as I live a few more questions

Directions

It used to be that every five years or so I would spend a few days, pull out some paper, and answer the whole who-am-I and where-am-I-going and what-do-I-want-to-do-with-my-life question. But it's been a long time since I've done that.

However, something's nagging at me and telling me that it's time. In the past when I did this exercise, I found that I'm not very honest with myself; I told  myself that what other people wanted for me is what I wanted as well. Mix in some stupid pride and I used to land up with a list of ridiculously high goals.

This time, when I do this, I have to focus on what *I* think, what *I* want. And I'm afraid to ask the questions this time around, because I don't know the answers. I'm afraid that the answers I do get will mean making big changes in my life, like changing jobs or moving away to another city.

Fantasy And Reality

(click photo to see original size on Flickr)

I actually feel a little sorry for Britney Spears.  Apparently she checked into rehab in Antigua, checked herself out after less than 24 hours, flew back to the U.S., shaved her head and got a couple of tattoos.  The linked report also states that Britney landed up at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai hospital emergency room early Saturday morning, but was discharged.

What's magnifying the situation and making it worse, is that she's a celebrity and plays out her life (and her troubles) in front of the paparazzi's cameras.   That's why I highlighted that particular, poignant quote from the gossip coverage.  Fame is a double-edged sword. 

And I wonder how long Elizabeth Arden will continue to market Britney's Midnight Fantasy, especially when the fantasy has come apart at the seams.

Today's Anti War Protest in Washington D.C.

Anti War Protest Washington DC, originally uploaded by squinn4420.

Photos speak louder than words.

Here We Go Again...

A second Denver-area evangelical megachurch pastor steps down after admitting he cheated on his wife with other men:

A month ago, the Rev. Paul Barnes of Grace Chapel in Douglas County preached to his 2,100-member congregation about integrity and grace in the aftermath of the Ted Haggard drugs-and-gay-sex scandal.

Now, the 54-year-old Barnes joins Haggard as a fallen evangelical minister who preached that homosexuality was a sin but grappled with a hidden life.

"I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy," Barnes said in the 32- minute video, which church leaders permitted The Denver Post to view. "... I can't tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away."

...

Sitting cross-legged in jeans and an open-collar shirt, Barnes spoke in his video about evolving feelings growing up in a firm moral family: from confused little boy to adolescent racked with self-loathing and guilt.

In their only talk about sex, Barnes said his father took him on a drive and talked about what he would do if a "fag" approached him.

Barnes thought, "'Is that how you'd feel about me?' It was like a knife in my heart, and it made me feel even more closed."

Heartbreaking.  And unfortunately, his story is not unusual among gays and lesbians.  The pressure to conform and the fear of rejection can twist a life beyond recognition.  I feel sorry for Rev. Barnes, not scorn. 

Hell hath no fury...

...as this woman (warning: language probably NSFW).

Hallelujah, Dan Savage!

Dan Savage is a columnist who happens to be gay, and who writes a love and sex advice column called "Savage Love".  And he just wrote a column that sums up how I feel about the whole "ex-gay" movement exactly.  So, I'll give a link to it, but it's so good I'm just gonna quote the whole thing here. 

I consider Rev. Ted Haggard a beaten-to-death topic, and I am now retiring it from Ryan's Rant list :-)

I live in Colorado Springs, home to the right-wing conservative evangelical movement. As the nation recently learned, the founder of New Life Church, Ted Haggard, was fired after a male prostitute revealed that Haggard bought sex and drugs from him. It's hard not to feel a bit sorry for him, even though I have always hated everything Haggard stood for. How do you view all of this? Does Haggard deserve our sympathy? Or do we point our fingers and laugh?

Confused Coloradoan

 

[Dan Savage's response]

We should make a joyful noise, CC, whenever a powerful hypocrite is exposed. God should bless Mike Jones, the male prostitute who exposed Ted Haggard, and you should balance whatever sympathy you feel for Haggard against the misery he inflicted on the countless numbers of gay young people his church has "counseled." If you want to feel bad for someone, feel bad for Haggard's kids, not Haggard himself.

Now, I realize Haggard is ancient fucking history at this point—there was an election last week, huh?—but there's something I just gotta get off my chest: For more than a decade, the religious right has insisted that homosexuality can be cured. Just give your heart to Jesus, and—poof!—you're straight! If there is any justice in the world—and there seems to be, judging from last week's election returns—Haggard's downfall should be the death of the "ex-gay" movement. No more ex-gay ad campaigns, no more credulous stories about "successful" ex-gays in daily papers or on cable news.

Arguing with religious people about the futility of giving your heart to Jesus—at least where "cures" for homosexual orientation are concerned—can be maddening. As with evolution, they aren't moved by science, data, or irksome facts. Not even the existence of ex-ex-gays gives them pause. Anything is possible through Christ, they blandly insist, and if you're sincere enough in your devotion to Christ, if you invite him into your heart, he will cure you.

Hello, fundies? I know you're reading this, because every week I get e-mails from concerned Christians who just happened to chance upon my column—cough, cough—and write to share the wonderful news: I don't have to be gay! If I give my heart to Jesus—if I have faith—he will cure me!

Well, my fundie friends, did you see that letter of apology Haggard wrote to his congregation? I'd like to wrap it around a brick and shove it up all of your fat asses. But since I can't do that, I'll just quote from it. In his mea gulpa (Haggard gives lousy head, according to Jones), Haggard copped to "sexual immorality" and described himself as "a deceiver and a liar." Those details made it into most of the headlines. These details didn't:

"Describing a lifelong battle against temptations that were contrary to his teachings," says the Denver Post, "[Haggard] had sought assistance 'in a variety of ways,' and while he had stretches of 'freedom,' nothing proved effective. 'There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life,' Haggard wrote." [Emphasis added.]

If you believe that Jesus Christ can change the sexual orientation of a believer, why on earth did he refuse to cure Haggard? Haggard founded a church that has 14,000 members! Thousands were brought to Christ by Haggard's preaching. Mixed in with Ted's meth-fueled gay-sex romps and hypocritical gay-bashings were, without a doubt, thousands of good works.

Did Jesus help Haggard out? No. Haggard struggled with temptation all his life. He tried to battle off his "dark" desires, but nothing proved effective. There was no cure for Haggard, no miracle. No matter how long he struggled, no matter how much faith he had, Haggard's sexual orientation remained unchanged. Nothing helped. Not prayer, not Jesus H. Christ on his cross.

Nothing.

If giving his heart to Jesus couldn't cure Haggard, what hope is there for the likes of me? If Jesus can't be bothered to work a miracle for the most powerful evangelical minister in the country, what "hope" is there for the average dyke?

None.

The ex-gay thing is over. It's dead. It was bullshit from the start, and it's bullshit now. And I will personally track down and bitch-slap the next fundie douche who sends me an e-mail explaining how Jesus can cure me. And I will personally track down and shit in the mouth of the next cable-news anchor who entertains—even for an instant—the notion of a miracle cure for homosexuality.

Consider yourself warned, Paula Zahn.

(Source: Dan Savage, Savage Love column, Nov. 15, 2006)

I'll Take "Repulsive and Dark" for 500, Please

Steve Schalchlin of Los Angeles, writer of the blog The Bonus Round, writes further on one of the issues that I touched on briefly in my previous post: how the underlying assumptions about homosexuality as "dark" and "repulsive" are a big part of the problem here in Ted Haggard's rehabilitation.  He says it much, much better than I could, so just go read it yourself.  Thanks.

I'm gonna get off this hobby horse for now; I'm starting to get splinters in my ass ;-)

Two Journeys (Part I)

Today two things happened:

1. For the first time in almost a decade, I set foot inside a Lutheran church for Sunday worship.
2. Rev. Ted Haggard released his letter of explanation and apology to his New Life Church.

I left the Lutheran church I was baptised, raised, confirmed in, and married in, when I finally came out to myself and my family and friends.  At that time there were two pastors in our church.  The elder pastor, with whom I had shared my story and my secret, was very accepting.  But he warned me that the junior pastor would not be as accepting.

Shortly afterward, the elder pastor was let go (there were nasty church politics involved, as always).  It was then that I requested, and received, a transfer of membership to Augustine United in Osborne Village.  I'm sure many members assumed that my departure was related to the firing of my favourite pastor, but there was a stronger reason.  Augustine United is one of several United Church of Canada congregations that was an Affirming church (that is, one where it was made explicit that GLBTQ people were full and equal members of the congregation).  In fact, Augustine was the first such church in Canada, designated an Affirming congregation in 1995.

Why did I leave?  I had gone through a difficult coming-out, after three decades of both conscious and unconscious self-repression, and I was worn out, angry, and depressed.  I simply did not have the energy to stay where I was and defend myself against those in the Lutheran pews who did not (and would not) understand.  I wanted to be somewhere where it was WRITTEN DOWN that I could be a gay Christian and accepted as that, without having to change one or the other.

I'll continue this in Part II.  I'll just close by sharing one of the thoughts I had when I read this portion of Pastor Ted's letter:

Our church's overseers have required me to submit to the oversight of Dr. James Dobson, Pastor Jack Hayford, and Pastor Tommy Barnett. Those men will perform a thorough analysis of my mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical life. They will guide me through a program with the goal of healing and restoration for my life, my marriage, and my family.

And that first thought was: 

Oh my God.  Having James Dobson and his folk work on Ted to "cure" him of his homosexuality.  Ted's going to be the square peg punded right back into the round hole, he's going to land up even more mentally and emotionally fucked-up than he is right now. 

I can see it now: that fake frozen smile is going to get tighter and tighter, until his jaw fractures.  Can't Dobson et al. see that they're the ones who CAUSED Ted to repress his sexuality so severely that he acted out in this very public way?   

   

Brokeback Mountain: Getting It

Brokeback Mountain continues to rack up awards and reel in the box-office, which is good. The film deserves the accolades and the wider audience. And I promise to get off the all-Brokeback-24/7 kick I've been on, really I do! (I can stop ANYTIME. I. WANT.)

I'm tempted to send to my family and straight friends a link to this excellent and thought-provoking review of the movie (warning: spoilers) appearing in an upcoming isue of The New York Review of Books:

Both narratively and visually, Brokeback Mountain is a tragedy about the specifically gay phenomenon of the "closet"—about the disastrous emotional and moral consequences of erotic self-repression and of the social intolerance that first causes and then exacerbates it...Their tragedy, which starts well before the lovers ever meet, is primarily a psychological tragedy, a tragedy of psyches scarred from the very first stirrings of an erotic desire which the world around them—beginning in earliest childhood, in the bosom of their families, as Ennis's grim flashback is meant to remind us—represents as unhealthy, hateful, and deadly.

Source: Daniel Mendelsohn, "An Affair to Remember", The New York Review of Books, Volume 53, Number 3, February 23, 2006

And THAT's the message I want to get out: that it's the way our society is structured that—still—that makes it all the more difficult for women and men to LEARN HOW TO LOVE THEMSELVES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY ARE QUEER OR STRAIGHT. And I have been walking proof of the damage that can be done, damage that I am still struggling to overcome after two decades of difficult, painful work. Sometimes I just get so angry I want to scream at people for not "getting it".

Brokeback Mountain brings that message home in such a powerful way, that I hope more people see it, and more people "get it".

Some Notes on Moving Forward

Damn it damn it DAMN IT...

I'm still thinking about the Brokeback Mountain short story and that movie everybody's talking about. What is the matter with me... a movie I'd never even heard of three months ago, a movie I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN, based a short story I'd only just read yesterday. Hitting me like this. It's crazy.

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it.

(Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx; LiveJournal icons by eye_knead_icons.)

This quote is what Ennis tells himself at the end of Proulx's short story. But it's not true.

Ennis could have done something about it; he could have fixed it. He chose to let his fear of what other people would think and say rule his bahaviour. And what happened is tragic. But what others think and say is only an excuse. Fear is only an excuse.

The reason all this Brokeback Mountain blogosphere talk has snagged me is this: In addition to the associations it creates with my own past (previous post), it also touches on something that I have been thinking a lot lately: my own role in the problems and difficulties I have experienced. I myself have made choices, perhaps not conscious ones when I was still a child, but choices nonetheless. Quite often, these choices have been very bad ones in reaction to an unpleasant event or situation in my life.

But I need to take my own responsibility for the life I've made, no matter how many external things have happened. I can't keep blaming and regretting all my life; I have to ditch the sackcloth and ashes, get up off my ass, and move forward with what I have. I also need to leave behind what is keeping me anchored in my mourning. Yes, mourning, because that's what it is.

Ennis abdicated his choice, and his happiness, because of his fear. And so have I. Even now, when I know I have nothing to fear, I am stuck in that habit of abdicating my choice, throwing away my happiness.

And there is where the change must be made.