It's Saturday night and it's our usual night to go out and dance and I get my cadio workout. I love to dance at a local club - I like to imagine what the women from my old neighborhood would think of me now. :) Usually there are alot of cute guys.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
My Closet Years - Part One
I have begun to get comments and e-mails from some of you folks who are reading this Blog, and I want to thank you for your positive comments. As I have said, I write this blog as a means of self-expression and a way to comment and vent on politics and those who seek to make gays permanent second class citizens.
One of the things I do want to talk about further is my days in the closet and explain how I moved from that point on to being out and openly gay. In prior posts, I have described growing up Catholic and a conservative area. That area was Central New York, and I attended a junior/senior high school with a total of 750 students in grades 7 through 12. Everyone knew everyone’s business. Our little Catholic parish was equally bad, with all the families knowing one another, and all the kids attending the same school system. In this setting, as a teenager strongly attracted to other boys – there were some gorgeous guys, notwithstanding the small size of the overall student body – there was no way one could be anonymous and overlooked. I felt much like the main character in the book, “The Geography Club.” Even worse yet, two of my sisters were cheerleaders and part of the popular clique. Thus, I felt even more pressure to be popular, go out for sports and not be the “faggot” I knew I was secretly in my heart. In retrospect, I believe I was more popular than I thought myself to be at the time, and my prowess as a snow skier (and our belonging to the Thunderbird Club, at Song Mountain, which has a private lodge and lift. http://www.songmountain.com/pages/trail_map.htm) definitely helped as I have mentioned before.
Starting college was my chance to re-invent myself. I started out attending Syracuse University, but even there in 1970, being gay was NOT that acceptable and those guys who were openly gay were the subject of frequent negative gossip. Moreover, with the university so close to home, I felt I had to continue to “hide my secret,” be straight and did the natural thing: I joined a frat house. Socially, the fraternity allowed me to socialize more and come out of my shell. The down side was I soon found I had terrible crushes on a couple of my fraternity brothers. Finally, I decided that I needed to get away from Central New York. On a lark, I applied to the University of Virginia and got accepted as an out of state student. Visiting UVA in early April, with flowers blooming and the beautiful university grounds, it was like going to Oz versus Kansas. The drab, bleak landscape of Central New York at that time of year could not compare. Needless to say, I decided to start anew in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Along with transferring to UVA, I also transferred to the chapter of my fraternity at UVA and to my horror discovered the UVA chapter was full of guys from wealthy, “Old South” families. The atmosphere at UVA was anything but gay-friendly, even though my class was the first co-ed class and guys greatly out numbered the female students. I repeated the cycle of soon falling head over heels for a couple of my frat brothers, one of whom was drop dead gorgeous and looked like a young Brad Pitt. Just having him talk to me in his aristocratic Charleston drawl on whatever the subject might be and him looking me in the eyes made me nearly have heart palpitations. Obviously, such attractions were not conducive to turning myself straight.
At this time UVA the student body was about 40% Catholic, so there was a very active university parish that I began attending, believing I could turn straight if I really threw myself into religion. In time, as I tried to “pray away the gay,” I began to go to daily mass whenever possible (this continued all the way through law school). Soon, I was involved in the parish college student group, went on retreats, and attended many functions, all the while refusing to admit in my heart that I was gay. The upshot was that once again I developed a terrible crush on one of the other male members. In time I was desperately in love with him, although I doubt he ever knew it. This unrequited love continued until we both graduated even though I was dating girls somewhat regularly – having a date was always expected for parties at the fraternity, even if they had to be imported from one of the women’s colleges within an hour radius of Charlottesville. Looking back, a number of these girls were interested in me, but between battling to suppress my secret and being overwhelmed with Catholic guilt and fear of sex, these relationships went nowhere. On graduation, I started law school at UVA and the saga of the closet continued as I will describe in a future post.
One of the things I do want to talk about further is my days in the closet and explain how I moved from that point on to being out and openly gay. In prior posts, I have described growing up Catholic and a conservative area. That area was Central New York, and I attended a junior/senior high school with a total of 750 students in grades 7 through 12. Everyone knew everyone’s business. Our little Catholic parish was equally bad, with all the families knowing one another, and all the kids attending the same school system. In this setting, as a teenager strongly attracted to other boys – there were some gorgeous guys, notwithstanding the small size of the overall student body – there was no way one could be anonymous and overlooked. I felt much like the main character in the book, “The Geography Club.” Even worse yet, two of my sisters were cheerleaders and part of the popular clique. Thus, I felt even more pressure to be popular, go out for sports and not be the “faggot” I knew I was secretly in my heart. In retrospect, I believe I was more popular than I thought myself to be at the time, and my prowess as a snow skier (and our belonging to the Thunderbird Club, at Song Mountain, which has a private lodge and lift. http://www.songmountain.com/pages/trail_map.htm) definitely helped as I have mentioned before.
Starting college was my chance to re-invent myself. I started out attending Syracuse University, but even there in 1970, being gay was NOT that acceptable and those guys who were openly gay were the subject of frequent negative gossip. Moreover, with the university so close to home, I felt I had to continue to “hide my secret,” be straight and did the natural thing: I joined a frat house. Socially, the fraternity allowed me to socialize more and come out of my shell. The down side was I soon found I had terrible crushes on a couple of my fraternity brothers. Finally, I decided that I needed to get away from Central New York. On a lark, I applied to the University of Virginia and got accepted as an out of state student. Visiting UVA in early April, with flowers blooming and the beautiful university grounds, it was like going to Oz versus Kansas. The drab, bleak landscape of Central New York at that time of year could not compare. Needless to say, I decided to start anew in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Along with transferring to UVA, I also transferred to the chapter of my fraternity at UVA and to my horror discovered the UVA chapter was full of guys from wealthy, “Old South” families. The atmosphere at UVA was anything but gay-friendly, even though my class was the first co-ed class and guys greatly out numbered the female students. I repeated the cycle of soon falling head over heels for a couple of my frat brothers, one of whom was drop dead gorgeous and looked like a young Brad Pitt. Just having him talk to me in his aristocratic Charleston drawl on whatever the subject might be and him looking me in the eyes made me nearly have heart palpitations. Obviously, such attractions were not conducive to turning myself straight.
At this time UVA the student body was about 40% Catholic, so there was a very active university parish that I began attending, believing I could turn straight if I really threw myself into religion. In time, as I tried to “pray away the gay,” I began to go to daily mass whenever possible (this continued all the way through law school). Soon, I was involved in the parish college student group, went on retreats, and attended many functions, all the while refusing to admit in my heart that I was gay. The upshot was that once again I developed a terrible crush on one of the other male members. In time I was desperately in love with him, although I doubt he ever knew it. This unrequited love continued until we both graduated even though I was dating girls somewhat regularly – having a date was always expected for parties at the fraternity, even if they had to be imported from one of the women’s colleges within an hour radius of Charlottesville. Looking back, a number of these girls were interested in me, but between battling to suppress my secret and being overwhelmed with Catholic guilt and fear of sex, these relationships went nowhere. On graduation, I started law school at UVA and the saga of the closet continued as I will describe in a future post.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Weekend Eye Candy
Thank goodness, it's the Weekend!! I hope to go surfing tomorrow if weather and waves permit. To celebrate the beginning of the weekend, here's some eye candy.
Closing of Center for the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ
My friend, Wayne Besen, the Director of Truth Wins Out ( http://truthwinsout.org/) released the following press release on the closing of James Kennedy's anti-gay organization, Reclaiming America for Christ. I am pleased that I may have had a small part in helping this to happen. Here are Wayne's comments:
Failed 'Ex-Gay' Poster Boy Michael Johnston Helped Lead to Theocratic Center's Demise
MIAMI BEACH - Truth Wins Out today rejoiced over the downfall of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, a political arm of theocratic-leaning Coral Ridge Ministries. In 1998, the Center, which was then led by anti-gay activist Janet Folger, gained notoriety by leading a divisive national advertising campaign that featured so-called "ex-gays." The Center's influence quickly declined after its "ex-gay" poster boy Michael Johnston was caught in a 2003 sex scandal.
"Today we celebrate the demise of one of the most insidious anti-gay groups in America that incited intolerance by pumping out virulently anti-gay propaganda," said Truth Wins Out's Executive Director Wayne Besen. "The Center for Reclaiming America for Christ bet the bank on the 'ex-gay' message, and by doing so, bankrupted their credibility after their rising 'ex-gay' star crashed and burned."
The Center for Reclaiming America for Christ featured Michael Johnston, an HIV+ "ex-gay" leader in a million dollar print and television advertising campaign in 1998. In the notorious TV ad, Johnston's mother, Frances, used convoluted logic to explain how homosexuality led to her son contracting HIV. In a full-page print version that ran in the Miami Herald, Johnston is shown as a young boy blowing out birthday candles under the headline, "From Innocence to AIDS."
In August 2003, Johnston's claims at sexual conversion collapsed. Michael Hamar, a Virginia attorney, contacted Besen to say he had a client who had been having an affair with Johnston, not realizing, at first, Johnston's true identity as a prominent ex-gay figure. Besen was also introduced to another young man who claimed to have had unprotected sex with the ex-gay leader. While in Virginia, Besen was shown a video of a man that looked eerily similar to Johnston having unprotected sex with several men. Hamar's client signed an affidavit swearing the man was Michael Johnston.
What Wayne doesn't mention is that the Center for Reclaiming America continued to market videos and books featuring Johnston right up until the moment the Washington Blade story broke.
Failed 'Ex-Gay' Poster Boy Michael Johnston Helped Lead to Theocratic Center's Demise
MIAMI BEACH - Truth Wins Out today rejoiced over the downfall of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, a political arm of theocratic-leaning Coral Ridge Ministries. In 1998, the Center, which was then led by anti-gay activist Janet Folger, gained notoriety by leading a divisive national advertising campaign that featured so-called "ex-gays." The Center's influence quickly declined after its "ex-gay" poster boy Michael Johnston was caught in a 2003 sex scandal.
"Today we celebrate the demise of one of the most insidious anti-gay groups in America that incited intolerance by pumping out virulently anti-gay propaganda," said Truth Wins Out's Executive Director Wayne Besen. "The Center for Reclaiming America for Christ bet the bank on the 'ex-gay' message, and by doing so, bankrupted their credibility after their rising 'ex-gay' star crashed and burned."
The Center for Reclaiming America for Christ featured Michael Johnston, an HIV+ "ex-gay" leader in a million dollar print and television advertising campaign in 1998. In the notorious TV ad, Johnston's mother, Frances, used convoluted logic to explain how homosexuality led to her son contracting HIV. In a full-page print version that ran in the Miami Herald, Johnston is shown as a young boy blowing out birthday candles under the headline, "From Innocence to AIDS."
In August 2003, Johnston's claims at sexual conversion collapsed. Michael Hamar, a Virginia attorney, contacted Besen to say he had a client who had been having an affair with Johnston, not realizing, at first, Johnston's true identity as a prominent ex-gay figure. Besen was also introduced to another young man who claimed to have had unprotected sex with the ex-gay leader. While in Virginia, Besen was shown a video of a man that looked eerily similar to Johnston having unprotected sex with several men. Hamar's client signed an affidavit swearing the man was Michael Johnston.
What Wayne doesn't mention is that the Center for Reclaiming America continued to market videos and books featuring Johnston right up until the moment the Washington Blade story broke.
Why Blog
As you can see if you read this blog, I write it more for a means of expressing myself and talking about my experience and my passion for gay rights than anything else. As my shirt indicates in the above photo, I do want to create change for gays in America.
In addition, I'd like to write a book someday about the whole experience of being in the closet for 37 years, having three kids, and then coming out and living more or less openly gay. The idea would be: here's my experience and what to do and not to do. In this country, there are so many closeted guys that did what I did - tried to be what everyone expected, rather than be me. I very much long for the day when being gay is a complete non-issue. If anyone has thoughts and comments, I'd love to hear them.
Why Is Love So Frightening?
With all the hate and lies that the “Christian” Right wingnuts are spewing against gays, I have to wonder what is so very frightening about two guys in love as shown in the photo above? To me, the photo is beautiful – the exact opposite of what our enemies proclaim.
Nazi Anti-Jew Speech vs. Christian Right Hate Speech
The New Republic piece at http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=104993 correctly identifies the real reason wingnut Theocrats want the Hate Crimes Act vetoed. The referenced National Review piece clearly shows that the goal is to have the civil laws controlled by one group’s religious beliefs:
“ . . . I am hesitant to support hate crimes legislation, for the usual libertarian, "thought crimes" reasons, but the arguments being presented against it by the religious right are indeed specious. But there's something fishy in the National Review editorial on the matter--which Brad also links to--and this phrase stuck out: "We want to deter and punish crimes against blacks, women, homosexuals, and everyone else. But we do not want to open the door to legal punishment for harboring incorrect thoughts about controversial issues especially when those incorrect thoughts are part of the historic teaching of our major religions." Presumably, National Review does not mean to imply that there are "historic teaching[s] of our major religions" against blacks and women. What the editors mean is gays.
And what are those "incorrect thoughts" that the bill is criminalizing? Not traditionally religious thoughts about homosexuality; these are protected. (After all, there are plenty of people in this country who find homosexuality immoral and don't lynch homosexuals.) The bill only punishes people whose thoughts about homosexuality veer from mere disapproval to the belief that violence is a suitable recourse. National Review is conflating a passive disapproval of homosexuality with the violent reaction to it. Of course, the Old Testament, the Koran and other religious works--as fundamentalists anywhere ought to admit--do call for outright violence against homosexuals.”
The James Dobsons and Tony Perkins of the world do want outright violence against homosexuals (their favorite bogus expert, Paul Cameron, has even suggested exterminating gays as far back as 1983), but know saying so outright would reveal the true hate-based nature of their agenda. A good review of their agenda can be found at http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/hitler/hitler.html. These vicious individuals are two of the power brokers of today’s GOP. This is down right frightening.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Letter to a GOP Congessman
The Hate Crimes Act passed by the House and facing a veto threat by Chimperor Bush continues to hang in my mind. In my former straight/closeted life, I was involved in the GOP, resigning after the wingnut Theocrats took over the party locally and nationally. As a result, I still know many GOP elected officials, most of whom act as if I am a leper now that they know that I (1) am gay, (2) usually work for their Democrat opponents, and (3) oppose the efforts of their wingnut base to impose a theocratic government on all citizens. I also suspect that a number hold a grudge for me warning them about rumors in the gay community concerning former Congressman Ed Schrock many months before he was “outed,” by tapes of his Mega Phone ads seeking gay sex that were reportedly recorded by a prominent Norfolk woman (Virginia's current Attorney General was among those I warned some eight months before Schrock's outing). Only one has been gracious enough to apologize to me for their less than kind words to me at the time.
With this back ground, I could not help but write a GOP Congressman about their vote against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act (fortunately, my current Congressman is a Democrat and voted in favor of the Act). Here’s the text of my letter:
You have known me for a long time. I was disappointed to see that you voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. As a gay, tax paying citizen, I believe that I am entitled to the same protection afforded under the current Hate Crimes Law that protects against hate crimes based on, among other things, religion. Until you have experienced it, you cannot know what it’s like to be mocked, physically threatened and fearful for your safety for being a “faggot.”
Unfortunately, I have had the experience. Worse yet, those who abused me and threaten me in this manner were Norfolk police officers and I was less than 10 blocks from my home. Filing an Internal Affairs complaint, etc., yielded no results and the officers involved are still out on the Norfolk streets. (Based on my experience, in my view, Internal Affairs works to protect the police and not the public.) Had I had protections under a federal statute, perhaps things might have been different.
If your argument is that you oppose all hate crimes laws, then please introduce a bill to repeal the existing federal statute – and watch the bigots of the “Christian” Right go ballistic. They want protections for themselves, but not other citizens who do not share their religious views. Therefore, I urge you to take away their “special rights.” Otherwise, please rethink your vote and support the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act if it comes back before the House of Representatives.
It will be interesting to see if I get any response. I am not going to hold my breath.
With this back ground, I could not help but write a GOP Congressman about their vote against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act (fortunately, my current Congressman is a Democrat and voted in favor of the Act). Here’s the text of my letter:
You have known me for a long time. I was disappointed to see that you voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. As a gay, tax paying citizen, I believe that I am entitled to the same protection afforded under the current Hate Crimes Law that protects against hate crimes based on, among other things, religion. Until you have experienced it, you cannot know what it’s like to be mocked, physically threatened and fearful for your safety for being a “faggot.”
Unfortunately, I have had the experience. Worse yet, those who abused me and threaten me in this manner were Norfolk police officers and I was less than 10 blocks from my home. Filing an Internal Affairs complaint, etc., yielded no results and the officers involved are still out on the Norfolk streets. (Based on my experience, in my view, Internal Affairs works to protect the police and not the public.) Had I had protections under a federal statute, perhaps things might have been different.
If your argument is that you oppose all hate crimes laws, then please introduce a bill to repeal the existing federal statute – and watch the bigots of the “Christian” Right go ballistic. They want protections for themselves, but not other citizens who do not share their religious views. Therefore, I urge you to take away their “special rights.” Otherwise, please rethink your vote and support the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act if it comes back before the House of Representatives.
It will be interesting to see if I get any response. I am not going to hold my breath.
Cute Guy
My posts today have all been of a pretty serious note, so I thought I'd lighten the mood a bit with a post a photo of a cute guy. :)
Two Gay Executives Tell Their Stories
One of the blogs I link to is "The Gay Banker," written by a guy in London. In the wake of the Lord Browne resignation from BP, which I posted about previously, the Guardian did an article. The author of the Gay Banker is one of the executives in the Guardian article responding about his life as a gay executive. Here's the link to the Guardian article, that is quite interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2070983,00.html
Sadly, Norfolk, Virginia is light years behind London in its acceptance of gays, much less gay executives and attorneys, although with HRBOR we hope to eventually change this mindset.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2070983,00.html
Sadly, Norfolk, Virginia is light years behind London in its acceptance of gays, much less gay executives and attorneys, although with HRBOR we hope to eventually change this mindset.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)