More Monday Male Beauty

Another photo for Julaine Appling

Overcoming Misplaced Guilt

I spoke with a reader and fellow blogger who I have been communicating with for the better part of a year during which time he has come out to his wife, obtained a divorce, and today moved into new living quarters, leaving behind the home in which he has heretofore lived for decades. As might be expected, his emotions are all over the spectrum, ranging from excitement and hope to severe feelings of guilt and, I suspect, strong sense of failure. The latter feelings in no small part are likely being fanned by accusations by his ex-wife and others that "it's all his fault." I've been there and most certainly have heard that accusation myself. And for far too long I listened to it and internalized it thereby increasing my feelings of self-hate and desire for self-destruction. Thankfully, those days are behind me. I hope I was able to impart some words to my friend that may help to lessen his feelings along those lines.

*

"It's all your fault." It's a very easy accusation for an ex-spouse and straights to make. That does not, however, make it true. Unfortunately, sometimes only the passage of time allows us to see it for the untruth that it is and to shed the guilt that plagues us. It certainly took me a good while - probably 5 years or more to finally let go of the guilt even though based on my own experience and that of countless gays and lesbians I have talked with over the last half dozen years clearly NONE of us chose our sexual orientation. If anything, many of us struggled unsuccessfully for years trying to change it. All to no avail. Since our sexual orientation is not our fault, why is it our fault when we reach a point where we simply cannot maintain the act, pretense, or whatever else one might call it any longer? Truth be told, I/we have tried to do the impossible and yet, when we fail, why do we still get blamed? The bottom line reality is that we have not failed despite what others will say. The more important question is when will we come to realize that truth.

*

I hope my friend can process this reality more quickly than I did. I also hope he can come to accept and truly believe something that my therapist told me that I failed to internalize for quite sometime. Namely, that I/he am/is entitled to some happiness too. Is it really fair that someone be asked to stay in the closet and suffer all the negatives that it entails just so others can have their happiness - temporary and artificial as that happiness may be? I do not believe so - at least not with the benefit of hindsight. And those who would ask a gay spouse or parent to suffer the emotional and psychological Hell of the closet, do not truly love the person they seek to so condemn. Unfortunately, all to often, they focus only on themselves and fail to understand the pain and heartache of their gay loved one.

*

Needless to say, all of this makes me long for the day when sexual orientation will be understood to be no different that hair color and other traits that we find ourselves saddled with and which we cannot change. As for my friend, I wish you much luck and happiness in your new life.

Monday Male Beauty

Dedicated to Julaine Appling

Wisconsin Family Council - Unloving and Un-Christian

Proving herself in my view to be a mean, cold hearted bitch, Julaine Appling, Chief Executive Officer of Wisconsin Family Council (pictured at left), wants Wisconsin same sex couples who marry in other states and then return to Wisconsin prosecuted under an old 1915 law - which most likely was aimed at preventing inter-racial marriages - which imposes up to a $10,000 fine and nine months of jail time. That's the report made by WKOW-TV 27 at least. But then, I guess I should not be surprised by Ms. Appling's attitude. If one listens to the various mouth pieces of Christianist organizations from Daddy Dobson on down, they NEVER have a message of love, peace and/or joy. Rather, it is ALWAYS a message of hatred towards someone, be the target group gay, brown skinned immigrants, Muslim, or whatever. The message is always the same: prosecute them, limit their legal rights, persecute them, or just disseminate lies to demonize them.

*

No wonder only a fairly recent Barna Group study found that only 3% of 16 - to 29-year-old non-Christians express favorable views of evangelicals. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%). The study group also found that young people - both those inside the church and outside of it - said that something was broken in the present-day expression of Christianity. Here are some highlights from WKNOW:
*

An obscure law makes it a crime for Wisconsin residents to enter marriage in another state if that marriage is illegal here. It carries a fine up to $10,000 and nine months in prison. Julaine Appling, Chief Executive Officer of Wisconsin Family Council, says violators of the law should be charged with fraud. "You purposely left the state for another state and you get married and you know it's not going to be legal where you reside and you have every intention of returning, that's defrauding the Government," Appling says.

*

"The law is from 1915, five years before women could vote," says Fair Wisconsin Executive Director Glenn Carlson. Fair Wisconsin says majority of their members don't care about the law, saying they would rather be prosecuted then persecuted. . . . . The prosecution of violators would be up to district attorneys and Fair Wisconsin doesn't believe any district court would go after same-sex couples who marry in California. Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard said doing so would be a "poor use of scarce prosecution resources."

LGBT Students Awarded $300,000 Against School District

Having enlightened laws to protect LGBT students mean little if school administrators fail to enforce them. Thus why it is sometimes necessary for lawsuits and damages awards to make those who are in charge pay attention and do what they should already be doing. A case in point is a lawsuit in California where two LGBT students received an aggregate award of $300,000 against a school division that failed to protect them from harassment which at times became downright violent. Inasmuch as most juries are no overly LBGT friendly, to support an award of $300,000 the facts must have been fairly egregious. If the award is upheld on appeal - which hopefully it will be since appellate courts are generally not disposed to overturn jury findings of fact perhaps this type of situation will become much more rare. Here are some highlights from 365gay.com:

*

Joey Ramelli and Megan Donovan were students at Poway High School, a school in the Poway Unified School District in northern San Diego County. Over the course of their junior year other students relentlessly taunted them with antigay slurs and Joey was even physically assaulted and his car was vandalized. The two students found the harassment so brutal that they both had to drop out of Poway High School and completed studies toward their high school diploma at home.

*

Represented by Lambda Legal they took the district to court in 2005. During the trial the court was told that both Donovan and Ramelli reported the harassment to school officials but nothing was done. The jury found that the officials took “minimal or no action at all” when they reported the incidents. Further, the jury found that the harassment was so “severe and pervasive” that they awarded a combined $300,000 to the students.

*

“Joey and Megan are seeking justice so that no other gay or lesbian student will have to endure what they did,” said Lambda attorney Brian Chase. “This decision sent a clear message to schools across California that harassment of gay and lesbian students will not be tolerated,” Chase said. “Hardly a day went by that I didn’t get shoved or called a name, so there was no way that anyone could question that what was happening to me was a serious, constant problem,” Ramelli said.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Young, Gay and Murdered

This week's Newsweek somewhat belatedly has a cover story on the murder of Lawrence King, the California teenager gunned down in a school classroom last February for being gay. While the saying better late than never I guess holds true, one does have to wonder why this story did not appear sooner. Moreover, in some ways, the article seems to blame King for some responsibility for his own death for merely being who he was without adequate condemnation of the homophobia that seems to have motivated his killer. It's more of the old blame the victim if the victim is gay rather than look at the sick aspects of society that motivated the killing. Worse yet, absolutely no blame whatsoever is put at the feet of the anti-gay Christianists who maintain a steady drumbeat or anti-gay propaganda capable of convincing the Brandon McInerneys of the world that it's OK to hurt or kill gays. I was so ticked off that I posted the following comment on the Newsweek article:

*

Sadly, totally absent from the article is the fact that much of the fear/hatred of gays that Brandon apparently internalized stems from the constant anti-gay message disseminated by allegedly Christian denominations and organizations in this country. One need only look at the initiative to amend the California Constitution to "protect marriage" from gays. But for that relentless message - which the media lacks the guts to confront head on - I suspect Lawrence King would be alive today. As for Larry's father's resentment of gays appropriating his son's murder as part of a larger cause, there's a good reason why that this has happened. So many of us have suffered at the hands of homophobes and uncaring school officials that we want to make sure NO ONE has to go through what we have or die like Larry did due to hate and intolerance.

*

The sad reality is that anyone of us gays could have been Lawrence King. I for one was beat up several times in school by bullies because I was perceived to be a "sissy" or a "pansy" merely because I was not mean and aggressive. Equally disturbing are some of the comments to the article posted by those of a Christianist mindset which are down right hateful and scary and/or parrot much of the same old bull shit put out by the James Dobsons and Peter LaBarberas of the world. To be blunt, some of the comments are downright frightening. Equally obscene, many of those posting the hateful comments claim to be Christians. In response to one of theses comments I posted the following:

*

Babyfacemagee recites the same tired old drivel put out by anti-gay Christianists that a lack of a father and a dominant mother are what causes a boy to become gay. Funny, I had a very dominant father and often too submissive mother, yet I turned out gay. Guess that theory doesn't hold water. The truth is that through some combination of genetics, hormones while in the womb, etc., work to cause one's sexual orientation. What is the most amazing is that many of the Christian Right figures that recite the story line quoted by Babyfacemagee have gay kids themselves - e.g., Beverly LaHaye, Randall Terry, Alan Keyes, and Phyllis Schlafly to name a few. Maybe they aren't the best authorities after all since under their theory they failed their own children.

*

Here are a few selected highlights from the Newsweek story which will hopefully get non-wingnut lunatics thinking:

*

But on the morning of Feb. 12, Larry left his glitter and his heels at home. He came to school dressed like any other boy: tennis shoes, baggy pants, a loose sweater over a collared shirt. He seemed unhappy about something. He hadn't slept much the night before, and he told one school employee that he threw up his breakfast that morning, which he sometimes did because he obsessed over his weight. But this was different. One student noticed that as Larry walked across the quad, he kept looking back nervously over his shoulder before he slipped into his first-period English class. The teacher, Dawn Boldrin, told the students to collect their belongings, and then marched them to a nearby computer lab, so they could type out their papers on World War II. Larry found a seat in the middle of the room. Behind him, Brandon McInerney pulled up a chair.

*
Brandon, 14, wasn't working on his paper, because he told Mrs. Boldrin he'd finished it. Instead, he opened a history book and started to read. Or at least he pretended to. "He kept looking over at Larry," says a student who was in the class that morning. "He'd look at the book and look at Larry, and look at the book and look at Larry." At 8:30 a.m., a half hour into class, Brandon quietly stood up. Then, without anyone's noticing, he removed a handgun that he had somehow sneaked to school, aimed it at Larry's head, and fired a single shot. Boldrin, who was across the room looking at another student's work, spun around. "Brandon, what the hell are you doing!" she screamed. Brandon fired at Larry a second time, tossed the gun on the ground and calmly walked through the classroom door. Police arrested him within seven minutes, a few blocks from school. Larry was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later of brain injuries.

*

What you might call "the shrinking closet" is arguably a major factor in Larry's death. Even as homosexuality has become more accepted, the prospect of being openly gay in middle school raises a troubling set of issues. Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means. At the same time, teachers and parents are often uncomfortable dealing with sexual issues in children so young. Schools are caught in between. How do you protect legitimate, personal expression while preventing inappropriate, sometimes harmful, behavior? Larry King was, admittedly, a problematical test case: he was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon—it was often his first line of defense. But his story sheds light on the difficulty of defining the limits of tolerance. As E. O. Green found, finding that balance presents an enormous challenge.

*

. . . . Larry had suffered a fatal stroke. Larry was pronounced brain-dead that afternoon, and the family decided to donate his organs. The following day, Feb. 14, doctors harvested his pancreas, liver, lungs and the most important organ of all, which now beats inside the chest of a 10-year-old girl. On Valentine's Day, Larry King gave away his heart, but not in the way he thought he would.

Sunday Male Beauty

John McCain's Economic Stupidity

With the USA's economy basically in a free fall and the housing market continuing to collapse, one would think that voters would be extremely concerned about electing a president that has some remote clue on economic matters. Applying that standard, it should be nearly impossible for anyone who is not among the extremely wealthy and who needs to earn a living - other than perhaps those in the oil industry - to vote for John McCain. Frank Rich at the New York Times has a biting column that highlights the Three Stooges aspects of what a McCain presidency might bring to the country. The picture is anything but pretty, but it does a great job of sending a wake up call that, hopefully, voters will figure out. Here are some highlights:

*

THE best thing to happen to John McCain was for the three network anchors to leave him in the dust this week while they chase Barack Obama on his global Lollapalooza tour. Were voters forced to actually focus on Mr. McCain’s response to our spiraling economic crisis at home, the prospect of his ascension to the Oval Office could set off a panic that would make the IndyMac Bank bust in Pasadena look as merry as the Rose Bowl.

*

Mr. McCain’s fiscal ineptitude has received so little scrutiny in some press quarters that his chief economic adviser, the former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, got a free pass until the moment he self-immolated on video by whining about “a nation of whiners.” The McCain-Gramm bond, dating back 15 years, is more scandalous than Mr. Obama’s connection with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Mr. McCain has been so dependent on Mr. Gramm for economic policy that he sent him to newspaper editorial board meetings, no doubt to correct the candidate’s numbers much as Joe Lieberman cleans up after his confusions of Sunni and Shia.

*

Just two weeks before publicly sharing his thoughts about America’s “mental recession,” Mr. Gramm laid out equally incendiary views in a Wall Street Journal profile that portrayed him as “almost certainly” the McCain choice for Treasury secretary. Mr. Gramm said that the former chief executive of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, was “probably the most exploited worker in American history” since he received only a $158 million pay package rather than the “billions” he deserved for his success in growing Southwestern Bell.

*

Left to his own devices — or those of his new No. 1 economic surrogate, Carly Fiorina — Mr. McCain is clueless. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, a supporter, said that Mr. McCain’s latest panacea for high gas prices, offshore drilling, is snake oil — and then announced his availability to serve as energy czar in an Obama administration. The term flip-flopping doesn’t do justice to Mr. McCain’s self-contradictory economic pronouncements because that implies there’s some rational, if hypocritical, logic at work.

*

Mr. McCain’s plan for Social Security reform is “along the lines that President Bush proposed.” Or so he said in March. He came out against such “privatization” in June (though his policy descriptions still support it). Last week he indicated he isn’t completely clear on what Social Security does. He called the program’s premise — young taxpayers foot the bill for their elders (including him) — an “absolute disgrace.” Given that Mr. McCain’s sole private-sector job was a fleeting stint in public relations at his father-in-law’s beer distributorship, he comes by his economic ignorance honestly. But there’s no A team aboard the Straight Talk Express to fill him in.

*

Beltway wisdom has it that the addition of such a corporate star will remedy Mr. McCain’s fiscal flatulence. . . . The obvious choice would be Michael Bloomberg — who, as a former Republican turned independent, would necessitate that Mr. McCain reach only halfway across the aisle, and to someone who is his friend rather than a vanquished rival he is learning to tolerate.

*

Yes, Mr. Bloomberg is a closet Democrat and an alpha dog who doesn’t want to be a second banana. And his views on gay civil rights and abortion would roil the G.O.P. base. But Mr. Romney shared some of those same views before he flip-flopped, and besides, these are not ordinary times. Millions of Americans are losing their homes and jobs. Whole industries are going belly up. The national crisis at hand, not yesterday’s culture wars, should drive the vice-presidential pick.

*

And Mr. Bloomberg? It’s hard to picture a titan who built his empire on computer terminals investing any capital, political or otherwise, in a chief executive who is still learning how to do, as Mr. McCain puts it, “a Google.”

ELCIC Parish Ordains Married Gay as Pastor

Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Newmarket, Ontario, a parish within the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, a sister denomination to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ("ELCA") of which I am a member, has pushed the envelop and installed Lionel Ketola (pictured at left), who is is openly gay and legally married to Steven Loweth, as its new associate pastor. Needless to say, some of the Neanderthal elements in the ELCIC are having vapors, including Bishop Michael Pryse of the Eastern Synod of the ELCIC who publicly censured the congregation at the synod's July 9-13 assembly in London, Ontario. Holy Cross Lutheran is a member of the Reconciling in Christ program and welcomes EVERYONE - what a refreshing concept - all those who have ever felt excluded by the Church because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental challenges, financial resources, or family status.

*

Lutherans Concerned, reports that the congregation knew that the rules of the Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) did not allow gay clergy who were openly public about their orientation--but they were compelled by the gifts and talents of Ketola and decided to be faithful to their calling and his calling, despite the possibility of punishments. Nonetheless, the parish ordained Ketola under a rite called "extra ordinem" (outside the regular rule), under a provision in "The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church" This rite allows congregations to ordain when bishops will not. The Book of Concord consists of 10 documents recognized worldwide as the statement of Lutheran doctrine since 1580. Ketola is the first ELM candidate to be called to ministry in Canada.

*

What makes the whole story more interesting and important as reported by Lutherans Concerned is this :

*

But what was surprising was that the synod assembly, which meets every two years, also passed resolutions that encourage the bishop and synod council to exercise restraint in disciplining pastors and congregations who in good conscience call pastors like Lionel Ketola, and those who in good conscience bless or marry same-gender couples. So, while the Bishop disciplined the congregation and publicly censured and admonished all other clergy who participated in the extraordinary ordination, the voting body asked the officials to consider further actions with great care and restraint.

*

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church where the hierarchy basically is accountable to no one and the Pope, bishops and cardinals (who have become corrupt like so many despots) think of themselves as feudal lords more or less, in both the ELCIC and the ELCA, ultimate power resides in the national church wide assembly and locally with the synods. Thus, the voting body has told Bishop Pryse what might be construed as a "hey, not so fast" message.

*

Making the story yet more amazing is that Holy Cross, a very small parish, came up with gift of $27,000 which helped bridge a gap in the synod budget. Lutherans Concerned's statement on the whole affair read in part as follows:

*

"The actions of Holy Cross have illuminated an injustice and drawn a response from the institution. We can only hope that the Holy Spirit will work in all of this such that full inclusion becomes ordinary rather extraordinary."

*

At times I wonder if the real issue isn't actually that the straights in Church denominations are afraid that openly gay clergy who are well adjusted with who they are, good speakers, and truly spiritual individuals might show up the sexually repressed and sexually obsessed straights as inferior and thereby expose the lie that gays are sinners and inferior. What do you think?