Musings from Durham NC: Same Sex Marriage

Musings from Durham NC: Same Sex Marriage: Me behind and John in front a different and happy time I am emotional. I think of all of the what ifs. I wonder about the future, my fut...

Same Sex Marriage

Me behind and John in front a different and happy time

I am emotional. I think of all of the what ifs. I wonder about the future, my future and whether or not it will continue to be solitary. A monumental social and legal shift has rekindled all of these thoughts.

The Supreme Court has ruled same sex marriage legal in all fifty United States.  I think John Boucvalt my deceased partner would be pleased. I wish he had lived to see the day. He didn't so his memory will be relegated to his time in history which ended too soon, fifteen years ago.

In this ever desensitized virtual world that we live in I am confronted with crass, rude and outrageous comments and commentary. From "family" God is still on the throne and we'll never accept this. My mind can't help substituting "this" with "you." So, I've decided that if some in my family cannot afford me the dignity of acceptance then, we're done. I won't tolerate this from my brother and his wife so I'm certainly not going to tolerate it from a cousin or a cousin's kid. I won't be rude or confrontational, I will just disappear and remember.  In media we are hearing of God fearing lunatics threatening self immolation.

Let me sum that up in one sentence: I will buy you the gas and matches, so go for it.

In thinking about my future, I wonder if all of this has happened too late in the game for me. In gay years I'm ancient and not many fellows from my era survived the plague or life in general. I came of age when it was accepted and applauded to think and even say all of the right people are dying of AIDS. When I look inside and reflect I see a man who is more and more set in his ways, one who enjoys his own company, one who enjoys his solitude and one who isn't making room for another person in his life. This man isn't lonely, just solitary much of the time.

So, my take away from all of this is that I'll be happy for the fight we fought and hopeful that young men and women who love someone of the same gender will have equal protection under the law and will marry and forge dynamic and joyful lives with one another.  And to my brothers and sisters who didn't live to see this day, rest in peace and thank you for fighting the good fight and paving the way. Thank you for fighting back at Stonewall, marching in Washington, selflessly giving time, money and other resources and love. Your sacrifices put the rainbow flag in the consciousness of the country and for that you are appreciated.

A disaster of epic proportions

To say that this May has been a terrible, tornado of a shit storm would be an understatement. If I had my way, I'd remove the month of May from the calendar forever. In the scheme of bad things happening May and October generally are number one and two on my hit parade. This year the stars aligned for epic drama and disappointment in the merry, merry month of...May.

My nephew Julian who I have gone to bat for many times, as it turns out is a liar and a thief. There is a lack of moral compass in his character and he like so many of us is his own worst enemy. Perhaps if he had received counselling when he was a teenager or before, his present situation could have been averted. At present he is a resident of the Durham County Jail as a guest of the sheriff.

Early in May my mom and dad phoned me to inform me that Julian had forged checks while living in Lynchburg, VA with Ms. Annie. Julian ended up with  Ms. Annie when his parents, my brother and his wife kicked him out. Julian's adopted parents were not proactive when they plucked him out of an African orphanage and brought him to the U.S..There was no family counseling and Julian and his sister were thrust into the bedlam and chaos that is my brother's home and his wive's life. When things got too tense with the kid they tossed him out. As ill equipped as Julian's parents are, I wasn't surprised when they just gave up.

So early in May I become enlightened and in the know regarding Julian's criminal behavior. I'd suspected his multiple lies from early on and my parent's reporting confirmed my suspicions. In fact I'd started setting him up with little tests of character, ethics and morality. On a near weekly basis he failed those tests. He abused my trust when I was out of town and didn't work at his assigned tasks. He stole a debit card and ultimately he stole checks from me and forged and cashed one of two checks. Sadly, I had told him exactly what I'd do if he stole from me. So on the night of the discovery, he was arrested. That was three weeks ago.

Retrospectively, allowing Julian to live in my home was a mistake. He lacks motivation and drive to succeed and is content to just let work come his way.  When he does work he does good work but I discovered that he is consistently on the watch for situations where he can cheat or take advantage, which  would lead to lies upon lies. Toward the end of his tenure here, I felt like a captive in my own home and I was  locking everything up. Julian like so many of his ilk underestimated me even though time after time I would bust him, confront him and call him out on his behavior.

So, now my question is, where do we go from here?  I won't allow Julian's parents to be part of my life because of their lack of honesty, do I except Julian?  I don't know. I do know that he can't live in my home.  I know that he may not come into my home or my parents home other than for short, supervised visits. Do I offer him his job back knowing that on many occasions  he was not where he was supposed to be or doing what he was supposed to be doing?  Again, I don't know. I do know that if I forsake him now he'll end up in the criminal justice system for sure. At the core of my being, I think he'll end up in the system anyway,
but without action on my part it will be sooner rather than later.

Inability to communicate leads to excommunication

I heard a radio talk show host say: the inability to communicate like an adult leads to excommunication. I found those words rather profound. In the last month having Julian my nephew here with me has caused me to think about my brother more than I have in the last two to three years. I have consciously worked to  put Dan out of my mind so much so that Mom, Dad and I rarely chew on it anymore.

Over the past couple of years I had gotten myself beyond thinking about Dan and his family and in general what his life must be like and whether or not there would ever be a relationship between us again. One can only beat the head against the wall but so long before one passes out or simply stops because of the pain. I also finally thew away the hope that Dan would re-emerge  and ask me back to participate in his life; even in a limited fashion.

I have also flushed the fury that I had whereby I would tell my brother to go **&$%##% himself if he ever reappeared as a way of getting even with him. In thinking about it and praying about it; I realize that a tit for tat response and slamming of the door on my part would make me just as wrong, weak, damaging, hurtful and inept as my brother is. Dan's inability to communicate as an adult has lead to him excommunicating me, his daughter Jasmine, his son Julian and my parents. The damage his actions have caused are irreparable in my opinion. Still at times, I think and I hope. I'm human, who wouldn't?

St. Anselm's Abbey

I spent last weekend in Washington DC at a lovely place called St. Anselm's Abbey, a Benedictine monastery and school for young men grades six through twelve.   I was at the abbey to drop off one of my dearest and oldest friends for his journey into a new life of monastic living and ultimately, God willing the priesthood.  The weekend was enchanting and sad at the same time.




The abbey sits on forty or so acres in the north east section of the city. It is serene, secluded and much like Don Bosco College in Newton New Jersey was when attended summer camp there as a boy. The abbey like Don Bosco generated feelings of warmth and happiness in me. As a guest I was set aside from the monks in what had been at one time the original part of the monastery.  My room was simple but comfortable. More than anything, the place is quiet except for the occasional call to prayer which is done by buzzer or bell.


The monks allow guests who visit to do their own thing; I opted to participate in their monastic routine. This meant I was up at six for six twenty prayer, then breakfast, then mass, then midday prayer, then vespers and finally compline.  I didn't get to midday prayer because on Saturday I went to the National Gallery and on Sunday I left after mass.  I felt it was best if I let my friend Brian get on with it and that wasn't going to happen if he had to worry about me or think about me being there on site.


I found the prayers and the ritual lovely. The prayers were responsive and anyone present could participate. So there were cantors and then the choir and congregation responded and most of the prayers were Psalms which by the very nature of the poetry is beautiful.  I was especially struck during morning prayer that we started while outdoors it was night and by the time prayer concluded the sun had arisen. It was a very refreshing way to start a day.


The visit was bittersweet and as I left I felt a profound sense of loss in leaving my friend Brian there.  I think that this calling is going to work for him and I think the Benedictines of St. Anselm's Abbey are where he needs to be.  Brian is a very gentle and old soul and I'm not sure that the twenty first century world was a good place for him.  St. Anselm's offers him a place of silence, a big city for ministry, wonderful men to share the journey with and a lovely surrounding.

Parenthood

At fifty I find myself as a quasi parent. This is something that I really never considered or saw coming.  My nephew, who is twenty four has moved in. Three days in and we're trying to figure things out and adjust. I know it will be an adjustment for both of us.  In my opinion my nephew isn't well equipped to deal with adulthood just yet.  I don't think he's been well taught.

He arrived with the intention of becoming a truck drive and of going to driving school.  I thought that was an admirable plan. Today we learned that this wasn't going to work out.  My nephews driving record has some problems, some dinks, some points. The trucking companies won't hire him without a clean license; that makes sense.  So, we're now in the process of finding gainful employment.  Time is of the essence, he starts paying me rent on April 1.

My brother and his wife didn't do my nephew any favors. They brought him here from Africa and then placed him under home school house arrest treating him like a little kid and when the going got tough, kicked him out. I have to give my nephew credit, for the last six years he's survived. He has been richly blessed by a very generous woman who selflessly supported and helped my nephew. However, I think young men need strong male role models; something that has been lacking in this young man's life.  

Amendment One

The death of amendment one in North Carolina

There is howling on the right, North Carolina's Amendment One, banning same sex marriage is dead, overturned. Some of the howling is that 61% of the populations will, those who voted in favor, has been discounted. That 61% number is plain wrong; nowhere near that number of residents in North Carolina voted for amendment one, however the fact that anyone voted for it is disturbing. 

Those on the right are angry and perhaps hurt. Their hurt while misguided and unjustified cannot compare to a lifetime of marginalization that my community has endured. I remember vividly the day amendment one passed and the excruciating agony that I felt in the realization that people who I knew, loved, trusted might have voted in a manner to hurt me. Many people who voted for the amendment believe that GLBT people somehow choose to be what they are. Its no more a choice than skin color, hair color or gender but even if it is a choice; it is a personal one, and the majority has no right, according to the US Constitution to abridge that right or choice. 

So today, I feel better knowing that it's over for marriage inequality. For me though its too late. My partner died fourteen years ago and because we weren't married, because it wasn't legal, the financial ramifications on top of the heart break were very devastating. The fact that John's family felt that they could bully me, and did, though we were well prepared legally for his death, made our relationship and partnership less valid. Being able to marry would have added civil validity to our cause.  So today I'm happy knowing that in North Carolina a same sex couple will never again have to face what I faced. 

Nothing better to do

With Ebola breaking out at catastrophic levels, the middle east devolving into World War Three, an economy in major trouble and a plethora of domestic problems; the douche bag on the left Sean Hannity and the war criminal on the right Carl Rove have nothing better to do than talk about a salute.

This would have been vice president of the USA

Middle finger and birthday party brawl and all...

Sarah Palin former Governor of Alaska and Vice Presidential hopeful (middle finger and all)

Not even half of generation out of a single wide. 

Facebook Friends

Social media, social media friends

What happened to you? Did I make you mad?  We were Facebook friends and now we’re not.

To be friends with someone, there has to be mutual respect and open and honest communication. Friendship isn't something that was casual but pleasant many years ago and then turned into a few meals out. That’s acquaintanceship I think.  Additionally, real estate is my businesses so don’t quiz me on the market and then turn around and almost immediately and hire another agent to work for you.  Ask the person that you’re going to hire your questions and share with them your worries and anxieties.  Such ended the virtual and casual ‘friendship’ of Shrub family, really!

I know that I’ve been guilty of taking the “Facebook” thing too far. At the outset; why I friended everyone that I’d ever had a nodding acquaintance with or even so much as heard their name in high school, college or professionally.  It didn't matter if I didn't know them; or like them; or respect them or in some cases of Facebook friendship really admire them.  In the past few years though, I have culled the “Friendships” such that they were.  The varieties of reactions have been interesting. This includes family too.

Steve Hips, an uber-conservative with that annoying bend that he is convinced that he and his kind are the only people going to heaven was one such friend.  This until the Hipster; (not his real name) decided that he had complete and accurate insight as to his hero and modern day messiah, Ronald Reagan. When I was nauseated enough by Stevereno’s posts on Facebook, I deleted him; after of course launching some philosophical hand grenades. Oh it felt good.  Kind of like a virtual orgasm, total release and freedom. Unfortunately, the Hipster felt compelled to then text me until I threatened police intervention.  Stevereno didn't respect me enough to just let me go away, he had to peck, peck, peck a bit more until I was totally pissed off.

As for family, well if you've been following me, I've laid it all out here. Anyhow, here’s the rub, virtual ‘friends’ are not. They are people with whom perhaps there was a brief dalliance or commonality. To trust anyone except the closest intimates with the most trivial and banal of day to day life is just, well, silly now isn't it? The irony of what I do here is not lost on me by the way!

Global Travels of a Lunatic

Everyone deserves a vacation, especially a good mother, a mother of so many who is trapped at home day in and day out, with lessons to prep and teach and bickering and so many petty squabbles.  Was it any wonder that when eldest daughter was invited east to the Orient that one wouldn't just jump at the chance to claw out of these hills and go?  Besides, who better to keep an eye on that daughter than her mommy? Certainly a seventeen year old can’t be trusted to go off on her own; what with her hormones raging and boys being what they are, always hunting, looking, hoping and preying. Well, you know.

Plus, it’s really a free trip; we’d have a place to stay; with church people no less; missionaries doing God’s good work. Certainly they’ll take care of room and board; so really only airfare is required and how much could a ticket to the Orient really cost?  It will be well worth the price.  Yes indeed, well worth the price given the endless days of fighting over history, math, spelling and reading. Well worth the price after endless baloney sandwiches at the city pool and teeth and lips made orange by dollar store Cheetos. Well worth the price after endless Sundays of choir practice and running back and forth and back and forth to church.   Well worth the price after endless one pot wonder meals and endless dinner table tantrums.

He’ll buy me a ticket; he better or I’ll make him pay. He’ll buy me a ticket; this way he can be home and he can teach and look after the rest and he can listen to the endless hours of bickering, arguing, fighting over history, math, spelling and reading.  It will be a nice break for him too. He’ll be home and off work.  He can take all of them to the pool or park or hiking on the trails. He can catch up on housework and laundry and so much that needs to be done here.  It will be a nice vacation for him too.

I can just imagine it; the east; the Orient; so exotic and strange. Why I’ll bet that one of the natives will invite us to go to a bath.  It isn't just a bath, you know; it’s social; it’s community. We’ll soak and talk and really get a feel for the culture.  Of course I won’t let a seventeen year old go alone; I have to go, to watch, to chaperon, to teach and set an example of mommy hood and sophistication. I can just imagine what a wonderful bonding experience this will be for the two of us. A time for us to really dig down and find the love and respect that’s there and yet to be uncovered.   This trip will open her eyes to just how wonderful I am and how lucky she is that we adopted her.  Perhaps she’ll realize that I am indeed her mommy and I am so hopeful that she’ll stop calling me just , mom and start calling me what I am, mommy.

I’m sure my seventeen year old won’t mind having me along. I have so much to offer and bring to the table. Having traveled as much as I have to Europe and the former Soviet Union; well after all I am a virtually a globe trotter. Not worldly though, good gracious no, not worldly, just well, um, well-traveled and enlightened. It will be a comfortable experience too. We’ll stay with friends of friends, church folks. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have us.  It is their charitable thing to do. I can be charitable in return too.  Perhaps they’ll have some sort of package or treats that I can bring home for their friends. Some token of love and appreciation; it’s really no bother for me to take on that burden; plus it’s so nice to be trusted. I will tote that package of treats triumphantly out of the east and deliver it to its rightful owner here in the hills.

Some other people in this position might rip into the package. They might even do so while on the plane on the way home; and some people just might eat the treats and keep the gift that is intended for someone else.  Why I can hardly imagine that! I can hardly imagine how someone could feel so justified in taking a gift intended for someone else. I suppose lesser people like gypsies or homosexuals might think that they’d never get caught. Why the mission folks in the Orient would have to talk to their friends back home in the hills and would actually have to ask after the gift.  Again, who would do such a thing?  Could church folk, doing God’s good work in bringing the yellow man to the fold be so mistrusting as to question one who is so lovingly bringing a gift home? Oh I don’t think so.

Oh I can just imagine all of this, my trip to the east, to the Orient, to Asia and so many teachable moments for me to bring home to the brood. Why, I’ll bet that I’ll get at least six months of lessons out of this experience. Maybe, some of the other mommy teachers will ask me to step in and enrich their children too. So, I guess I must go; I owe it to my children and to the other children of the hills to go and absorb the riches of the Orient so that I can safely deliver those riches back home.

Sidewalks to nowhere...

Sidewalks to nowhere

As seen in the photo above, Shannon Rd. Durham NC, between Martin Luther King Parkway and Old Chapel Hill Rd. headed toward Shannon Plaza.

One walks on lovely sidewalks, then for no rhyme or reason, for fifty feet or so the sidewalk stops and the path becomes dirt.  This is just one of countless sidewalks to nowhere.

Durham, NC has a sidewalk ordinance and Durham NC governement demands payment in lieu of by builders and developers, whereby the builders and developers can pay the county a ransom and NOT build sidewalks as required by their commercial or developmental endeavors.

I must ask and I must know, where oh where to those payments in lieu of go?

Mike Huckabee, me thinks he doth protest too much

Oh, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike; what a  pathetic try.

The segregationists said that they were on the right side of the Bible.

The men trying to deny women’s suffrage said they were on the right side of the Bible.

The owners of millions of enslaved Africans said they were on the right side of the Bible.

The British, Spanish and European conquerors of the Native American people said they were on the right side of the Bible.

The Grand Inquisitors said they were on the right side of the Bible.

The Crusaders said they were on the right side of the Bible.

The crucifiers of Christ said THEY were on the right side of the Bible.

I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut too that they’d all say that the Bible wasn’t their book to change.  True, but their attitudes, prejudices and actions were theirs to change.

Interestingly, Huckabee, a supposedly enlightened man says that unless God drops the Bible down from Heaven, edited and signed; it’s not his book to change.

I think that this ordained minister might need to go back to divinity school.  The Bible most certainly did NOT drop from Heaven signed by God in its finished, edited form.  This book was inspired by events and God and written by men within the confines of their place in time.

Huckabee by his words proves that he is not Presidential material.

Homo Fascist, wow!

Homo Facists

How friggin ironic that right wing wackadoodles are so fast to scream and rant the term homo fascist or homo bully when the faggots (name I proudly wear) stand up and push back and more importantly WIN.

The likes of Pat Robertson,  Dan Cathy (Chick Fil-Gag), Mike Huckabee,  Scott Lively  author of “The Pink Swastika” and countless others are in all out tailspin because we are pushing back and winning.  Lively is particularly odious with his book title; which is as overly dramatic as a Tiera wearing Nancy-boy in full meltdown and just morally wrong, since countless gays were slaughtered under Hitler’s Third Reich and the banner of the Swastika.

Perhaps Scott Lively like Ann Coulter doesn’t believe his brand of bull shit. Perhaps Scott Lively is incendiary in his use of language just to earn a few tainted dollars like the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and all of the mental midgets at Fox News and their bovine investors and advertisers.

I have news for this neanderthalistic crew of unenlightened idiots.  We, the homo fascists will keep punishing the likes of FireFox/Mozilla and their now unemployed CEO Brendan Eich, for their poor, narrow minded, bigoted political decisions. We will continue to shine a spotlight on the horrid policies and donations of Chick Fil-Gag until they, as Chick Fil-Gag has done walk away from those horrid policies.  We will continue to boycott the likes of Mississippi, when states such as, pass so called religious freedom laws that are nothing more than permission to discriminate based on a whim.

Finally, I will continue to call out these so called avengers and innocent victims. For years, decades and centuries even, abusers  have used far worse tactics to deal with anyone who didn't fit their definition of normal. Those outside the realm of normal have been bullied, beaten, kicked, killed, imprisoned and exterminated and yet the keepers of the keys have the gall to call those who fight back fascist.  Wow.

Author, Lawyer and nit wit Scott Lively

Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps the infamous founder of the Westboro Church has died.  I've left Baptist off the name intentionally as there is really nothing Baptist about that church. Phelps and his church are known for their campaign of hate and picketing that God hates fags, God hates America and for picketing the funerals of fallen American soldiers.

I met Fred Phelps once, in 1993 at the March on Washington. Fred Phelps was one of the few people that upon initial meeting scared me beyond belief.  He had a way of staring that made me feel as he spoke to me as if he were staring into my soul.  The stare wasn't kind, it was creepy.  Prior to our brief meeting in 1993 I'd never heard of Fred Phelps.

In spite of how truly scary Fred Phelps was, I can't help feeling sorry for him.  I feel sorry for the tortured soul who felt inclined to live a huge portion of his adult life fostering hate and discord. He is a man who spent a large portion of his life bullying gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender folks. What must have happen in Phelps life to make him so jaded and so hateful to the least of these.  I would ask the same question of Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and any number of other fundamental Bible beating Christians who spew hate and intolerance.

I wonder what happened to the poor souls to make them so mean spirited and so far off Christ's path.  I used to get angry, now I pity them and pray for them.  I think that their souls are tortured.

Subway Durham/Chapel Hill Blvd. Durham NC 27707

• 

  I have visited this Subway before and it was ok, but today, not so much.
  
  There was no line and the store was not busy. It was clean.
  
  The man working the register needed to leave his post to create my sandwich because the other sandwich worker was restocking the service line. His unhappiness was so evident as he put on his plastic gloves and then chastised the restocker for not restocking properly.
  
  It was so obvious that Mr. Cash Register was NOT happy about having to make my six inch tuna fish sub on cheesy bread. He tried to up sell me a foot long twice and was somewhat miffed that I declined the deal. Part of my self restraint shtick is to deny myself the opportunity to over eat. Buy a foot long and yep, I eat a foot long. Buy six inch sandwich and that's all I'll eat.
  
  I did purchase the combo though, chips and a drink make me happy and my order was to go.  I had a Subway gift card. I handed Mr. Register the gift card, he was off the service line and back at his register but still not happy,  he swiped the card. Alas there was a balance of only $1.87 on the card. I had to walk to my car to get cash. His tone was horribly condescending when he told me that I needed $5.06 more to complete my transaction.  I debated just leaving when I got to my car. I didn't, I snagged my wallet and went back in.
  
  I asked how much more money he needed and he told me $5.06, I handed him $6.00.  (Aside, no one was at the register) I was not holding up traffic.
  
  I handed Mr. Register $6.00 and he looked at me like I was an idiot and then at my money in his hand like it was some sort of vile concoction and asked me if I had $.06. His tone again full of condescension and rudeness.
  
  By now I'd had it and my snarky response was, "If I had six cents I would have given it to you."
  
  Mr. Register, not to be outdone, smacked one of my dollars and the gift card I'd previously given him together and thrust them at me.
  
  I told him to keep the dollar and the gift card and that I wouldn't be back.
  
  I can take marginal food, I can take marginal service but when one combines marginal food and horrible service, I will NEVER go back.  Sadly, the Q Shack is right next door and I could have gone there.

My Nana

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.  Interestingly, 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.

Mom and Dad at the Ring of Kerry about two weeks after Nana passed away.

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.