I sent an email to my dance instructor this morning to tell her I had to work late again tonight. This will be the third class in a row I've had to miss for one reason or another. Sadly, it's also my last class for the term and I won't be taking another class until July.

My instructor emailed me back the following:

Rats! I miss you in class. You really have improved so much and work so hard. I am glad that you are feeling so much better! We will see you in July. Don't work too hard.

I couldn't have asked for a better compliment. And to think, a few months ago, I had a meltdown because I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere in class and was wasting everyone's time.

In other news, I wrote something for pride month on my regular blog.

My good buddy Tina brought this wonderful little gem (published in her local) paper to my attention.  I don't normally fisk, but this opportunity just seemed too good to pass up:

Several weeks ago, Athens and some other schools in this area celebrated a DOS day.
The correct meaning of this term is "Day of Sodomy."

You know, if someone is going to resort to juvenile name calling, I wish for just once they'd come up with something new.  Does this person really think we haven't heard that "Day of Sodomy" slur about a thousand times before?

I called the administration to protest before April 25, but they were closed.

Really?  The school opened for the very first time ever on April 25?  Or do they mean they tried calling once only to discover they were closed and were too lazy to try again during normal hours?

The day was to be a day of silence to support those who practice gross sexual deviance.

Actually the Day of Silence is meant to raise awareness of how gay students (or even straight students who are perceived to be gay) are harassed, ridiculed, and even bullied.  It's a way to remind how these students are silenced (and often suffer in their silence).  It's a way to say, "no more mistreatment!"  The problem is, people like our opinion-writer here cannot be honest about this fact.  If they admitted what they were really protesting here (the radical notion that kids shouldn't be bullied for being gay), more people would realize just what monsters they are.

Ignoring what God calls an abomination, all prior civilizations have considered these acts despicable.

This person needs to do far more research into this subject.  There's plenty of evidence to challenge the veracity of the "all prior civilizations" claim.

What sodomites (gays) have to be proud of is questionable.

I survived hateful comments directed at me from people like this author.  I managed to reject a mountain of cultural conditioning that tried to convince me that I'm somehow "less than" and horrible simply because I'm attracted to and fall in love with men rather than women.  I managed to become the stable, strong, and wonderful person I am despite all of these challenges.  If the author finds these reasons for my pride "questionable," then I'm inclined to find his ability to reason -- or empathize with his fellow human beings -- equally questionable.

They cannot reproduce naturally but must recruit.

Actually, it's my experience that the ultraconservative Christians are the ones who recruit.  I mean, there the ones with parochial schools, Vacation Bible Schools, Sunday Schools, and all kinds of other programs specifically developed to target children and youth.  In fact, they encourage their own children and youth to participate in this recruitment process, often using guilt trips and other forms of manipulation.  At best, this claim is a matter of the pot calling the kettle black.  At worst (and this is far more likely), this claim is simply a matter of psychological projection.

It requires an active decision on the part of a person to become one.

I have yet to meet anyone who woke up one day and decided to be attracted to members of their own sex.  I have yet to meet anyone who woke up one day and decided to be attracted to members of the other sex, for that matter.  There's simply no evidence for this claim.  And even the ex-gay industry shies away from such a ridiculous notion.

Empirically, sodomites have a shorter life span,

Ah yes, good old Paul Cameron and his "longevity study."  The problem is, that study (and Paul Cameron) has been thoroughly discredited since it came out.

gave us AIDS,

Erm, a gay person can't give you AIDS unless you have sex with them. 

provided most of our non-governmental mass murders, our last known U.S. cannibal and probably most pedophiles.

This is a tiresome old dirty trick called "guilt by association."  The fact that the author would even use it demonstrates just how little substance the original argument has.  In fact, I'm surprised the author didn't take this tactic to its logical conclusion, which would've enabled me to invoke Godwin's law.

Name one thing a sodomite has done that is good that was done solely because the person was a sodomite.

Actually, I'd argue that the struggles I've faced as a gay man have made me a stronger and more compassionate man.  That compassion has led me to help and touch the lives of many people.

But let's face it, this whole "solely because the person was a sodomite" caveat is an admission that the author can only hope to make his point if he narrowly defines his challenge.  He knows that gay people have made positive contributions, so he has to try to force people to limit their lists to contributions directly linked to their gayness.

The problem is, he's raising a double standard here.  After all, when he listed the social ills (you know, all that crap about pedophiles and mass murderers), he didn't limit himself to the social ills directly related to gay people's gayness.  He just listed whatever he could think of that any gay person has done.  Who cares that Jeffrey Dahmer was a messed up sick fuck?  All that matters is that he was gay, so bigots like this author can use the horrible things Dahmer did to defame all gay people.  But no, those of us on the pro side are suddenly expected to stick to things that are directly related to sexual orientation.

The whole thing reminds me of those situations where two children are playing a made up game, and the one child keeps rewriting the rules as the game progresses just to make sure he wins.

While is it legal for the sodomites to have a school sponsored "un-gay" club,

I will give credit to the author for being one of the few anti-gay bigots who seems to recognize the constitutionality of allowing GSA's in school.

the school district does not have the right to enforce a schoolwide celebration of this disgusting practice.

No school district "enforced" a schoolwide celebration during the Day of Silence.  the DoS is not run by teachers or administrators.  It's an event that involves voluntary participation of individual students.  Indeed, it's usually the students that request to participate.

All school faculties do is make allowances for students' participation.  They make sure that no participating students are harassed or bullied because of their participation.  They might even make adjustments to the day's activities to allow for some students' participation, such as revising lesson plans so as not to call on a student who is remaining students.  (As an aside, both GLSEN and the ACLU have made it clear that a participating student must break their silence and respond if a teacher asks a question or calls on them during class time.)

Why do the Athens schools and presumably the staff and teachers push sodomy as an acceptable lifestyle?

They don't.  They push the radical notion that no students deserve to be harassed, bullied, or otherwise mistreated, even if they're gay.  Why does the author have a problem with such an idea?

Why should we continue to support this system that "teaches our future" to be our destruction?

Because we tried letting the author's beloved religious institutions try running the show for several centuries.  The results were even worse.

Tolerance can reach the point of being intolerable.  Perhaps Athens voters need to turn out the current school board and superintendent for their lack of morals and backbone.

Perhaps the town could instead ostracize and shun this author for thinking that protecting gay kids from mistreatment is somehow "immoral."

To lazy to repost it here.  Instead, I'll just give you a link.

I originally posted the following answer on another site back in April 2004.  The question was asked by a friend of mine.  I thought some people might be interested as my answer briefly touches on my opinions regarding the whole "nature vs. nurture" argument.

Was being gay a choice you made, or were you born knowing that you were? If it was a choice, why did you make it?

This is a very question, and deserves a great answer. But the problem is, it's not going to be quite as simple as everyone's probably expecting. Because personally, I think that the whole issue of sexual orientation is more complicated than a black and white question of biology or choice.

You see, it's very common these days to hear gay people say that they knew they were "different" since some early age (five seems to be a common number, if my memory is accurate). I honestly can't say that. And to be honest, I'm personally of the opinion that a lot of people who do say that might be speaking primarily from hindsight. It's too easy to reinterpret our past from the comfort of the present and weave it to fit our current perceptions. I know that this is easy, because I've been known to do it. And I think it's a normal and healthy part of the process of personal growth.

But at the same time, I think we need to be aware of what is happening in some cases. We have to consider that our reinterpreted perceptions of what we "thought" or "knew" in the past may not be 100% accurate. In my opinion, failure to recognize this can also be hurtful to our personal growth. As such, I try to be skeptical of what thought patterns and perceptions I apply to my early life after the fact.

I can say, however, that I knew something was up at around age fourteen. That's when I started having erotic dreams involving other boys. I remember waking from the first such dream (that I recall) and being completely freaked out by it. Having been raised in a Baptist church, I knew that "good little boys" were not supposed to have those kinds of thoughts -- even in dreams! At the time, I tried to comfort myself with the thought that it was only a dream and that all young boys probably go through such dreams. (I believe there is some psychological research that even supports that notion.)

I do not believe that sexual orientation is a "choice" in the popular sense. That's to say that I don't think you wake up and say "I think I'll be gay today" in the same way that you wake up and say "I think I'll wear the stonewashed jeans and hot pink shirt today." As support of my position, I point to my dreams. It was not my conscious mind that decided to consider same sex romantic love. Instead, it was my unconscious mind that introduced the idea of male-male sex through dreams.

From age fourteen until age twenty two, I tried to repress my feelings. I tried to ignore such dreams (fortunately, they were relatively rare). I did this with varying success throughout those eight years of my life. Those feelings would occasionally spill over into my waking life as well. It wasn't just a matter that I'd dream about these things. They'd flow into my conscious thoughts from time to time, as well. Some times, I could push them away. Other times, I couldn't do so. They were simply too persistent.

If you'll forgive a short tangent, I'd like to go off on one for a little time. I must say that trying to repress what one is feeling on a sexual level is a foolish and painful thing to do. To be honest, this is the one reason I don't care for the evangelical Christian stance on homosexuality. While I fully recognize the right of Christians to believe what they do, I can't help but feel a bit of anger over it, having been a product of that mentality. Telling -- or even unintentionally implying -- a young adolescent that what they are feeling is wrong and dirty does nasty things to them. I remember the amount of frustration I went through it. I remember some of the thoughts and fantasies that resulted from the interplay between my feelings and the guilt for having those feelings caused me. I remember some of the things that I wished for (please forgive the vagueness, I'm not emotionally prepared to spell out the details publicly right now) that were terribly unhealthy, to put it mildly. And I've looked at what I had to work my way back through when I finally came out to myself. To be honest, it's very hard to avoid getting defensive over the topic of homosexuality and morality, because of what I know that debate can do to young people struggling with the issue.

In college, I had to quit repressing how I was feeling. I think the best wake-up call for me was the morning after my roommate and I got in a huge fight. I was highly emotional. I had said some things I deeply regretted. And when he came back into the room, I found myself faced with a terrifying and overwhelming desire to "make up" with him through sexual means. At that point, I had to admit how I was feeling.

It was still another year before I finally accepted it rather than trying to fight the feelings. (I wasn't repressing anymore, but I was also still fighting myself over it and condemning myself.) But finally, on 1 April 1996, I came out to myself and accepted my gayness. It's been an interesting life since then.

As I said before, I don't believe that people don't wake up one day and say "I think I'll be gay." But I hope that my story has made it clear that there is still an element of choice involved. My choice was to acknowledge what I was feeling. My choice was how I decided to interpret and define what I was feeling. My choice was in determining how I was going to respond to those feelings. Personally, I think it was the only reasonable choice to make. (I could go off an another rant about most of the supposed "cures" for homosexuality, but I'll leave that alone for now.)

In truth, I think that acknowledging that element of choice is an important thing for gays to do. I think that acknowledging our choices in the matter is a necessary step in the coming to terms process, and the eventual goal of owning our sexuality. It's too easy to say "I didn't choose this." But doing so keeps us a slave to our sexuality. It's only when we say, "I didn't choose this, but I am choosing to embrace it and respond to it on my own terms" that we are truly masters of our own sexuality.

So, Brian, I hope that answers your question.

 

Jonathan Rowe, one of the contributors to Positive Liberty, pointed his readers to a great opinion piece by John Corvino in regards to ex-gays. It's well worth the read and I highly recommend it.

Corvino offers an excellent and respectful criticism of the ex-gay movement, as well as those individuals and organizations that comprise it, while affirming the rights of ex-gay individuals to follow their journey towards heterosexuality. (I will note, however, that Mr. Corvino seems unaware that some ex-gay individuals are now accepting life-long celibacy as a valid alternative.) What I find more interesting about Mr. Corvino's article, however, is when he touches upon the question of whether he feels threatened by ex-gays and their testimonies:

I am not at all threatened by the notion that some people can change their sexual orientation, if indeed they can. In reality, it seems that at best only a small number can do so, and only with tremendous effort. But if they can, and that makes them happy, good for them. I’m confident enough in my own happiness that I need not doubt theirs.

Unlike Mr. Corvino, many people do feel threatened by the possibility that some people might actually be able to change their sexual orientation. And to some degree, that reaction is perfectly understandable. Many in the ex-gay movement, and certainly most of their political supporters, are banking a lot on the claim that people can change their sexual orientation. This is because many of them have the desire to make the poorly founded jump from evidence that some people can change their sexual orientation to anyone can change their orientation. And once they've made that jump, their next step is to conclude that everyone (everyone who isn't heterosexual, of course) should change their sexual orientation.

The threat comes not from the possibility that some people can change from gay to heterosexual, but from the reality of where many in the ex-gay movement and their supporters want to lead the conversation from there. After all, organizations like NARTH still lament the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disease and would like to see its eventual reclassification.

Of course, the solution to this "threat" is to simply point out that the fact that something can be done does not necessarily mean it should be done. And I think that's where we queers as a community tend to fall down. We're so wrapped up playing defense in proving that sexual orientation can't be changed that we don't take a more proactive force and ask the bigger question: WHY should it be changed? That's why the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder is a great thing, and why organizations like NARTH have to try and dismiss its declassification as a "political move" rather than a reasoned decision based on careful study. That hurt their entire position and we would do well to remind it.

Corvino talks about this when he admits he's happy with his life and sees no need to change. This isn't based on the fact that he "can't" change (or so it seems to this blogger), but on the realization that it's a satisfying part of who he is. It's a great place to be on a personal level, but I think it's also a great argument on a communal level.

Let those who wish to seek change have it. But those who wish to force that same change on the rest of us will need to justify that decision. And quite frankly, I think they have a losing battle on their hands.

In a previous entry, I talked about my perspective changed in regards to getting involved with a guy who has kids.  It seems proper to note that while I've only become fully aware of this change, the actual change process has been a long time in the works.  In fact, I can trace its beginnings back as early as 2001.

Back in 2001, I met Mike, who I ended up dating for four years.  Mike didn't have any children of his own, but was fiercely devoted two his sister's two sons, especially David, who was in his mid teens at the time.  In fact, he was so devoted to them, you would've thought they were his own kids.

Again, this level of devotion was very attractive for me, for all of the same reasons I mentioned in the previous post.  And there was the fact that Mike was devoted and close to his family in general, including his mother.  (To be honest, he struck me as something of a "momma's boy" at times.)  That in itself was also an attractive quality.  I myself have always been close to my family, so it was nice to see that reflected in the person I was with.  Of course, I also think that it was a bit of a comfort to me, as my family was becoming more distant at the time, too.  So it was nice to be reminded that such closeness could still last, even if not in my family.  (Fortunately, things are on the mend in my own family now.)

Of course, in the end, Mike's closeness with his family contributed significantly to the end of our relationship.  This is mainly because in the four years we dated, Mike never reached the point where he was comfortable coming out to his family.  This meant that he spent that entire time leading a double life, keeping our relationship safely separated from his relationship with his parents, sister, and nephews.  This also meant that when his time was limited, that time was usually spent with his family rather than me.  After a while, that simply became unacceptable to me.  Along with other issues, I finally confronted him and ended our relationship when he admitted he was unwilling to do anything to resolve these issues.

In retrospect, I don't hold Mike's devotion to his family against him, even if it did contribute to the end of our relationship.  To this day, I consider that a positive quality and something I'd still find attractive.  However, I do take issue with his unwillingness to integrate his devotion to me and his devotion to his family, because his failure to do so was the real problem.  To this day, that fact is something of a sore spot in my life, though I've mostly made my peace.

Through the grapevine, I've come to understand that Mike's gone back to dating girls, and has been with the same girl for at least a year now.  I guess things are going quite well, at least from what I can gain from indirect sources.  When I first found out about this, I was deeply hurt.  In fact, I won't say I don't still feel a twinge of pain over it now.  However, I've come to be more accepting of his choices, and I hope he can truly find happiness with this woman.  After all, I don't think he'd ever find happiness with me or any other guy.  Because it's become clear to me that he could never make that choice that would ultimately be necessary.  So I hope he can find happiness in the choices he has made.

I know I have.  And to be honest, I'm starting to realize that my new choices since breaking up with him have offered me more chances for happiness than I ever would've had with him.  (I just hope that doesn't sound too cruel.)

I'm going to start this post with a fair warning to everyone.  This post is going to be full of deeply personal and intensely raw thoughts and emotions.  If that's something that may bother you, you might want to stop reading you.  If you're one of my Christian friends who may be hurt by what I have to say, you might want to stop reading now, though I hope you push on through.  In some ways, I'd like to apologize for hurting you, but I don't know how to do that without also apologizing for saying what's on my heart and mind, something that I absolutely refuse to do.  So I hope you find a way to forgive me anyway.

If you think you might have somehow contributed to what I'm about to say, please don't take it personally.  It's nothing personal about you.  In fact, in many ways, it's probably not about you at all.  It's about everyone and everything.

Over the past few days, various events and conversations have gotten me thinking about Christianity and homosexuality.  I've discussed the matter with many people and heard many others' thoughts on the topic, so now it's time for me to express my own.

Regardless of whether it eventually comes to see homosexuality as a moral and acceptable expression of human sexuality, I doubt I will ever trust evangelical Christianity.

My experiences with and observations of evangelical Christianity suggest that it is and always will be about "us versus them."  The list of who qualifies as "us" and who qualifies as "them" may change over the years, but the underlying mentality remains the same.  Those who fall into the "us" category become embraced while those who fall into the "them" category remain outcasts, worthy of contempt, condemnation, and even discrimination.

I am someone who for numerous reasons has likely taken up permanent residence in the "them" category.  Even if gay people are accepted, there are other things that will put me in the "them" category.  Indeed, I suspect that as long as there is a "them" category at all, I'll be firmly entrenched in it.  And I've made my peace with that, more or less.

What I haven't made my peace with is the idea that politically, our rights as individuals and groups depends on which of those categories belong to.  What I haven't made peace with is the suggestion that part of the human rights process is convincing such people to redefine their categories to move us into the "deserving of rights" one.

What about those who will never make it into the "deserving of rights category"?  Shall we tell them (or more accurately, shall they tell us), "Sorry, I guess you're just out of luck?

To be honest, the fact that there are "us" and "them" categories in evangelical Christianity at all was one of the major reasons that I left the religion.  I knew too many of "them" to be comfortable thinking of them as "them."  And the idea that them being "them" could even possibly make them undeserving of rights would've driven me to froth at the mouth.

So I have to admit, I get pretty annoyed and even hurt when people suggest that getting our rights is still a matter of getting a bunch of intolerant people in an "us vs. them" religion to move us into the "us" category.  Because quite frankly, it feels like a betrayal to those of us who will remain in the "them" category long after we've run the gay rights order.  It almost feels as if we'll be told, "well, you're okay that you're gay now, but there still may be other reasons to discriminate against you."

I've spent the last couple of days thinking about my story about coming out to my parents. I feel like there was so much that I left out. Of course, when I shared them during the panel discussion, I naturally had to keep my comments short, and this meant an extremely abbreviated story. So I shared what I felt were the most relevant points at the time.

However, now that I have more time to spend, I feel it's important to share a bit more. After all, when I talked about how much time it's taken my parents to work through everything, I felt like I was attributing it to them. That's not entirely accurate. In retrospect, I made my own share of mistakes which has probably prolonged the reconciliation process.

The most immediate example is the fact that I came out to my parents well before I was ready. After all, I had only come to accept my sexuality a scant two months before I told my parents. So in reality, I was still emotionally processing everything myself.

Mind you, I don't regret my choice to come out so quickly, mainly because it was the right choice at the time. The week before I had that fateful conversation with my mother, I had made another poor choice, the choice to tell another person about my sexual orientation. Telling that particular person was a horrible error in judgment on my part, and I can only say that I did so in a moment of emotional weakness.

The problem was, I knew that this particular person sometimes wasn't the best at keeping secrets, and I was concerned that news of my revelation could get back to my parents. When I realized this, I decided that if my parents were going to find out, I wanted it to come from me. So I I made my decision to make sure that's exactly what happened.

I made what I still believe was the moral choice. However, the moral choice meant trying to deal with my parents' reactions to my sexuality while still trying to go through the emotional healing and self-acceptance process myself. That was a high price to pay, and I probably wasn't always as understanding and patient with my parents as a result.

Another choice I made -- and I'm not sure whether this one was ultimately a mistake or not -- is that I backed off once I told my mother. Because of her reaction, I let the whole topic drop for a long time. I didn't deny my sexuality, but I didn't bring it up either. I didn't correct my mother a year later when I moved back home and she told me that I wasn't allowed to have "overnight guests of the female persuasion." (Actually, I snickered to myself, thinking that wouldn't be a difficult rule to keep.) In effect, I did allow my parents to linger in their denial and otherwise ignore the whole matter.

Was that a mistake? I don't really know. In some ways, I wonder if I might have sped up the process if I had pushed the issue a bit more at crucial moments. But then, I also think that maybe they really did need that time.

Then there was an incident that I'm almost positive I made a mistake. It was back during the first few months when I was dating Mike. I had met him and taken a picture of him. One day, I printed out a picture of him because I was going to visit friends and wanted to show them what he looked like. My mother saw the picture and asked who he was. I told her he was a friend and left it a that.

I think she knew I wasn't being completely honest with my answer. In fact, even back then, I had the impression she was looking for the real answer. But I chose not to tell her he was my boyfriend. I was afraid to admit it. I was afraid she'd once again go into a tense and brooding silence as a result. And I didn't want to deal with that at the time.

In retrospect, I think she was trying to bridge that gulf of silence that had developed between us when she asked about Mike. Instead of responding with honesty, I chose to reward her efforts by maintaining the wall between us. I have to ask myself what percentage of responsibility for the time it's taken us to be more open since then lies on my shoulders because of that choices. And I wonder what other ways I've shut my parents out without realizing it.

It's something I've been working on recently. That's partly due to my friend, Amy, who did a reading for me while we were at the Naturist Retreat this past August. She told me that I needed to share all of my life with my mother. And as Amy predicted, Mom's been fairly open to it.

In my previous post, I talked about a panel discussion hosted by the GAGV after a free screening of the movie Anyone and Everyone.  In that post, I mentioned that I chose to share a few comments based on my own experiences.  What follows in this post is an outgrowth of what I chose to share.  I chose to modify and refine my comments here rather than offer an exact quote for two reasons.  the first is that I don't remember exactly what I said.  The second is that I feel I can say more and say it better, and wish to do so in hopes that it might further help others.

One of the things that I loved about the movie we watched is that many of the parents admitted that it took them a while to come around and accept their children's sexuality.  Prior to that point, they even admitted to trying get their children -- even through manipulation -- to change their minds and live a "heterosexual lifestyle."

However, one of my biggest criticisms of the movie is that none of the parents gave a time frame, but instead left people to draw their own conclusions on how much time "a while" amounted to.  Indeed, I myself was left with the impression that most of them were measuring that time in terms of months, if not weeks.  The sad truth, however, is that for some parents, "a while" can be measured in terms of years.

I came out to my mother back in the early part of summer 1996.  I'm not sure when she told my father that I was gay.  I know I never did.  After her reaction, I just never felt like I could bear it.  She did not react well, and it is a truly painful thing to watch your mother cry, knowing that you caused those tears.

For years, my parents and I lived in a sort of unspoken standoff.  They clearly loved me, but there was now an aspect of my life that we simply would not talk about.  Indeed, I remember more than one time when I bitterly commented to friends that my relationship with my parents was fine just so long as we didn't discuss my love life (or religion, but that's fodder for another post).  If it came up, my mother quickly turned quiet and moody, and I tried to find the quickest way to move the subject on.  And the subject never came up with regards to my father.

It is only now, almost twelve years later, that I really feel that I can openly talk to my parents about this aspect of my life.  And I have to admit that I still find it somewhat frightening to do so.  Even after over a decade, I can say happily that things are finally improving, but we still have a ways to go.

I should also note that to the best of my knowledge, my parents still believe that homosexuality is a sin.  I doubt that will ever change.  And though I wish they'd change their views in that respect, I do take comfort that they're coming to a point where they can at least accept that aspect of my life and embrace me for it despite their own feelings on the topic.

So to anyone who thinks their parents might react negatively, I would offer some advice.  My first bit of advice is to come out to your parents anyway as soon as you're ready.  But my second piece of advice is to realize that you may be in for a long, rough road, and you need to be prepared for that possibility.

That means having the support you need to help you through the rough times.  That means having someone to be there when you need to cry if and when your parents are less than understanding.  That means being ready to offer your parents resources to help them with their own emotional processes during this time.  The more prepared you are, the more likely it is that you can make it through such a difficult process, hopefully long enough to see some positive outcomes from the whole ordeal.

To close my thoughts, I'd like to offer a bit of story from my own experience.  Four or five years ago, I was eating Easter dinner with my parents.  As the conversation progressed, we got onto the subject of grandchildren, and my father said something about me having children.   My mother took on a forlorn, bitter tone and announced, "Jarred won't have kids."  I think I might have actually cringed at this point, as this was not a topic I really wanted to have dampen our Easter dinner.

However, my father completely surprised me by saying the first thing he ever did on the topic of my sexuality -- while in my presence at least.  He took a consoling and even optimistic tone of his own as he reassured my mother, "You never know.  He might end up meeting a nice widower with children."

Never let the long, rough road get you to a point where you close yourself off to the possibility of such an unexpected turn of events.

In my last post, I reviewed the movie, Anyone and Everyone.  In this post, I want to briefly discuss some of the highlights from the panel discussion that the GAGV hosted after the screening I attended.

The panel consisted of four people.  The first two people was a woman and her gay son.  Her son is highly active in the GAGV Youth program.  The two of them shared their experiences from when he came out to her.  The other pair were a married couple who also had a son come out to them.   Likewise, they shared their own experience.  Then the audience was invited to ask questions or offer their own comments.  Much of the question period focused on how people could further help our gay and lesbian youth, as well as help them during the coming out process.  A few also commented on the realization from the movie that parents of gay children often have their own coming out process, a concept the parents on the panel were able to offer more insights on.

One brave young woman spoke up with a somewhat different question.  She told of her initial attempt to come out to her own parents.  She indicated that her parents' reaction was so bad that she eventually told them it was all a lie and that she had just been frustrated with her boyfriend at the time.  Tonight, she was looking for advice on what to do, because she realizes she still needs to come out to her own parents, but isn't sure how to proceed from here.

I think that one of the most remarkable things was that everyone on the panel as quick to express understanding with regards to her choice to go back into the closet with her parents, and rightfully so.  I'd imagine the young lady probably feels a great deal of guilt over making that choice, let alone admitting it to a theater of sixty or so relative strangers.  So it was appropriate that they addressed that first.  They then went on to encourage her to try again, but to take her time and be sure she's ready.  They gave her a lot of advice, including suggestions on literature she might want to acquire and even that she might want to consider counseling to help her through what could be a difficult process.

Towards the end of the discussion, I decided to speak up and offer a few comments of my own.  One of the things that I had noted as the discussion had progressed was that the panel consisted of parents who were relatively accepting of their child's sexuality right away.  I felt that someone needed to speak up to offer some insight on the other possible experiences, especially after hearing the other young lady speak about her own bad experiences.  So I raised my hand and took a deep breath as I received the microphone.  I hope to share my own thoughts (although it ill likely be a modified and refined piece rather than an exact quote from earlier) in another post.  However, i will say that it was well received and I had more than one person thank me for speaking up afterwards.

This afternoon, I went to a free screening of Anyone and Everyone.  The screening was sponsored by WXII, ImageOut, and the GAGV.

The movie was a one-hour documentary about a handful of families with gay children.  (As an aside, I should note that "children" in this post is used to describe a family relationship, as everyone in the documentary was over the age of eighteen, as near as I could tell.)  Both children and parents alike talked openly about the coming out experience and how everyone responded to the situation and handled the revelation.  The families themselves were from varied backgrounds.  Families from liberal and conservative backgrounds as well as religious families (including one Mormon family) participated in the documentary.  Also, various ethnicities and various geographic regions were represented.

As each family told how their child came out and shared their emotional experiences and how they handled the situations, the viewer got a strong sense of the variety of responses that gay children face when "breaking the news" to their parents.  They even told the heartbreaking story of one young man who was thrown out of his own home upon coming out to his mother.  Fortunately, for that particularly guy, he found a family willing to take him in.

Fortunately, the rest of the families came to some level of acceptance and found a way to maintain their relationships with their children, though the road was not always smooth.  Indeed, some parents admitted to starting out trying to change their children at first.  In fairness, it was good to see one lesbian in the documentary admit that she could've handled the coming out process a bit more tactfully and sensitively.  I felt this helped to remind everyone that we kids make our share of mistakes in the coming out process, too.

One of the most touching parts of this movie for me was to hear some of the fathers' responses.  At least two families told how upon finding out, the father immediately wanted to call their gay son.  The one wanted to reassure his son that he was loved no matter what.  Another wanted to call and apologize, because he realized that he had said some things that were hurtful, especially now that he knew his son was gay.  In a world where most gay men expect our fathers to be the most upset due to our sexuality, it was moving to see fathers who showed such deep concern and compassion for their sons in such an instant way.  The fact that these men were not the type to be accepting right away (both had come from conservative upbringings) merely underscored just how  meaningful their immediate actions were.

After the movie, the GAGV invited some of their local speakers to hold a panel discussion.  I hope to review the highlights of that discussion in my next post.

For those who may be interested in seeing this movie, both screening information and ordering information is available on the movie's website.  (See the link in the first paragraph of my post.)