Mark and I never go out to eat when we're home. Well, hardly ever. We're pretty much homebodies who only go out when we have out-of-town visitors.
But when we go out of town - except for Maui* - we enjoy eating out, particularly breakfasts. So what did we do the first morning after our arrival in San Francisco on Tuesday? We walked several miles to a restaurant we had previously visited with friends almost two years ago - Zazie's in Cole Valley.
(*Our routine in Maui is much like the one when we're home: hardly ever go out to eat. Costco and Safeway are our friends.)
I wanted to recreate the magic I had felt the first time I devoured their gingerbread pancakes with lemon curd and roasted Bosc pear topping smothered with pure maple syrup. Alas, it didn't happen this time ... and I learned a lesson (again): sometimes, it's just best to leave past magic alone, preserved in a Mason jar of memory.
That night, Mark and I celebrated our anniversary at a Spanish tapas place not far from the apartment where we are staying in Noe Valley. Though the meal was good (we had a sampler), the most memorable taste of that evening was the Spanish sparkling rose wine (see lead photo). After all, we were there for a celebration.
The morning after (in more ways than one), we walked an hour and a half to order our next breakfast - at Brenda's French Soul Food located on the skirt of the Tenderloin. Again, we were returning to a place we had been before. Memories of mouthwatering Sweet Potato Pancakes swirled. That's what I had when I lost my virginity to Brenda's. The next time I came to see her, there were no sweet potatoes, but there were blueberries. So I ordered the French toast stuffed with cream cheese and topped with a rich blueberry compote. O. M. G.
This time, I went a different direction. Mark and I ordered the French Toast with butter pecan sauce to share, and we ordered equal but separate omelets stuffed with shrimp, caramelized onions and a copious amount of the richest goat cheese I've ever tasted. Both were decadently delicious.
Oops, I forgot to take a picture until half were gone.
Delicious salsa, but I hardly touched the biscuit and potatoes. How can one eat all that?
That night, we had dinner over at David and Rob's place, and the next morning (yesterday), we headed for Chloe's cafe, where I had a wonderful scramble with chicken apple sausage and Mark and I shared Cinnamon croissant French toast topped with strawberries and organic maple syrup. All was good, but the French toast was ... amazing.
But food is not all we have discovered and are enjoying here. No! Mention must be made of the artisansal, locally distilled gin that we have found here in our little home away from home in Noe Valley.
Super smooth, despite the name that might suggest overwhelming botanical flavors, especially juniper. Highly recommend this brand to gin connoisseurs.
Of course, staring at these shelves - we had gone in for our usual Bombay Blue Sapphire, which they didn't carry - created an existential moment: none of these brands (except Hendricks) would be available behind the Zion Curtain of Utah Liquor Control. I briefly felt like an East Berliner making his first trip to the West.
We shall continue our culinary explorations here in San Francisco - grateful for them, knowing that when we go home next week, we'll be back to boiled egg salad spread atop high-fiber toast for breakfast.
The recent uproar about Indiana's "religious freedom law" has reminded me of a scene from The Sound of Music. Let me explain.
Since coming out, I have had occasions when I am reminded of some dialogue in The Sound of Music. Kurt comes to deliver a telegram, hoping to see Liesl. Instead, he is confronted by Captain von Trapp. Nervous and taken off guard, Kurt salutes von Trapp with the Nazi salute, "Heil Hitler." Nazi Germany has not yet taken over Austria via a referendum, but it is looming on the horizon.
Max Detweiler and Baroness von Schrader (Elsa) are with von Trapp. It is strongly hinted in the movie that Max is both Jewish and gay (with regard to the latter, his flamboyance and acerbic wit are dead give aways). The Captain is incensed and tells Kurt to get out. The following dialogue then ensues:
(Elsa) "Oh Georg, he's just a boy." (Captain)" Yes, and I'm just an Austrian. (Max) "What's going to happen's going to happen. Just make sure it doesn't happen to you." (Captain, incensed) "Max, don't you ever say that again!" (Max) "You know I have no political convictions. Can I help it if other people do?" (Captain) "Oh yes you can help it. You must help it."
Max was naive. If he had been a real person instead of a fictional character, he likely would have been gassed during the war, either for being a Jew or a homosexual or both. If he was lucky, he would have survived a horrific concentration camp ordeal. (If you're interested, read The Pink Triangle. The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, or I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror). It was in Max's best interest to have political convictions and not support a regime that meant death for him.
I have been puzzled over the last few years at how LGBT individuals could continue to support the Republican party. Granted, the GOP does not want to actually kill gays, though there are plenty of people on the Christian and Tea Party right who have publicly espoused this "final solution" to the gay problem. Google it.
Which brings me back to Indiana. Here's what a United States Senator and presidential hopeful (Ted Cruz) had to say about the controversy:
"Governor Pence is holding the line to protect religious liberty in the Hoosier State. Indiana is giving voice to millions of courageous conservatives across this country who are deeply concerned about the ongoing attacks upon our personal liberties. I’m proud to stand with Mike, and I urge Americans to do the same."
Apparently, when the personal liberties of an LGBT individual are attacked, it's ok.
Here's what the "moderate" "establishment" GOP presidential candidate (Jeb Bush) had to say:
"I think Gov. [Mike] Pence has done the right thing. I think once the facts are established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all.”
Hmmm.
Senator Rand Paul, who is expected to announce his candidacy shortly, recently had this to say at a prayer breakfast:
“The First Amendment says keep government out of religion. It doesn’t say keep religion out of government.”
Again, hmmm.
So again, I wonder: how can any LGBT person support the Republican Party or even passively ignore the party's stance toward our community?
"... I have no political convictions. Can I help it if other people do?"
I did a lot of thinking and reflecting this past weekend which - among other things - has prompted me to post part of an email that my younger sister, Martha (pictured above), sent to me shortly after I came out in the fall of 2010. She was my staunchest supporter during that difficult period, and she helped me to gain perspective on who I was and who I am.
I had written to Martha to ask her to tell me what she remembered of me before I converted to Mormonism. Her response was, well, stunning to me, and I have re-read these words a number of times since then, most recently this past weekend. Thank you, Martha ... again.
I feel as if I am rediscovering you, yet at the same time as if I am getting reacquainted with a brother I had lost touch with years ago. You know, this person is the one I've always held in my heart: you whom you are revealing is not anyone new to me.
I've always known who you are: your delicate and refined elegance and passion, your profound intelligence and wisdom, your deep admiration and appreciation of beauty.
This is the brother I have always loved. It is the one I feared losing all those years ago when you wrote me a letter, telling me you had joined the LDS Church. I felt that I was going to lose you, but I never felt that I lost knowing who you truly were. You may have never known that deep sense of loss that I felt. I hope that this doesn't surprise or shock you.
After you joined the church, I felt as if I was watching you disappear, slowly ... with fragments of you disintegrating beyond my reach. You know the sensation of what you see in movies: when someone is falling and someone is reaching their hands to catch that person ... like off of a cliff and then the hands join, but the clutch weakens .... and the person above the great "vide" disappears.
This is how I felt when I received your letter at school all those years ago. I stood there shaking as I read your letter with tears running down my face ... it was if you had announced to me that you had died. I felt that I had lost you forever. The letter was so serious and severe. You had gone from being so happy, smiling, understanding and LOVING to someone so cold, intolerant and always frowning ... At least that was what I perceived.
The memories I have of you from my childhood and youth are loving and fun ones: walking with you in the snow with my hands in the muffler that you had bought for me. Looking up at you smiling and talking with me about I don't know what... but loving to be with you. I remember laughing, remember you smiling.
I remember riding in your chic car and singing, eating, talking and laughing. Watching you laugh when I’d tell a joke. Hanging out at your place when home from school, listening to music and dancing and you singing, or watching you read and just hanging out admiring your intelligence and zen-ness ... all so loving and peaceful
When I visited you in later years [i.e., after marriage and the arrival of children], I felt as if your life had been sucked out of you. You always looked unhappy. I remember saying something about this to my husband the last time we were there, which has now been some time.
I felt that for someone supposedly so happy with church and family, you seemed so miserable.
In what had once been a joyous face full of laughter, I now saw Mom’s pout. Instead of the brother with whom I always was openly affectionate and loving, I now saw someone who couldn't sign letters or tell me that he loved me ... would simply give me a cold pat hug ... I was devastated. I hope you don't mind the sincerity in my words.
This is also healing for me because I honestly felt that you had died all those years ago when you joined the Church.
So, this brother I am reconnecting with today, who loves his body and is accepting of affection, who doubts and questions, who expresses his love and feelings, who expresses his creativity with pictures and words ... who weaves in humor and jokes .... this is my brother I saw disappearing … The one I’ve always held in my heart.
Photo: Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, summer 1977: Ruth (my step-mother), Me and Martha
Mark and I were sitting on the patio outside our room at our hotel in Palm Springs on Friday evening. We had come for the weekend for a wedding. Suddenly (or so I’m sure it seemed to him), I looked up from the book I was reading and turned to Mark and said, “There’s something about spring and the Easter season that awakens my primal Catholic.”
He looked up from writing in his journal and gave me a quizzical yet somehow knowing look, smiled endearingly, then unscrewed the top of his Mont Blanc pen and began writing again. He knew to leave it alone.
The book I was reading is entitled The Fifth Gospel, by Ian Caldwell. Quickly climbing the New York Times (hardcover fiction) Bestseller list, the book is a mystery thriller that plays out amidst intrigues in the Vatican. A couple of weeks ago, I finished another Vatican-themed thriller, The Confessor by Dan Silva. I loved/am loving both.
At another time of the year, I might not be inclined to read such books, but this is spring and Easter is approaching, and my primal Catholic is stirring. I say “primal” because I left the Church when I was still in high school, and though I later (including within the past several years) flirted with it - and at one point even considered entering the priesthood – I did not and could not re-embrace it.
So what is it about this time of the year that stirs something deep within me? The simple answer is that I really don’t know. A more complicated answer would probably involve childhood memories of a time when Lent really meant something in our family. A time when the Latin mass was still said. A time when there were Palm Sunday processions around St. Theresa’s Church in Salem, Illinois where we lived. A time of Stations of the Cross. A time when the statues and altar crucifix were draped in black on Good Friday. A time of deep mystery and catharsis, much more mysterious and wondrous and primal than the Christmas season.
The answer would also surely include memories of a trip I took in the spring of 1982 to Europe. I joined a college friend in Paris. We attended Easter mass in Notre Dame Cathedral. The next day, we boarded an overnight train to Rome. When the sun came up, we were somewhere in northern Italy. Soon, we were snaking down the sun-basked peninsula with the Mediterranean on our right. Flowers were blooming. Trees were leafing out. When we pulled into Rome and in the days to come, I saw wisteria everywhere. That was the year I fell in love with spring. Up until that point, I had been strictly an autumn man, thinking that a love of one necessarily excluded love of the other.
I also fell in love with Rome. I wasn't a practicing Catholic, but I loved being in St. Peter's. It wasn't so much a spiritual thing as a historical/cultural thing. And it was spring, and the weather was nice, and life seemed lovely there in sun-kissed Rome.
It was also in spring – the following year – that I experienced a crisis in my life and found my primal Catholic again turning to “Mother Church.” In my confusion and need for some sense of direction and certainty, I turned to prayer and felt God was calling me into the priesthood. But after I shared my thoughts and feelings with my then-employer – a Mormon – she put on a full-court press to get me to join the Mormon Church, an effort in which she was spectacularly successful.
Interestingly, my father also came to a point in his life when he seriously considered entering the priesthood. (Actually, I have come to realize that my life is strikingly similar to my dad's in some important ways.) He was raised Methodist, and there wasn't a Catholic in his family tree for hundreds of years. He converted when he was in college at the University of Illinois. He talked to the monsignor about seminary, and he counseled Dad to go home to the farm for the summer and think it over. In July, Dad met my mother on a blind date and married three months later after a long distance courtship (again the similarity to my life).
My mother was religiously raised as a Catholic by her German grandmother, whose father had been baptized in a church in Sasbach at the edge of the Black Forest, and whose mother - the daughter of immigrants from Lower Franconia near Frankfurt - was christened in St. Peter's Cathedral in Belleville, Illinois. Mark and I were in Germany in 2012, and the lead photo is of the interior of the church in Sasbach.
Four years ago, another spring saw me leaving Mormonism. My primal Catholic again stirred, but I couldn't see myself at that time going from one anti-gay church to another.
In the years since then, I have learned to live with my primal Catholic. Instead of trying to extinguish it or pretend it’s not there, I accept - even welcome - its presence. But I also know that one of the definitions of “primal” is “relating to an early stage in evolutionary development.” I have evolved since my childhood and youth, since that trip to Rome, since that flirtation with the priesthood, since leaving the Mormon Church; and I continue to evolve. But what is primal will remain, and I suspect I will always associate spring and Easter with my Catholic origins.
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."
I originally wrote the following post in September 2011. I am republishing it today as a tribute to John Dehlin, a courageous man who was a key figure in my life during the year after I came out. I had the opportunity to work with him and others in organizing the first Circling the Wagons conference. He has single-handedly made a huge difference in the way Mormons think of gay and lesbian people, and his work in this regard was recognized by Equality Utah when it named him "Ally of the Year."
He now faces discipline from the Mormon Church for, among other things, publicly supporting marriage equality. It is extremely likely that he will be excommunicated later today. This post is for him and for all those other souls who yearn to be free.
*******
“When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God.”
How often have we heard a variation of this statement, whether from a fellow members of the LDS Church, from a bishop, in a Gospel Doctrine class, from a stake president, or even in General Conference?
This statement was contained in a ward teacher message published in the June 1945 issue of the Improvement Era (the equivalent of today’s Ensign). It prompted the pastor of the Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City to write a letter to then-President of the Mormon Church, George Albert Smith, which read in part as follows:
Dear President Smith:
It has been one of the great privileges of my life to have lived for the past four years in Salt Lake City, and to have become personally acquainted with many of the leaders of the L.D.S. Church. From them I have learned many things, and the spirit of friendliness which is found in our relationships is a source of unending delight to me. It is because I have found you and the other leaders so very charitable and sympathetic that I make so bold as to write you this letter …
Last June there was delivered to my door a short religious editorial, prepared by one of your leaders, entitled “Sustaining the General Authorities of the Church.” Its message amazed me a great deal, and with the passing of weeks my distur[b]ance became very acute. It might have passed, except that several members of your Church have come to me to discuss the subject …
Permit me to quote the passages which seem to be brought most in question:
“He (Lucifer) wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to ‘do their own thinking’.”
“When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy….”
I do not know who is responsible for this statement, but I am sure it is doing inestimable harm to many who have no other reason to question the integrity of the Church leaders …
Several years ago, when I first became acquainted with the L.D.S. Church, I read extensively in the texts, and there are many passages which may be used to give a better expression to the vision and genius of your Faith. I cite but one, although there are many others which are familiar to you.
Quoting from the Discourses of Brigham Young, as Selected and Arranged by John A. Widtsoe, in the Chapter on “The Priesthood”:
“I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful that they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give their leaders did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whisperings of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not.”
This quotation from Brigham Young is a wonderful passage, and it has been on the basis of such freedom that persons like myself have grown to have a deep feeling of kinship with the L.D.S. Church. It is in keeping with the high traditions of my Unitarian background that the gains made by my fellow workers are seen as gains for us all. It is a source of regret to all of us when one stone is discovered to bar the way to deeper faith within any soul.
With an assurance of my continued good-will and friendliness,
Most cordially yours,
J. Raymond Cope
President George Albert Smith, in response to this letter, wrote the following:
My Dear Dr. Cope:
I have read with interest and deep concern your letter of November 16, 1945, in which you make special comment on “a short religious editorial prepared by one of our leaders entitled “Sustaining the General Authorities of the Church.” You say that you read the message with amazement, and that you have since been disturbed because of its effect upon members of the Church.
I am gratified with the spirit of friendliness that pervades your letter, and thank you for having taken the time to write to me.
The leaflet to which you refer, and from which you quote in your letter, was not “prepared” by “one of our leaders.” However, one or more of them inadvertently permitted the paragraph to pass uncensored. By their so doing, not a few members of the Church have been upset in their feelings, and General Authorities have been embarrassed.
I am pleased to assure you that you are right in your attitude that the passage quoted does not express the true position of the Church. Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church, which is that every individual must obtain for himself a testimony of the truth of the Gospel, must, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, work out his own salvation, and is personally responsible to His Maker for his individual acts. The Lord Himself does not attempt coercion in His desire and effort to give peace and salvation to His children. He gives the principles of life and true progress, but leaves every person free to choose or to reject His teachings. This plan the Authorities of the Church try to follow.
The Prophet Joseph Smith once said: “I want liberty of thinking and believing as I please.” This liberty he and his successors in the leadership of the Church have granted to every other member thereof.
On one occasion in answer to the question by a prominent visitor how he governed his people, the Prophet answered: “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.”
Again, as recorded in the History of the Church (Volume 5, page 498) Joseph Smith said further: “If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.”
I cite these few quotations, from many that might be given, merely to confirm your good and true opinion that the Church gives to every man his free agency, and admonishes him always to use the reason and good judgment with which God has blessed him.
In the advocacy of this principle leaders of the Church not only join congregations in singing but quote frequently the following:
“Know this, that every soul is free
To choose his life and what he’ll be,
For this eternal truth is given
That God will force no man to heaven.”
Again I thank you for your manifest friendliness and for your expressed willingness to cooperate in every way to establish good will and harmony among the people with whom we are jointly laboring to bring brotherhood and tolerance.
Faithfully yours,
Geo. Albert Smith
While I appreciate the words of President Smith, which reaffirm some of the supposed bedrock basics of Mormonism, I feel a certain amount of sadness and resignation that the spirit and mindset that resulted in that message being written 66 years ago was alive and well enough in the Church at that time to be so expressed in a Church-wide publication. I feel even more disappointment to know that this same philosophy and mind-set is alive and well and thriving in the Church today – at all levels.
I sometimes wonder whether, in the Church, there is more worship of the “trueness” of the Church than of he who is supposedly the head of it. Have Brigham Young’s worst fears been realized?
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.
