Dirty Tricks, Coming Out, Settling Down, Leading and Other Late Nite Ponderments

Monday night, 11pm. The Beau has gone to bed to catch up on lost sleep, so here I sit with a glass of wine, a keyboard, The Decemberists’ new album, the sparkly lights of the city and a whirlwind of various thoughts (mis)firing in a hundred directions.

It’s election season, and believe me, it’s difficult not to comment sometimes. This blog is non-political, but I strongly advocate (and will do so maybe later this week) our responsibility to vote and be aware of what’s going on. What I hate about this season, however, is electioneering. I’ve hated it every since the badly-drawn posters of high school class-presidential drama. In the adult world, of course, it’s a whole lot uglier. Since my post regarding Mark Foley, there’s been something in the news every day about it – from who knew what, when, to gross and evil accusations against the gay community, to members of our own gay community turning on the rest as a disgusting politicking attempt. Popular gay lobbyist bloggers have sent lists of known gay and closeted or quiet republicans to fundamentalists as an attempt to discredit that party. Regardless of your political affiliation, that’s disgusting.

There is a code, I believe, in our community, that coming out is a personal journey and process. Not because of what it is, but because of the gutsy act of working through society’s morass of pressurized homophobia we’re all, at some level, aware of if not suffering from. Some day, coming out will be a non-event. For now, however, we offer a modicum of grace to those who haven’t or cannot yet be honest about who they were made to be and love. To out someone is to rob them of that growth process, and isn’t just not fair, it’s mean. To do so as a political maneuver makes me sick. Why are we turning on ourselves for the sake of votes?

But politics aside, coming out is important. Last week, many of us observed National Coming Out day, and this year more than others I saw quite a bit of questioning as to why a person should come out. One couple’s blog received comments calling them cowards for being a closeted couple in the rural midwest, despite their very public words and opinions. The Journeyman wonders why we gay men are expected with fervor to proclaim our orientation while straight people are not. It’s a valid question, and one I don’t have a complete answer yet.

I know for me and the Beau, it had less to do with what was expected of and more of what we knew to be the right thing to do. The Beau came out of his own accord, I was found out by a snooping mother about a week after I came out to my church and a week before I planned to tell my parents. But for us, we needed to in order to get past a mental and emotional weight that would otherwise drag us down. An old saying of mine (which rarely helps but I still say it to myself) is that the Fear of the thing, is often worse than the Thing. In other words, the more we obsessed about what would happen if we came out, the more it destroyed our souls. Of course not everyone in our conservative/fundie families understands or loves us for us, but at least they know us and can wrestle with their love or lack their of on their own accord. By casting aside that blockade, we can focus our energies on more Kingdom-edifying things, or at the very least, on building our relationship and reinforcing it with open friendships.

I realize that not everyone is ready, for any number of reasons. One of my favorite people ever is over 40 and firmly entrenched in his closet (or at least so he thinks). Yet he is one of the wisest gay men I’ve ever known, and I respect him no less for his decisions. I think, however, that we’re all better for being honest with and about ourselves and our love. For one, it lifts an emotional and spiritual burden that unnecessarily hinders us. For two, it raises visibility.

There’s a lot of bad stuff going on in this country in the next four weeks. There are antigay-marriage amendments in about 8 more states, five of which have a reasonably good chance of passing. The fundamentalists are claiming we’re all responsible for the Mark Foleys of the world because ‘all-gays-want-teenage-boys-in-bed.’ (for the record, teenagers drive me crazy and I tend to avoid them). Local churches filled with reasonable people don’t know what to think, because they simply don’t know or understand the plight, lives, and normalcy of the gay people around them. If more of us came out, and were honest, and showed our friends and family who we really are – that is, the same we’ve always been, just now more honest – I believe they’d be much slower to condemn all those “horrible homosexuals.” And lastly, we come out because we say, “Never Again.”

Are we settling down? Few can deny – and I won’t – that the gay community has gone through an adolescence during the last thirty years of the 20th century. Now, as pointed out in this New York Times article, “From 2000 to 2005, the number of people identifying themselves in Census surveys as being in a same-sex couple grew by 30 percent.” Fundies love to claim we’re all caught in some wretched lifestyle, an accusation that leaves many of wondering what we’re apparently missing out on. Moreover, I’ve stated a few times before that I believe those darker days grew out of the church’s abandonment of whole swaths of people who needed love more than ever. Today, however, we’re settling down more. The sex clubs are closing, the pick-up points still exist but are fewer and further between, and the seedy clubs with g-stringed dancers are a joke. The Internet is an untamed beast, still, but those who would seek out dangerous behavior have always and will always find their medium.

But as we become more visible and understood by our neighbors and churches, we’re going to need to be more conscious of our own. Those of us in sound, solid, gay relationships need to be providing an example to our community. Teenagers who are learning who they are need a sound and godly model of what good relationship looks like. They need to see that being gay does not equal sex drugs and Internet acronyms. We need leaders.

Some thoughts to ponder, some things rumbling through my mind. And now to bed.

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Filed under Daily-Life
10/17/06 12:43 AM
by The Blogger

Steve says (Oct 23, 08:53 PM ):
“Of course not everyone in our conservative/fundie families understands or loves us for us, but at least they know us and can wrestle with their love or lack their of on their own accord. By casting aside that blockade, we can focus our energies on more Kingdom-edifying things, or at the very least, on building our relationship and reinforcing it with open friendships.”

Love this thought…it’s so true and powerful. It communicates exactly what I’ve experienced from a “fundie” background and the coming out process.
Yaakov Sullivan says (Jul 3, 08:48 PM ):
Gay Christians exist, and there are lot more of us blogging these days than there were 12-18 months ago. This community grows and gains a voice, and it gains support of well-spoken straight allies. Not one of us individually will ever encapuslate the voice of the many. We must continue to speak together, sharing our voices and opinions and beliefs and move collectively toward the goals of equality. We must engage with one another, commenting on each others blogs, encouraging one another, and reminding each other that we all exist, and we have a voice.

Absolutely true. I am a devout Roman Catholic ex missionery and my husband is a Moslim Palestinian. My live-in boyfriend is a Lutheran from Cali. We all live together and very tolerant.I agree we must unite and promote homosexuality as a legitimate form of spirituality.
In Christ, Yaakov Sullivan
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