Monday Tuesday

Can I change for the better? I hope so, although change is difficult. But you all know that.

I believe God envisioned change as a primary force to bring us closer to one and other as well as to Him. The past couple years I've seen change occur as a result of our infrastructure--you know, governments, schools, churches---being shaken up. Change occurs when a volcano erupts, a tsunami strikes, when a member of a church's search committee says let's hire the gay candidate for senior pastor. Change occurs when a long time friend shoots himself in the head. Difficult things to deal with for sure.

When seven million Californians voted to make me a second class citizen I sat still, kind of shrugged and went on with the stuff I do during the day. But you know what, brothers and sisters? That vote and its most recent aftermath has stirred the hibernating hurts inside me, the result of everything I've heard since high school right up to this afternoon. Seven million people just down the coast from us said homosexual people are not as good as heterosexual people. Gay personages aren't right, they can't be married. They are a danger to our children. We must do whatever we can to keep them at bay, away from the rest of us.

Each time a high school classmate called me fruit, queer, or fag, a chip of my soul was bruised. It makes sense then, feeling abhorrent, except then I didn't have the vocabulary to label the sickness I felt every day of my young, young life.

High school is long over but California and people like Maggie Gallagher and her hateful No On Marriage campaign more than make up for that. These frightened people hate me and people like me. I hear what they say. They want us taken down, put away, eliminated.

People change and people don't change. That is a fact. This loud, hate-based campaign, the tragedy of what this noise does to people, perhaps not as strong as I am, has begun, yes begun, to make me think deeper and more often about what the hell is going on and what I'm going to do about it all.

Have any of you read Robert Frost's poem Birches? When I see birches bend left and right/Across the lines of straighter darker trees,/I like to think some boy's been swinging them./But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay/As ice storms do

I've been enjoying the stand of birches just outside my bedroom window. This year their white trunks are shedding. It is quite beautiful. When it snowed heavily a couple winters ago their delicate appearing branches bent from the weight of accumulated powder. I went outside and shook it off and muttered about, really something incoherent. It felt good speaking, quietly to the trees, it was so hushed out there that my whisper practically boomed, what with all the snow.

The white limbs returned nearly to their previous position. There would be a reminder of the stress from that season whenever I looked closely, like my scars from the name calling during high school.

If you can't take Frost, then read the novel Ice Storm by Rick Moody. (Ang Lee directed the film version of the novel.) Like the novel's plot set during the mega-societal changes during The Seventies, it is a cold and frightening time for the NOM people as well as every gay person who doesn't have their heads buried. We're running on fear. I'm not big on going public with serious stuff---I have a wry wit and find humor in the foibles of humans preferring to write about that sort of thing. But I will speak out now, publicly, how I feel being treated as a second class citizen who's basic rights can be voted away. I hope we don't see the day when the right to live in my house is voted away.


Our present day ice storm, this most recent shift, is reflected in the NOM campaign, Maggie G. and her easily-manipulated-by-fear foot soldiers. The deep chill is their their hatred, their truly blind hatred. Maybe Maggie is The Enemy (that's Episcopalian for the devil) fooling her innocent followers. Pray for Maggie and her crew, that they know the love of Christ and can love their neighbors as themselves.

I do pray for them. Admitting that fact is terrifying. I don't want to upset the neat homo leadership who tell us what to think, how to act and whom to hate. That's a lie. I don't care what those in charge, the self appointed, the HRCers and other lobbyists, or the rad left bloggers, will think about this posting. I know there are just as many gay people who believe as I do.

As for my gay brothers who find anything to do with Jesus ridiculous, let me say, we're not going to get through this without His help. I'm damned serious about this. I am a Christian, attend church nearly every Sunday, try to pray and meditate daily, and do my best to love all who God introduces to me. I endeavor to atone for my sins and seek forgiveness. I believe that my salvation is between God and me, and whatever major screw ups I've made and defects I have in this life will be dealt with accordingly in the next: "For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:21-31.(Thank you Gary Lambert for the verse and the words.)

In that are messages for my fellow homosexuals and the people who believe I'm damned for all eternity. In that message is the start of a personal plan contingent on my spiritual condition. I love all of you, for sure, even when you're being a pain in the ass, as I am too.