original marriage: union of man and rib

Stephen Colbert reports on original marriage and Jesus' opinion on homosexuality. Apparently Jesus was so enraged by it, he was speechless on the matter.

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Mom and I get a breakthrough... finally

Today my mother and I had a breakthrough.  No, my family and I had a breakthrough.  I have had breakthroughs before and they have never panned out, but for some reason I believe this one is real.  You see, I have been writing Mom a letter… a response to a letter she wrote me a couple months ago.  I have been struggling to write this letter for about three weeks now, and it has been on my mind relentlessly.  I have had difficulty thinking about other stuff because of the letter.  So, after about ten letters, each of which I just give up, because I don’t know how to or what to say, I finally just stopped out of frustration.  I wanted to call Mom to clear some things verbally and in a way prep her for what I would say.  Our conversation resolved the two minor issues I had with her original letter.

We made an agreement that if she would be honest with me and say what she really felt, I would be trustworthy to not rind her for it.  You see in the past, I have taken my anger towards the church out on her because I wanted her to differentiate herself from them, but she never would.  I would take my anger I had for my father out towards her by saying “yall” when I really meant Dad, because I wanted her to differentiate herself from him, but she wouldn’t.  I yearned for her to validate my feelings and assure me that what the church or dad did was not her feelings, but I didn’t get the type of reaction I wanted, she just remained silent.  Now when I look back on it, I feel terrible.  She really internalized my anger to other things towards her.  She believed I was angry at her and my bitterness was taken as an attack.  So I hurt my mother, yeah I feel great about that.

That isn’t to say that she has not hurt me – the hurt has definitely been passed around.  She has nothing on my Dad though.  Life has been hard, but I am a strong person for it.  So it is what it is.  I gave on my relationship with my father years ago before I moved to Atlanta.  One night when I was out with my friend Brett, I came home around midnight.  My dad was sitting at the breakfast table crying and he asked me to come over he had something he wanted to tell me.  For the next hour and a half he proceeded to tell me that I was killing Jesus with my homosexuality.  I am not entirely sure what that meant, how I was killing a deity with my sexual orientation.  Regardless, I had to sit there out of respect for my father and listen to him denigrate me for a significant period of time and keep my mouth shut.  I let him say whatever he wanted to say while just staring at him.  At that point, I was so over his gimmicks.  I was so over his bullying.  Finally when he was finished, I said to him that I listened to everything he had to say, and I also have something to say.  I said I want to respond to him and will he listen.  For about 2-5 minutes he simply sat there, shaking, no response.  Finally he stood up and started to walk away, then turned and said “I don’t have to listen to you.  I am standing for truth.  There is no response to be made to truth and I don’t have to listen to you, and I will not.”

That was the end of my relationship with my father.  I just released him at that moment.  He failed me miserably in that moment and I couldn’t handle caring anymore.  So for the years since, I felt a need to write him a letter.  I felt the need to respond for my own sanity, because I needed closure.  So I wrote a letter, and I wrote another letter, and another one and another and another one.  I wrote more letters than I could possibly count.  I would say that it was therapeutic, but then again, I had to continually relive those feelings over and over so they compounded on me.  After a while, it got to the point where I desperately wanted closure.  I became obsessed with finishing this letter and moving on with my life.  I finally simply gave up.  It’s like that say, “let go and let god” – at that moment I don’t remember if I believed in God (I go back and forth on that).  But it was that same sentiment.  I just had to let go, so I did.  Interestingly, in a matter of no time, I had already forgiven him without even realizing it.

So this was a similar sentiment.  Mom’s letter was not mean, she hadn’t done or said anything mean to me lately, but I felt the need to respond to her letter.  I had become consumed by it.  The last time we talked, she said something along the lines of “I love you but I hate that” and “I think a demon has tricked you into thinking you are gay and it’s real to you, but it really isn’t real”.  How do you argue with someone who thinks your reality isn’t real, except to you, but not really because it’s not really real, it’s a demon, but you’re not demon possessed or anything, you just believed a demon.  Um, ok Mom thanks.  I got my Masters Degree from Georgia Institute of Technology but a “demon” tricked me into thinking I’m gay… and also tricked millions of people throughout history as well, and the scientists who say its natural, and he still hasn’t been promoted or anything, he’s still just a demon. Thanks Mom.  How do you respond to that?  “Extreme Cognitive Dissonance” is the only thing that comes to my mind.

Anyway, we spoke on the phone.  She agreed to stop holding back and would tell me her truth and I promised I would do everything I could to be sensitive to not hurt her by anything I wanted to say.  I never once wanted to hurt her, I simply wanted her to see my pain and empathize with it, but I was also letting my fear of rejection prevent me from being real with her, so I was also at fault.

After that we talked about bridge building – it’s an inside understanding.  A prophet spoke over me many years ago saying I would be a bridge builder, I would be the first to cross them and on the other side it would be lonely because people would still be afraid to cross the bridge.  It’s all true.  I knew it when he said it, and I’m living it.  Mom responds well to validation of her beliefs.  She believes in God speaking through people, God’s promises and prophesies, etc.  So we talk about that for a little while.  She explained to me that in the past when I would try to push her to consider my dilemma, it would be as if a wall went up and she would instantly go into defense mode.  She continued though that on her own terms, she has walked in her mind to the edge of an abyss, looked down and asked God for guidance.  “If my belief on this subject is wrong, please tell me, please show me. If my reading of the scriptures is not accurate, please help me see the truth.”  For the first time, it sounds to me that mother is truly willing to listen, to look at the possibility that there is a deeper truth she is not recognizing.  In her letter she even acknowledged “My beliefs are meeting with your reality and it is causing us both pain” – which was the first time she ever acknowledged that my reality is real.

She agreed that she is now willing to hear information about other interpretations of scripture, translation errors, and even science.  So the breakthroughs here are enormous.  Mom is willing to hear alternative viewpoints on scripture and what science has to say about human sexuality, she acknowledged that my reality is real, and she also made a very valid point to me about my father.  I told her about how I think he hates gay people and I explained why, but what she reminded me were that those things happened or were said before my Dads ego was beaten to a pulp – before the church split, before most of our family friends turned their backs on us, and before the economy crashed and his construction trade was no longer in demand.  And she is right – he is a different person, his ego has taken a beating, he is very soft and humble these days.  He is very down to earth these days.  And I knew that, but I didn’t give him that benefit.  She told me not to judge him on things that happened way in the past.  I have changed, she has changed, Dad has changed – we have all grown, we are all different people.  So that’s a new perspective about him also.

All in all, I feel like a huge burden has been lifted off my shoulders.  I know the work is not done, but there is much less to do than I thought and there is actually hope in my heart that something good will come of age.

it gets better .... for some

For a while, its been pretty heavy on my heart to blog about my experiences as a gay man.  My experience is not unique - in that I am who I am, but my family does not support my humanity.  My father is seasoned minister of a fundamentalist Christian sect.  My mother goes along with what he says and does.  Of course, she is her own person, and has her own reasons for her belief system, but from my point of view, its seems that she takes a cue from him for spiritual guidance.  I guess one of the reasons I feel the need to raise my voice at this time, is because in the media, and in mainstream America, gay and lesbian people are becoming more accepted and loved.


However, while many are saying "it gets better" to the world, for many of us, it doesn't necessarily get that much better for everyone.  So I feel the need to point out that while mainstream America is moving forward, gay people are still suffering and hurting.  Families are still not accepting, churches are still hating, and pretty much all of the pain comes from religious fanaticism.  As bad as it is to partake in a faith system which ignores scientific truths of creation, many people who ascribe to such faith are hurting too.  They consider it a life or death issue - they see it as an attack on the fundamentals of their faith, not really seeing that those fundamentals have been attacked and changed numerous times in history.


My pain comes from the relationship I have with my parents.  My relationship with them is inauthentic by their obsession.  I want to live in truth and be able to speak truth and live in reality, but they dont want to accept truth or reality.  My parents want to divide my humanity in two pieces, so they can love the part they understand and hate or fear the part they dont understand.  But the problem with that, is that I am not two-halves of a person, I am one whole person.  My sexuality is ingrained in every aspect of who I am.  Because of it, I see and experience the world completely different from how they do.  So as long as they dualize me, they dehumanize me.


When they look at me and speak to me, they are speaking to an idea of me that is not real.  My parent are obsessed with a lie they want so badly to be true.  I dont feel loved.  They say they love me, and I believe that mentally they think they do.  I believe that they sincerely love a false concept of me, but the real me, I do not feel loved.  I feel alone in this world.


I dont even try with my father. Our relationship became tumultuous early in life, before I realized what sexuality was and where I fit into all that.  I believe he loves me, but I also believe that he genuinely hates gay people, individually and as a whole.  So where does that leave me?  Do I get grandfathered in because he didnt know that he was going to have a gay son?  I do think he makes an exception with me, but that exception is so thin that when I suck up oxygen around him, I feel like Im doing so on pins and needles.


My relationship with my Mom is different.  She says she loves me because I came out of her body, she cites a special bond that a mother has with her child - like a wave of energy that connect them when the cord is severed.  I believe her.  I really do.  From an evolutionary standpoint, I believe that my mother loves me as a mother loves her child.  But does she love me as the adult I have become?  Like I said earlier, its so hard to explain, to say I believe her intention to love me, but I dont feel it.  Its like you have to love the wholeness of someones humanity for them to feel it, and I dont feel it.


She has said "I love you, but I hate THAT."  And that pretty much sums it up.  I know some parents dont love their children, and some parents abandon their children.  I am not saying my life is so terrible, but when I look at my straight brother, and there is no biological aspect of him that they hate, there is no essence of his soul and being that they hate - its just not fair. It hurts so much.


Please understand why I am writing this and putting it out there.  I am writing my thoughts and feelings because other people are feeling and experiencing these same struggles.  It does not seem to be getting better for everyone, and those people also deserve a voice.  I do not want anyone who is still working through their metaphysical dilemma to feel that they are the only one.  There are others who are going through the same things and we understand.  I am not throwing myself a pity party, I am not seeking anyone.s sympathy.


Secondly, people in the church need to know what they are doing to gay souls.  Those responsible for the millions of hate crimes against humanity and gay teen suicides all over the world need to know what they are doing.  Just because we are alive does not mean we dont feel pain either.  The "pro-family" folk need to know the lives and families they are destroying.  Everyone deserves to have a relationship with their parents.  The "family-values" crowd seem to toot that every child deserves a loving mother and father on every media circus they join, but what do gay children deserve? Dont we deserve love from our parents too?


The purpose of this blog is to put these things out there and have a conversation.  Gay marriage is not going to solve all the problems - legal equality is a necessary step, but let us not sweep it all under the rug once we achieve this in America solely.  People need an outlet and I hope this blog will help supply that venue.  Times are changing as we enter the Age of Aquarius, there is a spiritual reawakening taking place.  Will the church evaporate or emerge into something different?  Will belief in Jesus subside or will the early church followers be given a new voice to remind us of who he really was?


Will gay people forgive the church?