'll still have a few more months of this shit before I might be clear enough to start thinking and feeling grounded again.  It's not to say I'm in a constant state of rage.  I do have moments throughout the week of positivity, but it's only about 0.6% of the time.  I think that equates to about an hour per week where it's just me and the equines.

I debated if I should even bother listing all the shit that has gone down since October but I don't think I will.  There is just too much of it.  Perhaps it would have been better had I made small blog entries for each incident as they happened.  But it really came down to the fact that I'm still relatively anonymous on this blog and after considering the implications of revealing the nature of the shit that's gone down, it would seriously compromise my identity.   Besides that, listing all that shit would incite a pity party.   It's bad enough that I pity myself as much as I do.  Getting it from others doesn't feed my ego in healthy ways.  And right now the combination of all this shit going down and the affects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), regress me to some serious irrationality.  Besides, all of the shit that's happened is actually incidental and doesn't really have any real meaning.  The important question to ask is: How I've been handling it all?  To which I would respond: GAH!!! 

Needless to say I've got so much pent-up anger right now I could bite anyone who crosses me...until they bleed of course, and then I would let them go.  I'm not a vampire and don't like the taste of blood.  Don't worry.  I am seeking counseling. 

But for now I feel like ranting about shit that I've wanted to rant about for decades.   And to make it even worse my rant is all a fucking cliché.  When ranting about the so-called Holiday Season how could it not be? 

When I see people walking around wishing each other "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" and all that crap, I want to gag.  And yet I find myself going along with it anyway so I don't come across as a complete asshole.  But deep down inside I'm screaming, "Whatever!"  That alone pisses me off further.  It's hypocritical and I'm angry at myself for playing the game.

It's a pointless and mindless time of year where people try to act extra nice.  Why now?  Why not all of the time?  These holidays and their dates are utterly arbitrary to me.  Take New Year's Day for instance.  That one is especially pointless to me.   It is a week and a half after the winter solstice.  To me the solstice is more like a new year than January 1.   A solstice is an actual measurable physical phenomenon that can be used to mark the end and beginning of a solar cycle.    January 1 is just a number on some made-up calendar.  Who made up that calendar anyway?  And why does that calendar say the year has to be 2010?   Why not 8302 or some other number in say, base 12?

And then there is the Christmas holiday and all of that crap.  Set aside the fact that December 25 is not even the actual date of the birth of the Christian religion so to speak.  But that doesn't really matter.  What matters is that it's the one time out of the year where all of the hypocrites can come out in droves and be EXTRA hypocritical.  Personal experience has allowed me to witness many so-called Christmas holidays where Christianist behave in some of the most unchristian ways ever seen.  That really doesn't bode well for celebrating the birth of their Savior™.

Another thing that doesn't bode well is that most of the modern Christmas traditions claimed by some Christianist come from the Pagans!  Yeah, PAGANS!    After all, to trick the Pagans into becoming Christians they had to assimilate their traditions.  But don't worry; it was all done in the name of Christ.  Too bad that Christians don't know who Christ really is anymore.  Not that they would care anyway.  And they especially wouldn't give a shit what a godless heathen such as myself would have to say about it anyway.

Sorry folks, I guess I just don't have the Christmas spirit.  Well, I guess if I stick with just the hypocrite part I do have it.  I get that.  But the rest of it?  Whatever!

Am I waging a war on Christmas?  I don't think so.  Christianist are doing it themselves just fine.  I'm just watching them go at it while I do my own thing.  Such as: no lights, no tree, no music, no shopping, no family, no handouts and no Christ.  Selfish?  Meh.  If you want all that stuff, great!  Go for it.  I don't care.  Just don't expect me to do it to. 

God, I'm glad the holidays are over!

I guess this makes me a scrooge or a curmudgeon or something.  It doesn't matter.  I'm hated by one group of people or another no matter what I think, say or do.  So I'm going to do my own god damned thing from now on and if you like it, join me, if not, FUCK OFF!  I'm serious.  I invite anyone who finds my little rant offensive to seriously fuck off.  I don't mind at all.  It may sound like I mind because of the seemingly harsh language but at this point I'm really not talking directly to anyone.  It's more of a proverbial use of the phrase to anyone in my life who really does need to fuck off.

Postscript: It was the Christians who came up with the word 'Pagan' to call these unbelieving, polytheistic, heathen, low life, evil people.  I'm proud to be called a Pagan.  It's like taking back the word 'fag', which I'm am one of those as well.  :)  Happy Xmas!  (Nov 20, 2010)