A Christmas visit with Kay Willis

Kay Willis is an acquaintance of my parents. She is the epitome of what is wrong with North Carolina, some self professed Christians and in the greater society. Until yesterday my interactions with this very narrow minded, ignorant and dangerous woman were cordial and pleasant. That all changed on Christmas Day. I will not put myself in her company again.

In one of her many ramblings during her two hour visit; Kay Willis was speaking of a relation of hers. I'll call the fellow Jim and the fact that Jim was sexually abused by his uncle as a child. Kay said, "He [the uncle] turned Jim into a faggot."

There is so much wrong with that statement but I'm not going to preach those points to the choir.

This statement was made at the lunch time table in the middle of a meal. The circumstance left me in a dilemma; confrontation, flight or nothing? I did lift a silent and short prayer. I was lead to a place of calm peace and remained at the table listening to this horribly hurt woman continue to talk. The phrase, hurt people hurt kept resonating in my head. After Kay left my father sought me out and we had a genuine and warm conversation. It was one of the nicest, kindest and sweetest things this man has ever done and he's done a lot of nice things.

So, why did I react the way I did? Firstly, my folks have to live here in Carteret County and interact with people like Kay on a daily basis, she is related to everyone in the small hamlet in which they reside. Secondly, in all likelihood I deal with people like Kay everyday but those people are surreptitious and therefore I am oblivious to how they feel. Thirdly, nothing that I would have said to this woman would have changed her opinion; she showed me who and what she was and now I know.

Kay is the archetype for  the gap in our society between kind and enlightened people and those who are marginalized by poverty, comfortable ignorance, lack of education,  a lack of drive to better self and a belief that minor and obscure verses in  their Bible speak definitively on all topics. In the end, I don't feel anger or anguish. I feel some disgust but mostly pity for Kay, people like her and those who she has damaged with her behavior and beliefs.

Duck Dynasty and all the wing nuts

Duck Dynasty and all the other wing nuts

The problem is that there is still a wide held believe that GLBT people choose their attraction and are therefore responsible for their attractions; that the decision is a conscious one. Ok, I’ll go for that, as soon as…each and every single person who holds that opinion has an open, honest and public conversation regarding the time, place and circumstances under which they decided to be a heterosexual person. That they further outline how hard they tried to reprogram their attractions and to change what they are.

I’ll wait.

God and the classroom

They’ve taken God out of the classroom

The Christian fundamentalist ilk routinely claim that they’ve withdrawn their children from the public education system the cause “they,” whoever “they” are, have taken and God out of the classroom.  This is just a convenient excuse for those who don’t like what they see happening in the American education system to take up their marbles and go home and play alone.  I think more often than not the motives are xenophobic, racist or classist. 

Taking God of the classroom or the school is like trying to take God it out of a foxhole.  When I think back to my childhood and my experiences in the school system, I prayed to God every day.  In fourth grade I prayed that God would wake me up from the nightmare that was my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Scott.  This is a woman who had no business being around small children, she was cruel, demanding, authoritarian and loud.  I got through it though and my experience with Mrs. Scott taught me how to deal with loud, authoritarian and cruel people and that sometimes, like in a foxhole you keep your head down.

When I was in middle school and had to deal with the boys in the locker room, God was with me as well.  I’m here aren’t I?  PE class in the middle school was the first time that I experienced an entire grade level of some 150 boys coming together at one time to change clothes in a moderately  supervised environment.  I became acutely aware of who the predators were and who I should stick with as part of the safety herd.  This was a valuable lesson for later in life.  There was constant prayer during that experience, and God was indeed present in the public school locker room. Years later I’d become aware of lesser gods in the boys locker room. That topic is for another musing.

Throughout my public school career every quiz, test, assignment and big project required that prayers be lifted to God.  Those prayers asked for wisdom, discernment, encouragement and perseverance.  God had me in an environment where I would meet many different people, with many different ideas, with many different backgrounds and I’d have to learn how to cope with them in that venue.  This lesson prepared me to cope with them in the greater world too.  Funny, even in NJ, no one took God out of my school experience.

I believe that many who home school do so because it is the easy way out.  It is easy to collect up one’s children and shepherd them away to a safe same thinking environment.  That action at its heart is intellectual malpractice, why in a democratic republic it might even be treason.  Those actions are also very dangerous to maintaining a  democracy, the ideals of Franklin, Jefferson and Adams require enlightenment.  It is also a complete for twisting and perversion of the Gospel.  These people should read the Gospel of John chapter three vs. 16 and…17.  Verse 17 is very clear Jesus as God did not come into the world to condemn it but to save it.  How in heaven’s name can we save the world as disciples if we hide and ourselves away from that world? Simple answer, we can’t.

I hope that one day I can be brave.

I hope that one day I can be brave

As I realize that I’m in the last half of my life; I also realize that there are people around me day to day who are happy to work with me, collect monies from me, get great jobs because of me and break bread with me, but who, when it came time, to defend me…didn’t.  These friends, coworkers and acquaintances voted to pass an amendment in North Carolina making it a matter of state constitution for same sex couples to be denied the right to marry. They codified discrimination in the 21^st century, what great friends these are!

After John’s death and the disaster that was my relationship with Chris, I’m pretty sure that I’m never gonna get married again.  There are no prospects currently and the horizon is looking a lot like the Sahara desert.  Still, should one day I find someone that I love, maybe I’d want to get married.  I view it all as a matter of respect and right. 

My worry is in how I do I handle how I feel?  If I fly off the handle, get in folks faces and behave as a homo radical, it’ll be impossible to change attitudes.  I imagine that this feels a lot like racism.  The attitudes I'm up against are so covert, closeted if you will, they are impossible to parse out.   Perhaps now I understand why many of my black friends say, that they would rather have an in your face a racist as opposed to a closet racist.  When someone is in your face at least you know where they are coming from and what to expect.

I am faced with a paradox. My Christian beliefs teach me that I should love my enemies.  My heart tells me that I should hate them.  I don’t speak with my brother and his wife because of the way they openly profess how they feel about gay marriage.  They put bumper stickers on their car and signs in their yard for crying out loud.  EVEN WHEN I USED TO VISIT AND THEY KNEW I WAS COMING!  I appreciate these actions because it lets me know exactly where they stand.  Now I give them a very wide berth. 

I keep coming back to this question; how do I deal with those folks who don't put the bumper sticker on their car or sign in the yard? I know that each day that there are people in my life that feel exactly as my brother and his wife do, they however remain hidden from public view.  These people disguise their feelings with a smile on their face but would stick a knife in my back while standing in the anonymity of the voting booth, metaphorically speaking of course.

My question to myself is; why am I playing nice?

President Obama, not the risen God but not the anti Christ either.

 

Obamacare/ Obama Accomplishments

The downside of social media is that people can spout off opinion, hyperbole, rants, raves, and kudos and even sometimes lies with limited repercussion or consequence. One can unfriend them from one's social network or one can block their posts.  I do a little of both.  I tend NOT to engage on Facebook or Twitter because hiding behind a keyboard and a computer screen can indeed make one brave.

A fellow who I went to high school with is one of these folks. He clucks a constant tirade; he hates president Obama and the president’s policies. His latest drumbeat the medical insurance mandate. He states that he shouldn’t have to buy something that he doesn’t want.  Ok, I get that and to that I say:  I don’ want to pay for the care of folks too lazy, entrenched, cheap or dogmatic; who don’t want to purchase health insurance.  I know that those people are going to cost me and our health care system a whole lot more money by flying without a safety net. So get over it, and do the morally right thing.  And while were at it...think about this...

1.    Do you want a state of the art health care system?

2.    Do you want an accessible health care system?

3.    Do you want an inexpensive health care system?

You can only make one choice...1!  Anyway...moving on.

This social media fellow thinks that Obama has done nothing good, he thinks that the president is one of the Apocalypse' four horsemen. To that I say and site, Washington Monthly Online, March/April 2012

President Obama passed health care reform; after five previous presidents failed, president Obama has now passed a law that will insure 32 million uninsured Americans.  President Obama recognized as so many before him that health care cost growth is the number one cause of this nation’s long term financial problems.

Passed $787 billion dollars in economic stimulus, this after inheriting a destroyed economy from president G.W. Bush.  An economy that left to its own peril would have destroyed for a time the economy of the entire planet. The great depression of the 1930’s would have looked like a tea party by comparison. That pun directed at the far right is oh so intended. J

President Obama passed Wall Street reform to regulate those responsible for the financial disaster, again inherited from former president G.W. Bush.

President Obama ended the war in Iraq, which cost this country according to the Washington Post, somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion dollars. Perhaps my Facebook friend should think about what kind of health care insurance that kind of coin could buy for the American people. He should also think about the value we the people got for our investment in Iraq. Let’s do a cost benefit analysis on that one? I bet one column would be near empty and it wouldn't be the cost.

President Obama began drawdown to end the war in Afghanistan.  Again a costly folly that perhaps could have been executed with a scalpel instead of a sledge hammer.

President Obama had Osama Bin Laden killed.  I’m not sure killing anyone should ever be called an accomplishment. I’m sure none of us needs reminding of September 11, but if you do, here’s a link.

President Obama helped save the American auto industry.  Click the link to see the employment numbers.

President Obama recapitalized the banks, otherwise we’d still be in an economic depression, thanks to the folly of  G.W. Bush.

He repealed don’t ask don’t tell; finally allowing citizens like me to serve this nation in our armed forces in an open and affirming manner.

He helped topple Moammar Gaddafi, you know, the dude responsible for blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Remember that act of terrorism or war that killed 270 people at Christmas time.

President Obama, two days after taking office nullified G.W. Bush era policies that allowed torture of those detained by our military and government. He made us better than our enemies who torture. It is always better to do as we do and say. Actions and words should always sync.

I could go on and on, but I think my point is made. 

Concealed Guns and the North Carolinataliban aka General Assembly

Guns

In North Carolinatalibanistan the mental midgets in the general assembly have pushed back against towns that have passed strict concealed carry laws for guns.  The towns in the interest of their citizens now must bow to state control and their local ordinances must jive with state law when it comes to weapons of mass destruction namely: the American handgun, rifle and assault weapon.

The socially corrupt gun apologists on the right also known as the rabid second amendment gun lobby, insist that concealed weapons reduce crime, to that I site the Washington Post….12/17/2012

National Research Council of the National Academies devoted a chapter in a report titled “Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review” examining Lott’s research. The report concluded:

No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change. Finally, some of the point estimates are imprecise. Thus, the committee concludes that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.

So nuff said on that. A whole lot of mish mash to say…NO causal link between the right to carry and reduced crime.  This right wing argument is so much like their climate change rants…they cow and crow that because they don’t like the science  they then refuse to  believe the science.

Finally, I refused to be lectured by those on the right and those in the gun lobby that they should be painted as victims in this argument because they feel as if their rights are being abridged.

So I site the following:

Sandy Hook Elementary, three semi-automatic guns used, gun owner killed by her gun and her child. Her guns legally owned fell into the hands of a lunatic because she didn’t have a sense of moral decency to rid her home of these horrid tools.  Sadly, Nancy Lanza knew her son was nuts. But the gun toting genie was out of the bottle and twenty six teachers and children shot dead in less than fifteen minutes. In my opinion, the first victim, Nancy Lanza, guilty of accessory to murder and to that she was sentenced to death prior to the crime. And worst of all, her death sentence was carried out by her child. 

At Virginia Tech, Seung Hui Cho, described by ABC News as insane/mentally ill buys two guns legally, passes background checks and in fifteen minutes shoots fifty six and kills thirty two. The internet gun sellers are NEVER held to account for their accessory to murder in the sale of those weapons. Neither is the NRA which works tirelessly to weaken gun control laws.  Interestingly, Virginia Tech has been sued because of the actions of Cho the lunatic.  Yet I can find no evidence that Eric Thompson president of TGSCOM, a company now closed that ran fifty websites that sell guns and sold Cho the Walther P22 used in commission of his murderous rampage has ever, EVER been held to any account for his culpability in dropping a weapon of mass destruction into the hands of a nut.  Yet there is some justice…. And Eric Thompson isn’t an innocent, he’s a fraud and a huckster.

So my point…it is morally bankrupt for the State of North Carolina in a fit of right wing hysteria to assert its rights on municipalities that are interested in protecting their citizens by enacting strict conceal carry laws. Secondly I site that a well-armed citizenry in Virginia and Connecticut and across this country is unable to prevent local holocausts while toting concealed weapons. No gun toting buckaroo stopped Adam Lanza or Seung Hui Cho or the 11,078 gun murders  committed in 2010 alone.

Well I really don't know...

Well I really don’t know…

Perhaps it was the fact that my forty ninth birthday had just passed. That I have had the realization that this party called life is beyond halfway over and that the slow slide to the finish line, really isn’t slow at all.  Maybe it was the realization that Thanksgiving and November 28^th marks what would have been Nana’s one hundred and second birthday and she’s been gone two months.  Then again, December 1 was World AIDS Day and thirty one tragic years have passed since this killer was named.

Whatever it was; yesterday left me emotional and weepy. It didn’t help that I watched a good portion of Angels in America; a movie that to this day instills abject terror in me. The story has so many threads that weave indelible scars throughout my life’s story. I have lived the story.  I have faced that terror. I still face those terrors.

You see, John, my John didn’t die of brain cancer. Well actually he did, but the underlying cause was AIDS. Wow, I’ve said it. John has been dead for nearly fourteen years. I held him as he died and he died of AIDS. There, now I’ve said it, twice. It’s time for me to come out of the closet again and face this reality head on. There is so much to do and I feel as if I need a cause. I need to step up and step out because until people like I do; this madness will continue.

Passing time

On September 24 2013 my Nana died. I was lucky enough to have some last fleeting moments with her. In fact when I arrived at her home on that day, she perked up when I walked in, she smiled and said my name and was gone twelve hours later. It was surreal.  I felt blessed to have some last moments with her.  That week in September also brought my brother and me face to face for the first time in about four years.  We had a brief conversation where my take away, as suspected, is that nothing is changed and most likely never will.  Interestingly, I’m past it.

The funeral and wake were fine.  It wasn’t a huge emotional carnival. Firstly, we’re not built that way and secondly Nana lived almost one hundred and two years.  She was unwell for the last two months of her life and no one should suffer; least of all my Nana.  As grandmothers go, my Nana was great. We were close, not so close that I shared everything with her or her with me.  There were aspects of each of our lives that we kept apart.  That is ok, her generation didn’t share everything and maybe I learned that lesson well from her.  Sitting here two months out, now I feel profound sadness and loss.  I keep wanting to call her on the telephone. Instead, I talk to her, much like I still talk to John and pray to God.

Thankfully, for the sake of my dad, I’d arranged for dad and mom to travel with me to Ireland for ten days in October. I think that the trip helped ease both of them through the process of Nana’s passing.  We had a great time and the trip was structured in a way to make dad comfortable.  Still, TSA and the mess that is the American airport leave me scratching my head. I wonder, exactly who won the battle on September 11? I don’t think it was the American traveler or air transit system. The screening system is silly, stupid and inefficient. There are indeed scores of blue shirted TSA employees standing around doing little if nothing.

My take away on all of this; enjoy your moments, stay close to loved ones and when traveling through US airports wear shoes that slid off and on easily.

North Carolina talibanistan

Things here in the old north state have gone a bit wacky and off the rails.  The scariness started a year ago with an amendment to the state constitution baring same sex marriage and since then things have been terrifying for those of us who are progressive.  Currently we have a state legislature and a governor who are right of Attila the Hun. 

Since storming into control in Raleigh the governor and his henchmen in the General Assembly have gone after everything from Dorthea Dix hospital to teacher tenure.  The former governor crafted a deal with the city of Raleigh to lease the Dorthea Dix mental hospital to the city of Raleigh.  Raleigh would create a regional park on the campus.  The legislature cancelled a SIGNED CONTRACT.  Talk about bad precedence.  If a binding contract can be unilaterally terminated because a signor to such has had a change of mind, well then the whole rule of law has just been sent through the paper shredder.  More reasonable behavior would have been a meeting to renegotiate.

Teachers in our state now will get no pay raise...AGAIN.  The public system is being gutted by an ill conceived voucher system for charter schools and teacher tenure is gone.  I sure hope the educators in the conservative counties in the east and west remember this come election time.

In North Carolina seventh graders must now be taught that abortion can impact future pregnancies.  This at the whim of the legislature.  I wonder if the mental midgets in Raleigh will legislate that drinking or using tobacco can also impact pregnancy.  I doubt it. 

Voting rights in this state have been gutted by a twenty first century version of a poll tax.  Voters now will have less time to vote, less time to register, may be challenged at the poll by anyone registered in their county, thus nullifying their vote.  Additionally, those who are poor, who don't drive, who live in the state's urban centers must now have a state issued photo id in order to vote.  Um, I wonder who that requirement is aimed at?  Could it be poor Democrats?  Of course.

There is so much moor that this evil General Assembly has been up to.  So to those thinking about North Carolina, don't.  Stay away because for the foreseeable future this is one scary place to live.

A Helicopter Magpie of a Momma

I knew when the phone rang it was trouble. The voice on the other end was akin to a Magpie on speed. It was the mother of a new tenant. Her voice had a bit of a skreetch with a thick Charlotte, NC accent and an air of anxiety. From the word hello, there was an agenda. Her agenda was to make my life miserable for a day, perhaps more. There is something terribly sad and pathetic when a grown person relies on a helicopter parent into their thirties or sometimes older. The purposes of the initial phone call this morning; to prompt me to immediate action on her child’s behalf. Truth be known, I’d already been in action for days. The underlying agenda of momma; to remove her precious little grown child from the new home she’d just leased. Momma just didn't approve.


Throughout the day, Magpie momma would amp up the pressure. She called no less than five times, she texted, she left messages and worse of all, she pecked away at her daughter until finally daughter called a lawyer to plead her case and get precious little grown child out of the lease. I let her go, after six hours of struggle. The lawyer is a liar, claiming that she’s been in the legal profession for twenty years; funny she received her J.D. in 2008, so her math doesn’t add up. Why did I acquiesce? Simple, I didn’t want to hear any more of it, I couldn’t win with three against one and I have someone else lined up to rent the home. The next tenant, self reliant, poised, capable and her momma isn’t hovering around line a maniacal helicopter on acid.

Melting pot, mixing bowl, my American Family

My brother adopted two Rwandan teenagers who were in an orphanage in Uganda.  Jasmine and Julian are growing into fine adults, they are now twenty two.  They are also quickly entering proper adulthood with college nearly done and thoughts of starting their own families brewing. 

This past weekend at my parents, Jasmine’s beau asked her to marry him. How touching that Mr. Christian Fuentes would ask his family; mother, step father and three out of four of his brothers to travel from Maryland to Smyrna, NC to be part of the event and part of our family.

So let me map this out to you. My family, both sides have been here in North America for hundreds of years.  My mother’s father’s family the longest, dating back to the late 1600’s or early 1700’s and part of her family Native American so perhaps thousands of years.  Then a branch of my father’s family, the Sullivan clan several hundred years have been present here in North America.

So this past Saturday late afternoon, with a cool wind blowing out of the north across Core Sound and brilliant sunshine, Christian Fuentes, first generation citizen via El Salvador asked Jasmine Sullivan my niece, first generation citizen via Uganda via Rwanda to marry him.  She said, “Yes.” 

In one generation, my American family makes the most dramatic mix that it has seen in two generations. The last great mix occurred when my very Dutch American grandmother married my very Irish American grandfather. 

Sitting comfortably here in 2013, I'd just love to see what this American family looks like in 2113. 

Thank you BB & T

A week ago I decided it would be a novel idea if I opened a line of credit form my growing real estate business.  Up until now I've operated on a cash only basis. That said, we are in a rather robust growth spurt.  I fully expect my business to double this year and I though it might be a good idea to grow with someone else's money.

So, with this business growth in mind, I toddled off to my local BB and T.  I've been "fully" banked with them for years. I have two business acoounts with them, a money market, a credit card, a personal checking account, retirement account and an annuity. I sat down with the branch manager, he filled in my paperwork and said he'd have an answer in a few days.

Two days later the manager called to tell me that I had to unfreeze my social security number at the credit bureau so that the bank could run my personal credit history. I refused and asked if an approval could be rendered based on the assets that I had housed in his bank.  He said, "I can't do that."

When I hear can't, I substiture won't. In my mind I heard the bank say we won't do that. Ok fine with me, I won't be acquiring a line of credit with BB and T. When the time is right I might also move all of my accounts. As I say often, no is a very expensive word.

Linda Harvey and her ilk

Linda Harvey and her views on gay people and gay marriage.

Linda Harvey claims that gay marriage will victimize children.  I say people like Linda Harvey victimize children with their narrow minded, bigoted views of what gay and lesbian people are.  I think people like Linda Harvey are responsible for this…

This is a photo of a gay man who was bashed because of who he is. He wasn’t bashed in the US but in France where the marriage debate is just as heated as here. I'd say he's a victim.

Estrangement is strange

Estrangement is…strange

It is amazing to me how years quickly melt away and how the agonizing pain of estrangement ebbs with the passing of time. Early in the alienation I would obsess with what actions I could take to fix the problem with my brother. I tried calling at first, that didn’t work. Then as I grew ever angrier and frustrated I would lash out in writing, mostly directed at my brother’s wife, who I still hold responsible to a large degree for the schism in my family. With the clarity of distance I see that she doesn’t bear the entire burden, most of it, but  not all of it.  My brother, who is using his silence and withdrawal of love as a weapon is responsible too. I wonder if this is how he practices his family counseling and if this is what they teach at Liberty University?

I suppose years ago I could have kept quiet, but in my mind that would have made me just as guilty in the premeditated attempt to destroy my nephew Julian’s life. The demand that was never spoken was that since my brother and his wife had disowned Julian, we the extended family was to do the same in lock step. Of course Julian just happened to get into a little trouble at the time and so we were also to join in the call to send him to jail.

My conscience would not let me do that; so based on cost/benefit analysis I spoke up and four years into my brother’s silence; this is the cost.  Would I do it again knowing what I know now?  I think so. There was so much more than Julian at play and based on my brother’s actions even if I’d said nothing, I think at some point we’d be where we are now.  I’m sure there would have been some sort of precipitating event. I suspect that my brother’s wife; getting all that she needed out of my parents, had decided that she was done with us.  She no longer needed my folk’s money, support and babysitting and we were now starting to call into question their actions as a “parents” and so, she was done and he went along with it.

Currently there is still drama because this Lynchburg cadre won’t turn Julian’s final adoption decree over to my nephew. Julian wants to travel back to Uganda to see friends. The US State department won’t issue a passport without the final decree.  My mom requested that my brother give it over and my brother refused.  There is a blow up brewing because of this horribly bad behavior. Julian is an adult and they are still abusing him.

My mom now stands accused of not respecting some never articulated boundary in asking for Julian’s writ of adoption.  This is all part of the brain screw that they play. It’s like; there are many rules, we’re not going to tell YOU what the rules are; but, you will know that you violated a rule when we punish you. Additionally, some rules will require very strict punishment and others won’t, but the severity of punishment will change when we see fit. Oh, we won’t tell you when that’s going to happen either.

So, my brother and I are estranged because I was honest.  The situation inside my family is sad.  It’s sad for my folks, it’s sad for Jasmine and Julian and I can guess on some level it’s sad for my brother. Can I change any of this? No. Do I want to? No, because it would mean being a part of the lunacy.

I'm sure a quick study will undertand why this photo was put in this post.

I Don't Understand

John with the look. Barcelona 1999

Castle in Ibiza

 

As I stood at the altar of Immaculate Conception Church looking out at our assembled friends while delivering John’s eulogy, I noticed that our friend Brad, sitting next to his partner Thom looked furious.  Interestingly, the more I spoke the angrier he seemed to get and by the end of my fifteen minute remembrance Brad was undone to the point where he couldn’t sit still.  Yet despite his agitation, Brad and Thom showed up after the memorial for the reception at my home and as they departed they promised to stay in touch.

We’d been casual close friends, dinner at one another’s homes, short vacations together to Ocracoke Island for the weekend, pool parties at our place and in the final year of John’s life; before he got sick an amazing European vacation that included renting a castle on the island of Ibiza. Once Johns was sick, I don’t recall Brad and Thom being around much. They visited when John had turned for the worst and was comatose in the hospital. In his final weeks at home they didn’t stop by until the night he died, then Brad came alone, perhaps Thom was traveling.

In between Spain and John being diagnosed with lymphoma; we had separated. The stress of renovating a one hundred year old home, building a business, John’s travel schedule and mutual immaturity and changing life perspectives had driven us apart.  Perhaps on some level John knew that he was sick and needed me to leave for a while so that we’d be strong for the fight for his life. There is a photo of John in Barcelona where he looks aware of something coming down the pike.  This is an assumption. It’s something that John and I never talked about. We just hadn’t had time. When he and I separated I was ready to move on for good.  I think John was ready too; he’d started courting a housemate of Brad and Thom’s; I imagine if John had lived that courtship might have gone somewhere.

Brad and Thom had decided during my separation from John, who they'd remain friends with. It wasn’t me.  That was ok too, they had been friends with John first and although we got along. I’d always been a little mistrustful of them.  Brad especially had an acidic tongue and wouldn’t bat an eye when it came to dissing or gossiping; even if the brunt were his closes friends or even his partner.  He tended to present as queen bee which is rather ironic because Thom was the steady earner as a scientist. Brad was an artist, very capable but not really driven.  John and Thom were close because they’d worked together. I was the accidental and disposable friend because I was sleeping with John. When that ended so did the friendship in their eyes.

So at the memorial service Brad was furious and then in the heart wrenching years after John died, when I really needed friends, I heard nothing. No cards, no phone calls, no emails, nothing.  It wasn’t until we ran into one another by happenstance years later that the light bulb went on for me. I’d gone out to a bar with some friends, something I just don’t do anymore and Brad and Thom were there. Being adult and in the company of one another we spoke and I was told that they weren’t mad at me.  I found that proclamation odd.  The years of silence meant something right? There was anger and now it had been articulated, but what was it?

I suppose John could have vented to them about all that had gone wrong between us and my verbal painting at the eulogy was rather idealistic and contrary to the reality of our split up. Silly me, but it just didn’t seem appropriate at John’s funeral to go into the details of our split up and all that had gone wrong in our life together. After all he’d just lost his life. I suppose that Brad and Thom expected to participate in John’s service and they weren’t asked.  I included people who were within my line of site at the time.  

In the end, I’ll never know what the answer is. They aren’t part of my life, my true friends are close and have remained close; still it would have been nice to have a few more people around who knew and remember John. It would be nice to have more people close at hand who could reflect and remember aspects of a great guy seen through the kaleidoscope of their perceptions.

Our Identity

Identity

Sexual identity is at the core of our sexuality. Just as with other aspects of our identity (male or female, young or old, and so on) our sexual identity is how we see our sexual self and how we express that part of ourself to others.

But it is just part of yourself - there is more to you as a person than your sexual identity. Most people have many relationships, such as with friends and family that have nothing to do with their sexual identity.

Today on Facebook a second cousin of mine wrote that Jesus loves the homosexual but hates homosexuality.  I cannot for the life of me find any scriptural passage that says any such thing. 

I bristle at such statements.  I also won’t tolerate them without a reaction.  To condemn one’s sexual identity is to condemn the core of one’s being. It is at essence a condemnation of one’s spirit and soul.  It also is an operation from a point of believing that the homosexual has made a conscience decision to be what they are.  This is illogical and no more grounded in foundation than saying that a woman makes a choice to be female, an Asian to be Asian, a heterosexual to be same.

Speaking only from the kaleidoscope of my perception, I NEVER, EVER made a choice to be gay or homosexual.  From my earliest recollections I was attracted to men; early recollections like elementary school. I was less than ten years old.  I was reading Ann Landers the famous advice columnist when I was in second grade; there was a letter from a gay man regarding coming out of the closet; I stood in our dining room at 53 Bortic Rd. in Cedar Grove, NJ and knew at that moment what I was.

The decision I made when I was much older, seventeen years old to be exact was, that I would NOT live in shame or silence.  I would live honestly and true to myself.  To anyone who would state otherwise, my question to them is simple; when, just when as a heterosexual person did YOU make a decision to be heterosexual?  And, how many homosexual experiences did YOU have before you made that decision?  Typically, this course of questioning shuts down the debate, indictment and crucifixion because, there is typically NO answer. Or better yet, no honest answer.  So to my cousin, wow, and thanks for lumping me in with murderers that association really, really hurts.