Marriage Equality and the Gay "Outsider" Culture

I read an article in the New York Times on Friday about the demise of the so-called gay “Outsider” culture. It touched a nerve.

The basic thrust of the piece is that the increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians in our society, culminating in Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, has resulted in the decline of a gay culture that thrived in the wake of Stonewall. It was an “outsider” culture that was defined by oppression from general society and, later, by the devastation of AIDS. It was a counter-culture that celebrated being gay within a protective community that faced a hostile environment. 

It was also a culture that created barriers and stereotypes, both within the gay world and in society at large. Because of this, I welcome its demise. 

Both Mark and I grew to maturity in the 70’s. We both knew we were sexually attracted to men. But unlike others of our generation who found their way to San Francisco or New York or Los Angeles, we did not have the courage to come out. Furthermore, we each looked at gay culture – or what we perceived it to be – and thought, “I’m not like those people. If that is what it means to be gay, then I’m not gay.” 

And so we stayed in the closet, as did many others. “Gay culture,” as it then existed became a barrier instead of an invitation.

Decades later, I am glad that the situation is very different. Because of society’s increased acceptance of gays and lesbians, young people – as well as older closeted men and women – feel safer in coming out and are much less likely to feel that, in doing so, they have to fit into some kind of mold in order to “get into the club.” They can be both gay and themselves, just like heterosexuals can be straight and be themselves. 

There are no stereotypes of what a straight person is or should be. Thankfully, we are coming fully into an age where the same applies to gays and lesbians.

Mixed-Orientation Marriages: Falling Away

I keep noticing that one post I did a year ago entitled A Callous Dumbing Down of Mixed-Orientation Marriages keeps getting a lot of page views every month. Because of this, I am republishing a post that was originally posted on my Invictus Pilgrim blog (now closed) in hopes that it may benefit someone.

***********

James is a gay Mormon man in a mixed-orientation marriage who recently wrote to me. What follows is part of James’ story. You will see that I have asked for input from readers. Please reach out to James through your comments. He could use our support.

“I am in my early 40’s, and my story is typical of others I have read about.  As you blogged this week in behalf of "Dave", I found myself reading the responses with great anticipation to finding the answer to my identical questions.  I must say that I found quite a bit of clarity within the responses; however, I'm still longing for someone to tell me that it will all be ok and that I will find favor with God pursuing a gay lifestyle.”

Question to Readers: I would like to invite readers to share comments and their own experiences of how (a) they came to a point where they received assurance that God is “ok” with their gayness or (b) they came to a point where they decided they neither wanted or needed divine “approval” of their gay identity.

“I, like many of your readers, grew up knowing that I was different. I wanted to be like the other guys who were so masculine and athletic but I always fell short. I wanted to be attracted to women but it just didn't happen. I, too, went on a mission after bargaining with the Lord that I would give him my very best for two years in order to be freed from the clutches of my gayness. I worked my ass off and the day I left my mission, I knew it would never go away. What a ginormous letdown.”

Question to Readers:  Did anyone else go on a mission with similar feelings, hoping that the mission experience would get ride of same-sex attraction? What was your experience?

“I continued to keep my dark little secret, no one knew, but plenty of people speculated. I attended BYU under the assumption that living in that controlled environment would help my situation. It didn't, it made it worse. I dated woman after woman, hoping to find someone who, if she found out my deep dark secret, would have some level of compassion and understanding.

“I never told my soon-to-be wife about my attraction to men. I had the misguided belief that for this marriage to work I had to jump in, feet first and NEVER look back. 

Question to Readers:  I certainly had the same approach to marriage, believing that I had to give it my all, including my Self, in order for me to experience “success”, i.e., in spite of my gayness.  Can anyone else relate/share their experience?

“The woman I married was intellectual, stunningly beautiful, full of optimism and a very faithful Mormon. Her father taught her to be loving and non-judgmental. At the time I thought it was a perfect fit, especially if I ended up coming out of the closet: I figured that if she ever did find out about the real me, there would be some level of understanding and she would be successful at finding someone else. I never told her about my attraction to men.  I deceived her and everyone else, including myself, all under the premise that if I followed the prophet, I wouldn't be led astray. What a crock!

“About three years ago, a perfect storm formed and I just couldn't resist my natural urges anymore. I indulged in an unforgettable affair with an unforgettable man. We fell in love. He, too, was married but gay.  e sought opportunities to spend time together, fell in love and shared intimacy in a way neither of us had ever experienced. 

“Eventually, my wife discovered the affair and the identity of my lover. She threatened to expose him to his wife if he ever contacted me again, and that was the end. She then went to our bishop and our stake president and, not content to stop there, told her parents and her siblings and, for good measure, not one but two general authorities. The closet door was flung wide open. There I stood, naked, vulnerable, exposed and very, very frightened while feeling the enormous loss of losing the precious love I had discovered! 

“For her part, my wife was crushed, disappointed and heartbroken. She thought that the “problem” was with her and that she had driven me to have a gay affair. She begged me to stay for various reasons, none of them particularly healthy. We seriously considered divorce; however, primarily for the sake of our children, for financial reasons and, particularly in the case of my wife, for the sake of appearances in our conservative, close-knit Mormon community, we decided to stay together.

“Two years later, I continue to live a double life filled with inauthenticity and deceit - knowing that I am gay but pretending to be something I’m not - in order to protect those around me from the pain, shame and disappointment that would come from me leaving the marriage. As a result, I have dealt with extreme emotional despair including depression, raging anger, fear, hopelessness, more anger, injustice, betrayal by God, betrayal by the church, anxiety. . . . and so on. I even considered driving my car under a semi truck on the freeway in order to escape the bone crushing pressure and pain.  But, as I thought of my children, I reconsidered and decided to stick around.

“Then there is the letting go of a testimony and tradition of the LDS church. As a result of my wife's anger and her uncovering my secret, I was disfellowshipped from the church and remain so.  I have worked a life time to understand and embrace even when it flies in the face of all conscious reasoning and logic.  I was dedicated to the church in every way, one of its finest members by way of loyalty and service.  My testimony of the “church” is completely destroyed.  I have a testimony in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it relates to . . . well, Jesus Christ; however, anything institutional I just don’t buy into anymore.  How can something that is supposed to be so right be so corrupting and wrong? 

“I feel like this situation is impossible and that there is no good resolution. There are other problems in our marriage that have contributed to an almost hopeless situation. On some days I feel like giving up. Honestly, I am not living my life day by day anymore; I am now hour by hour. I have lost everything - career, homes, businesses, self confidence, self actualization. The only thing I have going for me right now is my family. On the one hand, I cannot bear to change my circumstances any more than they already are or are about to become. On the other hand, both my wife and I are miserable." 

Question to Readers:  Have any of you come to the point where you knew you couldn’t go on “the way you weren’t” and, though seemingly insane and impossible, stepped or fallen through the looking glass into a world where your sexuality was finally accepted as a reality?

“During a recent, sleepless night, I lied in my bed, staring into the dark, contemplating how my life has fallen apart. Then the thought came to my mind. . . ‘your life isn't falling apart, it's falling away.’ Since that time, I have pondered over these words that came to me, and I have thought of the quote by Anais Nin:

“And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

“So … here's to new beginnings … to taking that step off the edge into the abyss.  To finding meaning among all the devastation …”

****************

In a subsequent post, I will publish comments that were made to this post. I also encourage any who so desire to answer my questions anew by leaving a comment.

God Doesn't Hate Gays, People Do

A lot of thoughts have been swirling around in my head for some time about this country we live in, what it means to be a minority in the "land of the free," the hate that seems to permeate sizable portions of our society, the fear mongers that pass for political leaders, and so-called "Christians" who would be the first to crucify Jesus all over again.*

These thoughts congealed into something yesterday when I read an anecdote about an incident that had happened in Tuesday's oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Despite all the coverage, I hadn't heard about it until I read a short essay in The New Yorker penned by Jeffrey Toobin. Here's the relevant passage:

There was a shocking, ugly moment during the argument of Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage case, in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Right after Mary Bonauto, the lawyer challenging marriage bans in several states, completed her argument, a spectator rose from a back row and started screaming, “If you support gay marriage, you will burn in Hell!” As the man yelled, “It’s an abomination!,” guards carried him from the courtroom. That wasn’t the ugly part, though. In the quiet moment after the man was removed, as his shouts vanished into the hallway, Justice Antonin Scalia filled the silence with a quip. “It was rather refreshing, actually,” he said.

How is it possible that the senior associate justice on the United States Supreme Court, even considering the outrageousness of many of his comments in the past, could make such a statement in such a place at such a time? How indeed.

There was a time when I considered myself a part of America's majority. I am white. I am male. I grew up in a solid middle-class home. I was raised in one of America's dominant Christian denominations (Roman Catholicism). My ancestors had lived in what is now the United States since the earliest days of colonial America. I became well-educated. I never had to worry about being discriminated against because of my race, my religion or my national origin. I never had to worry about police brutality or poverty or being intimidated at the ballot box or being sent to the back of the bus.

I knew what "America" meant. I viewed it through the eyes of the majority, because I was part of the majority. Though I could try to empathize with those who were women or black or Asian or poor or ignorant or Jewish or Muslim, I didn't and couldn't have expected to understand what it meant to be part of a minority in America.

I understand now. At least to some extent.

Though I was always a part of one of America's most maligned and persecuted minorities, I was safe as along as I stayed in the closet. A few years ago, however, I decided I could no longer do that; and so I became a minority. And things changed. For the first time in my life, I viewed America differently.

America was not necessarily the land of the free that I had perceived it to be. America was not necessarily the land of equal rights that I had perceived it to be. All the myths in which I had once been so strongly invested were now the precinct of "them" - the people with all the rights, all the power, all the sense of entitlement; the people who defined "right" because they were in the majority and thus is was their prerogative. America looked different because I was different.

Many of the people in the majority project their sense of "right" onto God. It has always been thus throughout the history of the American Republic and indeed in the histories of those nations who peopled America. God was who the majority said he is, at least as far as it relates to America's civil religion; and our laws have historically been based in large part on what this majority said was their God's will. The Majority god ruled. And the majority was happy, content and too often smug as long as things remained this way.

All of the hoo-haa about religious freedom in the country today is, in my view, a reaction to the majority's projected image of God being challenged in ways they do not at all like. But the only thing threatened in America today respecting religious freedom is this image, a projection that has been used far too long by the majority to impose its will upon others. It is also a projection that has channeled hate, disgust and violence from people to their god and back onto American society. 

God doesn't hate gay people. People hate gay people, and they use their god to justify their hatred. 

This is the sentiment that was spewed by the "protestor" inside the Supreme Court. And it is also the sentiment that lay behind Justice Scalia's "joke." It is well known what Scalia's attitude toward "gay rights" has long been and that he is a "devout Catholic." (So is Pope Francis, but I daresay that he and Scalia are miles apart on this issue and their approach to it.) As Toobin wrote in his piece, "[T]here’s every reason to believe that Scalia more or less shared the protester’s view of the immorality of homosexuality, and that he regards the Court’s toleration of gay people as one of the great disasters of his nearly three decades as a Justice."

Scalia's remark jolted me. It reminded me that I am part of a minority that is despised in certain quarters (some of which are very powerful) of this nation. And it all, sooner or later, comes back to religion and the great God of the majority. 

But the truth remains: God doesn't hate gay people; people do.

_______________

* If the religious right's reaction to a number of Pope Francis' statements and initiatives is any indicator, it's a pretty good bet that Jesus would not be welcome in many places of worship in this country, and he certainly wouldn't we welcome in the what the religious-freedom advocates like to refer to as "the public square," where his views and level of discourse would be, I fear, not at all  welcome.

Love, Life and Michael Tolliver

I've been doing a lot of reading since the first of the year. Among the books I've read in the past four months have been six books in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City Series: the last three of the original series and the three that have been published more recently.

For those not familiar with the series, Maupin, an openly gay man, started writing the books in the mid-1970's. They feature a core group of characters who live in San Francisco that includes gay men, lesbians, straight women, straight men and trans men and women. Since the original book was written in the mid-1970's and the most recent book was just published, the series follows the lives of these core characters (as well as others introduced from time to time) over the course of 40 years.

My favorite book in the series is Michael Tolliver Lives - the first Maupin wrote after an almost 20-year break (which I'll get back to below). Michael, a gay man originally from central Florida, was one of the original characters whose youthful wit and vitality very much reminded me of the character Emmett Honeycutt (pictured above) from the TV series, Queer as Folk. When the Tales began in the mid-70's, Michael was in his 20's; in Lives, he is in his 50's with the third great love of his life, the first having died of AIDS, the second, Thack, having moved on.

Coming Out and Learning to Love Oneself

Michael had a lot to say over the course of the nine books about being gay and about sex, love and relationships, and I would have loved the novels based on his character and his comments alone. I first truly fell in love with him when, early in the series (More Tales of the City), he wrote a coming out letter to his very religious, very conservative "Mama" back in Orlando who had become involved in Anita Bryant's anti-gay crusade of the mid-late 70's. I wrote about this letter here, and I'll just include the following passages in this post:

"I know I can't tell you what it is to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. 

"It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like 'family' and 'decency' and 'Christianity.' It's not fearing your body, or the pleasures that God made for it. It's not judging your neighbor, except when he's crass or unkind. 

"Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me the limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength. It has brought me into the family of man, Mama ..."

Living and Loving in the Shadow of Death

Jumping ahead to the book, Sure of You, Michael and his lover, Thack, deal with Michael's HIV-positive status. This novel was written in the late 80's, and at that time there was virtually no assurance that anyone who was positive would survive. Life became a waiting game to see if HIV became AIDS. In this environment, Maupin put the following words in Thack's mouth:

"Sometimes I watch [Michael] with [the dog] or digging the yard. And I think: This is it, this is the guy I've waited for all my life. Then this other voice tells me not to get used to it, that it'll only hurt more later. It's funny. You're feeling this enormous good fortune and waiting for it to be over at the same time."

This passage obviously resonated deeply with me. Mark is the one I've waited for all my life. I feel enormous good fortune; but I know he has inoperable cancer and that, at some point, he will leave. We wait to see what his PSA will do, knowing that it will continue to go up. We wait to see how his hip pain will evolve, grateful for days that he is pain-free. We wait to see how he will feel tomorrow, or the next day, or next week, or next month, or in three months. We wait. But we live each day and cherish the love that we have in and for each other.

Michael Tolliver Lives ... and Loves

I suppose Maupin chose the title for this book because Michael Tolliver lived: he didn't contract AIDS, he didn't die. He grew older. In this book, he is in his early 50's. A younger man, Ben, has become his love and his husband. 

But this novel, although it explores the relationship between these two men, is primarily concerned with Michael's relationship with his family of origin back in Florida. His father is dead and his mother is dying. He journeys to Florida with Ben to visit his declining mother and his brother's family. Against this backdrop, below are some of the passages I highlighted as I was reading this book.

"[L]ove is always on loan, never the nest egg we want it to be." 

Michael has realized that love is not something we can cling to. We must hold it, gently, as a butterfly in our hand that may fly away at any moment.

"'The thing is,' [Michael] said, 'Thack did me a favor by leaving. I might never have noticed how little [love] I was getting if he hadn't taken it away.'"

Michael had learned his lesson. So have I. So have others. Sometimes, we cling to a love because it's all we know. We invest ourselves in it, thinking it's all we deserve. Or we want it so badly to be real and authentic and nurturing. But it's not. And we only find that out until after the relationship has ended.

"My folks still love me alright, but they saw that love as cause for forgiveness, not acceptance ... My life had been conveniently reduced to a 'lifestyle' by then, something easily separable from me, that they could abhor to their hearts' content without fear of being perceived as unchristian."

In this short passage, Michael gives voice to what so much of us feel but can't quite express. We know in our hearts that "love the sinner, hate the sin" is deeply hateful ... of the person, not the sin. We sense that what we are offered is not real love, but "compassion," i.e., tolerance tinged with a bit of forgiveness.

Michael's older brother is everything Michael is not. He is a real estate wheeler dealer, lives in a monster house somewhere in the Orlando area and is a deacon in his church. Many of us have relatives like that whose lives appear - on the surface - so charmed, so perfect, so "right." After visiting for a few days in Florida, Michael says of his brother and his life (as well as his own):

"[I] realized that I envied nothing about my brother's [conservative, 'Christian'* and straight] life ... none of the the things I once worried I might be missing if I committed fully to a life of homosexuality. That life hasn't been perfect, but it has been my life, tailored to my dreams and safely beyond the reach of God's terrible swift sword. My brother can't say that. Never could."

Isn't that what so many LGBT people have had to face at some point on their journey: that if they were true to who they are, they thought they would be missing out on what our culture overwhelmingly values? How many people, on the other hand, can say that their life - with all its imperfections - "is MY life, tailored to MY dreams?" [*Am I the only one who is sick of conservative evangelical Christians claiming for themselves the label of 'Christian' - as if mainline Protestants and Catholics aren't really "Christian?"]

Michael had a difficult relationship with his mother. I could relate very strongly to their relationship. When "Mama" was near death in a nursing home, Michael had a choice to make. As he and Ben were waiting for their flight to Florida, they received word that the woman whom Michael viewed as his "true" mother, Anna Madrigal, was in a life-threatening situation. He chose to stay in San Francisco to be with Anna (who often quipped that she and all her "children" - none of whom were related by blood - were a "natural family" rather than a biological family. When my mother passed, I was faced with a similar decision: I was needed at home. I had said my goodbyes already.

Of his decision, Michael explains:

"People always say, 'Of course you love her, you have to, she's your mother,' but that kind of love can die as easily as any of the others. It has to be fed by something ... I let her go a long time ago. I've done my mourning already."

I could have said the same thing.

Thank you, Armistead Maupin, for creating Michael Tolliver.

Palm Springs: Me, My Dad and a Gay Wedding

We are in Palm Springs this weekend to celebrate the wedding of Chris and Jason, two dear friends. It will be the first gay wedding we have attended (other than our own), and we are looking forward to it. Meantime, however, we are enjoying simply being here.

This is Mark's first time. I was here over 30 years ago on a golfing trip with my dad and step-mother. Most of my memories of that trip involve the ridiculous places where I managed to hit a golf ball, including right in the middle of a swimming pool of a house bordering the fairway and into the clutches of one of those jaggedy things that grow out from a palm tree. I couldn't retrieve either ball - the first for obvious reasons, the second because it was about 20 feet up the trunk of the palm tree.

I have another memory, however: of me sitting on the edge of a bed in my parents' hotel room, sobbing. I can't remember what triggered this breakdown, but I know it was the closest I ever came to coming out to my dad. I was working for his company at the time and was, I suppose, feeling adrift and lonely. I had no friends, did no socializing. Some might put it this way: I really didn't "have a life."

I think Dad suspected that I might be gay. There had certainly been indications. Such as the time that I was working for him in the early summer of 1977. We were driving to lunch in New Concord, Ohio. The news was on the radio, describing Anita Bryant's efforts to repeal Miami's non-discrimination ordinance and her crusade against gay people. I distinctly remember turning to my dad and saying, "Why don't they leave those people alone? They have a right to live their lives like everybody else." I think my dad was so surprised by my comments that he simply nodded. I don't recall him actually saying anything, and the subject was never discussed again.

Dad in high school, holding his nephew

Back to the hotel room in Palm Springs. My dad tried to comfort me and shared a story from his youth that he had never told me before and never mentioned again. Given the context in which he shared it, I was given an insight into my dad. A secret one. One that could not be talked about, but only talked around. 

Dad told of an evening in his youth when he was coming home from the little village of Alma, Illinois to his parents' farm a half-mile or so out of town. As he crossed the railroad tracks, he was confronted by some "toughs" from the village. They apparently surrounded him, taunting him and perhaps smacking him around a little. My dad intimated that they were making fun of him, accusing him. The context of the story indicated that they may have been calling him things like "sissy" and "queer." My dad didn't go into that; it had been "put out there," however.

His point in telling the story was that those guys were still back in Alma or its environs and had not done anything with their lives. (He used a more graphic term.) He, however, had moved on with his life and left that behind. I could do the same. 

It was a curious episode, never again discussed. But it was a turning point of sorts in my life - one of those instances when I flirted with chucking the pretense and coming out, but ultimately decided not to.

So it is interesting that I am here now, 34 years later, an out gay man, attending a gay wedding with my husband ...

We arrived late morning yesterday and had several hours to kill before we could check into our room, so we decided to take in Palm Springs' most popular tourist attraction: a tram that climbs up to Mount San Jacinto and offers stunning views of the valley.

I'm pretty sure one would only this truck in an area with a relatively high gay population. Interestingly, Mark had asked me as we were packing whether he should wear a crew-neck T-shirt under his open-necked dress shirt at the wedding. I had replied with a definitive "no."

It Took a Woman

It took a woman to acknowledge that homosexuals are human.

There is so, so, so much that could be written about what leaders of the Mormon Church said during the past week about "religious freedom" and (oh yeah, we almost forgot) non-discrimination toward LGBT people. Most of that - at least by me - would be negative. But I'm not going to go there ... much.

The thing that most impressed me about all that has happened in the past week was that it took a woman - Neill Marriott, 2nd Counselor in the General Young Women's Presidency and a member of the Church's Public Affairs Committee - to say what none of the three apostles who were involved could or did say: gay people are real and they have been wronged:

"[The gay rights] movement arose after centuries of ridicule, persecution and even violence against homosexuals. Ultimately, most of society recognized that such treatment was simply wrong, and that such basic human rights as securing a job or a place to live should not depend on a person’s sexual orientation."  

Two sentences. Thank you, Sister Marriott, for saying what the men couldn't (or wouldn't) apparently say. Though it is only two sentences in a sea of moralizing, at least you let us into the room. 

Out of the Closet and Into the Kitchen

So, Ive started a food/cooking blog. (Here's the address.) Why is a 50-something man who has never cooked much his entire life writing a blog about food and cooking? And, while we're at it, why is a 50-something man bothering to learn how to cook?

Fair question.

Coming Out

The answer, I think, is attributable to one primary fact: I am gay, but I spent all of my life in the closet until a few years ago. I was married to a woman for over 20 years, and I have ten children. My former wife liked to cook and is pretty good at it, so I never bothered to learn to cook. Besides, I was too busy earning a living for my family.

Living in the closet not only hid my natural sexual orientation, it also buried a lot of my interests and natural inclinations. Coming out is, at least in part, about rediscovering who one truly is and allowing oneself to express personal interests without fear of being suspected of being gay. I decorated our house at Christmas for 20+ years (as did my dad, actually). I kept waiting for the whispers around the ward to start about Brother Broom's penchant for decorating.

Challenges

About a year after I came out, I met a wonderful man who is now my husband. Mark has played a key role in my evolution as the closet gets further away in my rearview mirror. He has challenged me to do new things, things I never thought I could do. Such as becoming a cyclist who has now cycled thousands of miles in France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Corsica (not to mention in Utah, Colorado, California and Oregon) and picking up skiing after a 30-year hiatus.

During the last three years, I have also challenged myself to:

• join a men’s choir after not singing for over 30 years
• start several blogs, awakening a talent for writing that had been buried for over 30 years,
• become a different and better father, and
• live my life authentically.

Now, a new challenge: learning how to cook and to better appreciate food. Taking up this challenge requires me to analyze and reject (in some cases) previous perceptions of myself – both those created by me as well as those created by others. For many years, I told myself I couldn’t cook or didn’t like to cook. Others told me the same thing. Now, however, I am ready to reject labels applied by myself and others and to approach cooking and food in my own way, not someone else’s. 

The Creative Journey

So, I have issued myself a personal challenge. What about the blog? First, I love to write. Second, I needed the discipline that writing a blog provides in order to meet my challenge. And you know what?  I love feeling creative. It touches the part of me that was in the closet the longest.

I have no idea where this adventure will lead. But I’m certain it will be just that: an adventure. A creative one.

My Daughter's 6th Grade Dance

I had an opportunity this past Friday that I'm glad I didn't pass up. My daughter's teacher sent a general invitation to dads to come to the 6th-grade dance. I immediately accepted. Mind you, that meant going back into the environment where I used to live. I fully expected to see former ward members, etc. And I'm gay. In Bountiful. But, I've found that each time I or both Mark and me have gone to programs at the Quads' elementary school, things get easier.

As it turned out, there weren't very many dads there. In fact, I think I counted three others besides myself. I was easily the oldest. But I'm young at heart. I had a lot of fun.

Esther trying to teach me moves

The kids had been learning dances for weeks. The two-step, the foxtrot, the waltz and one other, the name of which I have forgotten. Plus there were two different line dances. I had never danced to the foxtrot. Esther, my daughter, very patiently taught me the steps. I was looking down a lot.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to dance. In the entire time I was previously married, I think my ex-wife and I danced less than a dozen times. It's not that we didn't like to dance; we did. But we were orthodox Mormons, and there just aren't that many opportunities for a married orthodox Mormon to dance, since bars and clubs are strictly off-limits, and there are only so many wedding receptions with dancing.

Mark also likes to dance, but the only times we've had an opportunity to dance have been our wedding (commitment ceremony) and Mark's niece's wedding this past summer. It was so much fun, and it was particularly nice to be able to dance with the person you're in love with.

But back to Esther's dance. I got to have two dances with her, but every other place on her dance card was spoken for. "Sorry I could only give you two dances, Dad," she said. "But there were a lot of boys that wanted to dance with me." Now, that might sound like a very snobby thing to say if we were speaking of someone else. But Esther is a tomboy, not a frilly girl. She gets told all the time that she's beautiful, and it doesn't phase her one bit. She's just not interested.

She was serious about her dances. Most of the other kids seemed to be as well. They were executing the moves they had been taught and that was that. But when it came for the two line dances, I had to smile. That's when they all really got into it. It was exuberant, and I was reminded for a few moments of what it felt like to be in sixth grade. It was a good feeling.

Esther's teacher had hoped more dads could come because there were more girls (considerably more) than boys. She began assigning girls to ask me to dance, which they very politely did. One even came up and asked without being told by her teacher. The girls were all so sweet. Ahh, sixth grade.

It was obvious that I had enjoyed myself, so the teacher asked if I'd be willing to come back for the Valentine's Day dance. "Sure!," I replied. Then I leaned over closer to her and said, "Could my husband come, too, since he loves to dance? Or would that be too 'weird'? "It's fine with me!," she replied. "It's totally fine with me."

I don't think, however, that he and I should try to dance with each other at the Valentine's Day dance. We probably won't. But ....

Being Gay: The Matter of "Choice"

Texas Senator Ted Cruz made headlines last week when he said that Apple CEO Tim Cook's sexuality reflected his "personal decisions" and "personal choices." This statement - that being gay is a choice - unfortunately reflects the view of a large portion of the American population and of the Mormon population. Two years ago, I published a post on my Beyond the Closet Door blog (now closed) entitled, "An Open Letter to Mormons: The Matter of Choice." In light of Cruz's recent comments, I have decided to republish this post today.

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Some of you may have family members or friends who are gay. Perhaps you have had an opportunity to talk to them about this issue. Many if not most of you, however, have never knowingly been acquainted with someone who is gay; and even if you have, you have probably never had an in-depth conversation with them about what it means to be gay.

There are a number of reasons why you may not have ever had such a conversation. But if we were to be honest with each other, I think you would agree that one of the main reasons you have never had such a conversation is that, as active members of the LDS Church, you believe that being gay is a moral choice. Because of this belief, you tend to shy away from gay people, believing them to be immoral. And because of this, a conversation never occurs.

Some of you may never know a gay man or a lesbian. Others of you, however, will discover, if you haven’t already, that you have a son or a brother or a father who is gay; or a sister or a daughter or a mother who is lesbian. You will then be confronted with a choice: do you simply accept discredited notions that erect stone walls of misunderstanding, suspicion and condemnation; or, do you let what you know of your loved one lead you into a conversation that allows for education, understanding and respect?

If you choose the former option, you embark on a road that will bring heartache to both you and your loved one. Guaranteed. Sooner or later, you will regret the choice that you made.

If, on the other hand, you choose the latter option, any degree of effort you put into such conversation will correspondingly benefit both you and your gay loved one.

To inaugurate such a conversation, I would suggest that you first ask your loved one whether he believes being gay is a choice. Then listen, really listen, to his response. What you will likely hear is a firm “no.” This may be followed by a more lengthy account, describing how he became aware of his sexual orientation; how it did not appear fully “grown” on a certain day as a result of a “choice”; how, rather, it is something that grew and developed without nurture and sometimes in spite of efforts to weed it out of oneself.  

He may then describe the torment he faced as a boy, as an adolescent, as a young man and as a mature man. He may describe the challenges he has faced since coming out.  He may describe the taunts and insults that he has endured. He may describe how his soul has been wracked, time and time and time again, with guilt and self-loathing, believing himself to be unworthy of God’s love, of being someone whom, in fact, God hates. 

And then he may ask you: “Do you seriously believe I would choose all this?” 

It is entirely possible (if not probable) that you may come to the point where you can see/believe that your loved one did not choose to be gay. However, again because of social and religious conditioning, you consciously or subconsciously believe that there must be a cause of homosexuality (i.e., just like there must be a cause for things such as cancer), so you start looking for one.  In future posts, I’m going to take a look at what some in our society believe might be possible “causes” for homosexuality, including the “sissy syndrome” and the “distant father/overbearing mother” syndrome.

For now, I’d like to close this with my own “testimony,” i.e., my own story.  I have known since I was 12 years old, at the latest, that I was attracted to guys. This isn’t something I sought. It isn’t a condition I woke up with one morning. And it is most definitely not something I “chose.” 

Like virtually every other boy like me growing up in the time I did, I desperately tried to hide these feelings so that no one would ever guess that I was “queer” or a “homo” or a “fag.” I did not nurture these feelings; rather, I tried every way I knew possible to kill them.  

Of course, I never succeeded in this effort; but what I did succeed in is developing a hatred of my inner self as something that was dirty, perverted and detested and rejected by God. I succeeded in growing to maturity as a fragmented human being who had carefully partitioned off bits of himself, never knowing the joy of living as a whole person. And I succeeded in becoming a person who desperately sought the approval of others, fearful that if they only knew the real me, I would lose the love and the regard of those close to me.

Like I would choose all this?

Out-Patient Surgery: "I'm His Husband"

It was an intensely gratifying moment.

Mark had some outpatient surgery done yesterday. (He's fine.) Pretty standard, but he would be under general anesthetic for the procedure. His intake nurse at Intermountain Medical Center was going through a list of questions with him while I sat by his side. I had not introduced myself, and at one point she started referring to Mark's "family." She hadn't paid much attention to me until she asked Mark whether he had an advance directive. He said he did. She asked if he had brought a copy with him because there wasn't one in his chart. He hadn't.

That's when I piped up and said, "I have a copy in my car if you need it." (We had been advised that I should always have it with me, or at least easily accessible, just in case some hospital denied me rights.) The nurse looked at me somewhat quizzically. I took the leap and said, "I'm his husband." 

From that moment, everything changed. Her face brightened and she said, "Congratulations." (I wondered if she thought we had just been married after Monday's Supreme Court decision.) I smiled and replied, "Thank you. We were married in Hawaii, but as of Monday, our marriage is now legally recognized by the State of Utah." Once again, she said, "Congratulations!"

From that point forward, she included me in the conversation just as she would have done had I been Mark's wife. She asked my full name and wrote down my phone number. A warm glow spread inside of me, recognizing as I did that there would - thanks to Monday's Supreme Court decision - be no issues relating to me being with Mark, no question of who was next-of-kin. As of Monday, the State of Utah recognizes me as Mark's next-of-kin. We are now treated as a couple, as a family, not just two men who live together.

That feeling of gratification came again as the discharge nurse went through discharge instructions. During the whole interview, she never looked at me - until it came time to tell me some things that I, as spouse, needed to do and be aware of. Then, she handed the clipboard to me to sign as Mark's spouse, marking the first time that I have signed a document on behalf of my husband.

*The lead photo was taken from the patio outside the cafeteria of Intermountain Medical Center. 

Rome: The Vatican, Art and Antinous

Yes, I took the lead photo for this post near the steps of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome of a young Swiss Guard. It serves as a fitting lead-in to the story of our visit to the Vatican yesterday morning.

I am a gay man. There have been gay men (and women) that have existed since time immemorial. Their history, however, has been consigned, generally speaking, to the dust bin of history. Hidden. Unspoken. Just as most gay men's lives have been up until fairly recently.

There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule. One of them is the tale of Antinous and the Emperor Hadrian.

I wouldn't have thought of this but for a casual mention yesterday by our guide, Fabio, an art-historian-turned-guide, who unfolded for us the back stories of the Vatican, the popes and ancient Rome and Greece.

Mark and Fabio.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of my story. 

I had booked a tour with Fabio through "Tours by Locals." I would highly recommend this site / service that we first used during our trip to Japan a year ago. Fabio is an art historian with degrees in art history from universities here in Rome. He speaks perfect English and was able to flawlessly describe for us the historical and artistic background of what we saw at the Vatican yesterday morning. He also appeared to be well-known to the personnel at the Vatican Museum. We were escorted past lines of waiting patrons right into the museum by a uniformed gentleman whose name was probably "Rocky." He kinda looked a little like Sylvester Stallone. And there were other times when fleeting looks of recognition seemed to pass between museum personnel and Fabio.

I found it interesting to watch the various tour groups that were everywhere. Groups of people with identical headsets following their guide who carried a stick with a flag on the end. Obviously, I much preferred our arrangement. We asked Fabio at one point if he found it difficult working with all kinds of people on an almost daily basis. "Sometimes," he frankly replied, "it is difficult. For example, I recently worked with a couple from New York who were like characters out of a Woody Allen movie." We later found out that they had arranged to take a *private* tour of the Vatican Archives. Not only did they have their own guide, but they had paid 2000 Euros to the Vatican for the privilege of taking a tour of the entire museum after hours.

But, again, I get ahead of my story.

We left our inn (marked above at Via Urbana 156) at 8:00 yesterday morning for (what I thought was) the 45-minute walk across Rome to the Cafe Vaticano where we were to meet Fabio at 8:50. It was a beautiful morning. A cloudless, blue sky. Brilliant. On the way, we passed by ruins near the Forum and by the Victor Emmanuel II monument, a tribute to the man who united the Italian states in the 19th century.

We quickened our pace as I kept an eye on my watch. We walked down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II toward a tiny street, Borgo San Spirito, that would lead us across the Pont San Angelo to the other side of the Tiber, in the face of the Castel Sant' Angelo, stronghold of popes.

Castel Sant' Angelo

St. Peter's, looking up the Via della Conciliazione

Somewhere along the Via della Conciliazione, it became apparent that we were likely going to be late. We quickened our pace even more and arrived at the Cafe Vaticano just at 9:00, where we met Fabio. Then across the street to the entrance of the Vatican Museum, being whisked through the entrance by "Sylvester" (described above) and on into the museum.

The "pigna" (pinecone) in the Belvedere Courtyard that dates to the first century. It used to be a fountain and stood near the Pantheon until moved.

The best investment we made in the Rome leg of our trip was hiring Fabio. Neither Mark nor I are "museum people" in that we can quickly tire of the museum experience. This didn't happen yesterday. We were held captivated as Fabio explained the history and context of various works of art, the popes who commissioned them and little background details that he wove into a larger story. He knew - as did we - that we couldn't hope to take in every single work during the 3-1/2 hours that we spent with him. Thus, he guided us through, stopping to answer our questions, pacing the tour.

He also told us things about Vatican City that we wouldn't have known as well as confirmed a rumor that is only known in the United States in a few circles. It was an open secret in Rome, Fabio said, that Pope Benedict is gay and that his German-Archbishop Secretary, Georg Gänswein, who lives with Benedict in his retirement, is his boyfriend.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein 

But I digress ... sort of.

I was grateful for the reading I had done in the past six months that helped give context and texture to what we were seeing. I got about two-thirds of the way through The Agony and the Ecstasy last spring and recently completed Basilica (by R.A. Scotti), a book I recommend about the saga of the building of St. Peter's. This reading, along with watching some episodes of The Borgias (the Showtime series starring Jeremy Irons - which Fabio mentioned during our tour, saying he considered it an accurate portrayal of that period), prepared me well for what I saw and heard yesterday morning.

I had learned, for example, a fair bit about Giuliano della Rovere who became Pope Julius II, the man who began the construction of St. Peter's Basilica and commissioned (ordered) Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was a collector of ancient Roman statues, and it was he who brought his collection to the Villa Belvedere, including: the Apollo of Belvedere, pictured above, which was rediscovered in central Italy in the late 15th century; the statue of Laocoön and His Sons, pictured below, which was rediscovered underneath a vineyard outside of Rome in 1506; and the "Belvedere Torso," which is pictured below the Laocoön detail.

Detail of a floor mosaic that had been moved from a Roman bath to what is now the Vatican Museum. Note the three-dimensional perspective of the meander. The ability to create perspective in art was lost until rediscovered in the Renaissance.

Eventually we moved into the Raphael Rooms, two adjoining rooms that feature frescos painted by the Renaissance wonder child, Raphael. I remember visiting these rooms in 1982 with my friend, Joe. He was an architecture student and knew a lot about what we were looking at, and I benefitted from that. Similarly, we benefitted yesterday from Fabio's knowledge.

Of all the frescos, I was most struck by the "Mass at Bolsena," pictured above (Internet photo). From Wikipedia, we learn that the following:

"The Mass at Bolsena depicts the story of a Bohemian priest who in 1263 ceased to doubt the doctrine of Transubstantiation when he saw the bread [host] begin to bleed during its consecration at Mass. The cloth that was stained by the blood was held as a relic at the nearby town of Orvieto; Julius II had visited Orvieto and prayed over the relic in 1506.[3] The Pope is portrayed as a participant in the Mass and a witness to the miracle; he kneels to the right of the altar, with members of the Curia (also portraits) standing behind him. Raphael distinguishes the "real" thirteenth-century witnesses from those who are contemporaries of the pope by their degree of engagement in the event; the latter concentrate calmly on Julius kneeling at his devotions rather than responding to the miracle."

What I found striking about this fresco is that all of the faces are looking at the altar except one, that of a Swiss guard in the lower right-hand corner. Here are a couple of detail photos that I took:

The proportions are a bit off because I was standing on the floor and the fresco is higher up on the wall. Below is a photo I found on the Internet that depicts the scene in better proportion. (Note as well the striking difference in the colors between the pictures I took and the ones from the Internet. I can only assume that the frescos have been restored in the relatively recent past.)

The young Swiss guard, who bears a striking resemblance to the one pictured in the lead photo, seems to be looking directly at the artist or at the viewer. I can only wonder what the story behind that might be ...

It then became time to go to the Sistine Chapel. Before entering (where talking is, strictly speaking, forbidden), Fabio took us aside and explained some things about both the ceiling and the "Last Judgment," each painted by Michelangelo but approximately three decades apart from one another. I had visited the Chapel in 1982, but that was before the frescos were restored. Yesterday, I was able to see them in all their original vivid colors. Of course, the place was crammed with tourists, but just being in that room, where so much history has taken place, was special.

Thence on to the Basilica. Again, my reading stood me in good stead, as it had in the Sistine Chapel. We could have been easily swamped, overwhelmed by all the art and history in the church; but as with the rest of our tour, we took it all in generally, not particularly. When I was here in 1982, my friend Joe had gone into great detail about the building of the dome, what a feat it was, and other aspects of the church's architecture. 

One interesting factoid from yesterday was that only popes who have achieved sainthood are allowed to be buried on the main floor of the basilica. When John Paul II was made a saint, his body was moved up to a side chapel from the crypt below the church. Another factoid was that is believed (by some, apparently) that the body of John XXIII (who called the Second Vatican Council and died in 1963) has remained uncorrupted. It is on display much as an embalmed person might be (e.g., Lenin; see picture from Internet below), but the claim is that no chemicals have been used to preserve the body. 

Now, back to the opening paragraphs of this post and to the subject of gay history.  One of the statues we saw in the same room as the Belvedere Apollo was that of Antinous, pictured below.

Antinous was a youth from Turkey who became the lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (think Hadrian's Wall in Britain and the Pantheon in Rome). I had run across this story before, but seeing his statue reminded me of the intensity of the love between Hadrian and Antinous and the deification that evolved after Antinous' untimely drowning in the River Nile. Ancient contemporary sources make it quite clear what kind of relationship they had. Hadrian mourned Antinous' death bitterly and founded a city in Egypt to honor his memory.

The only surviving painted image of Antinous. It is interesting to note the resemblance to the Swiss Guard in Raphael's fresco (discussed above) and - though admittedly a bit of a stretch, to the Swiss Guard whose picture I took outside St. Peter's Basilica.

The story of Hadrian and Antinous is just one of many stories of same-sex love that is little-known in the world today. What we now call homosexuality (a term invented in the 19th century) has always been present in recorded history, but it has rarely been recorded.

Today, it's off to the Forum and Colosseum this afternoon after a lazy morning. Tomorrow, we head for Athens.

A Gay Mormon on Castro Street

No, I'm not talking about me. I'm no longer a member of the LDS Church.

I'm talking about a handsome blonde man in his early 20's that we met in a shop on Castro Street yesterday evening. I had bought a Christmas ornament there last year when we were here, and I returned to purchase another one. As we were paying for our purchases, the man asked whether I collect Christmas ornaments, which I found unusual. Then, he asked where we are from. 

"Salt Lake City."

"Are you LDS?"

I experienced a knee-jerk reaction and said, "No!" I was then surprised to hear him say, "I was LDS." I quickly back-peddled a bit and said, "Well, I *was* LDS."

"They expected me to be celibate all my life," he replied. "I just couldn't do that." I felt like he was, in a way, reaching out to us for a bit of understanding and validation. I wanted to hug him, but that would have been awkward. So, instead, I reached out my hand to shake his and said, "Well, you made the right decision."

Walking down to the Castro from our apartment

Yesterday had started out very early. Mark and I got up at 5:00, loaded up the truck, then headed down the street to Orphan Andy's restaurant for breakfast before heading north to Marin County.

It's a tiny little cafe in the Castro, open 24/7, that probably seats 50 people max. Retro, but it appears to have original fixtures that are spotlessly clean and well maintained. Mark and I chowed down on some of the best pancakes we've ever eaten and on omelets that were chocked full of meat - mine bacon, Mark's ham. And the prices were extremely reasonable.

We then headed north to San Rafael, the starting point of our century (100-mile) ride. We were so well-fed that we were able to skip the first two rest stops, then stop briefly at the one at the 54-mile mark. Unlike last year, we had no bike trouble at all. It was foggy and overcast for most of the ride, but at about the 85-mile mark, the blue skies and brilliant sun because visible.

Back in San Francisco, we decided to go back to Orphan Andy's for dinner, mainly so that Nathan could see it and because it was convenient. We were far too tired to go anywhere else in the city.

These next two days will be devoted to showing Nathan around San Francisco. Chinatown here we come. We're glad we brought warm clothes!