Tag Archives: gay

Get me to the church on time!

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One of my favorite scenes in the movie Jeffrey is where a priest, played by Nathan Lane, explains to the protagonist that the protagonist’s ideas about god came from the album cover of the original cast recording of My Fair Lady. He further claims it’s where most gay men got their notions about god.

My Fair Lady Original Cast AlbumHis reasoning is: most parents in the 50s and 60s had a copy of the album*, most gay kids went through at least a phase of listening to musical soundtracks (and even if they didn’t, they all at least saw the cover art), most kids didn’t realize that the man in the clouds on the cover art manipulating the stars like puppets on strings was supposed to be George Bernard Shaw (the man who wrote the play upon which the musical was based), they believed it was god. “It was your parents’ album. You were little. You thought it was god!” Then he goes on to explain that god doesn’t run the world like that.

Part of why that scene cracked me up is because I did go through a phase of listening to the soundtracks of musicals—musicals that in many cases I had never seen. I’m not completely sure why my folks owned several sound track albums, but they did. I do know that my mom had a tendency, if she saw a movie adaptation of a musical, to buy the original broadway cast album instead of the movie album. Anyway, My Fair Lady was one of those albums that I listened to a lot as a kid, but I had never seen the show.

I wound up making up my own version of what happened between the songs. I also imagined my own versions of the choreography and costumes, guided by whatever photographs were part of the album cover, or in some cases, versions of the songs I’d seen on TV. There were a lot of musical variety shows on the air when I was a kid, and stars of movies and broadway shows would often be guests on the variety programs, and might perform a version of (or parody of) a scene from the musical, with regulars from the variety show filling in for various characters.

So in my head, the song “Get Me To the Church On Time” was not primarily about the wild last night of partying that Eliza Doolittle’s long-widowed father wanted to have before he married in the morning. I didn’t know enough of the play to know the context, for one. I think the album only identified the character as “Alfie” so I had no way to know he was supposed to by Eliza’s father. The lyrics talk about having a whopper, and kicking up a rumpus, but somehow I thought it was about celebrating the marriage itself—partying because he was overjoyed to be getting married, rather than a last night of debauchery because he would never be having fun again.

It was also about all the people around him, friends and strangers alike, joining in on the joy and exaltation.

It’s that imagined version of the song and dance that kept popping up in my head last Tuesday night as I saw that Marriage Equality was winning at the ballot box. It was that image of friends, family, neighbors, and complete strangers shouting “hurray!” that came to mind as I thought of the hundreds of straight people who manned those phone banks—calling strangers and patiently explaining that the law explicitly exempted churches and religious institutions from performing same sex marriages (not that the law needed it, it’s already established in other laws and court decisions; churches can choose to turn away opposite sex couples for whatever religious reason they want, too). The thousands of straight people who donated to the campaigns. The thousands of straight people who urged neighbors, co-workers, and family members to give equality a chance. The hundreds of thousands of straight people who voted that way.

Depending on which statistics you believe, gays and lesbians make up somewhere between 3 and 10 percent of the population. There’s no way we could have voted this in for ourselves. There’s no way we could have handled all of the ground game: the canvassing, the pamphleting, the phone banking, and so on.

It was my imaginary version of “Get Me to the Church on Time” that was playing in my head when straight friends told me, “I thought of you and Michael while I was filling out my ballot.” It was the soundtrack to the images I saw on TV of the straight couples joining in the party at the campaign headquarters on the news.

It’s what comes to mind when I re-watch the tearful speech of the straight, Republican state senator explaining why she was voting for the law that kicked this off last spring. Or when I read stories of the way, the last few years, many straight couples have taken a moment in their wedding ceremonies to acknowledge that they have friends and loved ones who are denied the right to choose to enter this important institution, and asking their guests to join the fight for equality.

Yes, part of the reason there were tears in my eyes on Tuesday night when I saw the news that marriage equality had won in Maine, and then in Maryland, and that it was leading in my home state of Washington was because I’m looking forward to finally getting to marry (rather than “domestically partner”???) Michael. But that was only part of it.

The rest of those tears of joy was the realization that a majority of my fellow citizens–not just my fellow homos, or my friends, but a bunch of people who don’t know me–has our back.

Thank you.

And I hope you all get invited to a lot of weddings, because you deserve to celebrate with us.

UPDATE: I started this the morning after Election Night. Because of craziness at work, I didn’t finish it until a day later. And I didn’t see this column by Dan Savage on the same topic until Thursday night. His is definitely worth a read.

* Remember, Jeffery is a comedy, it’s not a real statistic.

Dream dilemma

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I had a somewhat disturbing dream, in which I was out shopping with my mom, and she occasionally made references to a book I had given her as one of her presents the previous Christmas. Except she wouldn’t mention the title, she kept referring to it simply as, “that book you got me.”

And the conversation got a bit weird and emotional. Finally, she pulls out the book, and it’s a book of quotations. But specifically a book of gay and lesbian quotations. For a second, in the dream, I was very confused, and then I realized that I had accidentally swapped the tags on two books I had been wrapping up for different people. I had intended to give Mom a book about the writing process or something, and this was supposed to go to someone else. Continue reading Dream dilemma →

“Family”

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I didn’t talk much about why coming out is important yesterday in my National Coming Out Day post. The reasons I would usually give—about living life honestly, about the benefits of not living in fear, and so on—get dismissed by some people, who think that such honesty is somehow “shoving things in their face.”

The best answer is one I got from a news blog’s comment section four years ago. When Proposition 8 passed in California, revoking the right of marriage equality that had already been exercised by a few thousand people, protest marches were organized around the country, and a person identifying herself as Tina posted the following:

If you want to know why I am marching it is because I remember being six years old and having to sit in a hospital waiting room with my parents and my Uncle RJ while his partner of 19 years (a man I knew as Uncle Ron who taught me how to braid my hair and wear pinks and reds because they highlighted my coloring) died alone in a hospital room that only “family” was allowed into… Then, as a child, I couldn’t understand why we weren’t allowed to say goodbye to him… Now, as an adult, I still don’t get it. People are people and frankly I figure we could all use a little more love and equality in the world.

These sorts of things still happen—partners who have taken care of each other, loved each other, pledged themselves to each other, get locked out of hospital rooms, are denied access to accident reports, are barred from funerals (often by family members of the deceased who had disowned the deceased years before over the “lifestyle choice”).

As testimony given in the New York state legislature last year demonstrated, these sorts of things even happen in places where the law recognizes “domestic partners.”

Me telling you I love Michael isn’t revealing anything more about our private activities than any person’s mention of their spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. Strangers mention spouses in causal conversation all the time, and no one is harmed in any way.

But there is real harm that comes from the ostracism and hiding.

Come out, come out, where ever you are

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Today is National Coming Out Day. If Ray were still alive, it would also be the day we’d be celebrating the nineteenth anniversary of our commitment ceremony (he promised to stay with me for the rest of his life, and he did).

Since I am still regularly surprised to learn that someone I’ve known for a while hasn’t ever figured out I’m gay: my husband and I are both men, and we’re very much in love with each other and happy together.

But while I’m (re-)stating what I think ought to be obvious, I would like to announce that I am a card-carrying liberal gay man who thinks:

  • that gun control means hitting what you aim at but people who irresponsibly allow guns to fall into kids’ hands resulting in death or injury should face severe legal consequences;
  • that the death penalty has a place in a well-run justice system but so does jury nullification;
  • that a flag-burning amendment is as un-American as anything could possibly be, but people who fly a flag should learn the flag code and stop leaving their flags out at night and in the rain;
  • that war and violence are terrible things we should always work hard to avoid, but the people who risk their lives in service to their communities and nation deserve our respect and gratitude;
  • that the right to assemble and petition our government absolutely allows people to march, protest, chant, and otherwise demonstrate in public places, but if you’re not willing to pay the price of possibly being arrested for blocking your fellow citizens from going about their business, you deserve a slap up-side-the-head;
  • that people have the right to control their own bodies, but refusing to get your children vaccinated demonstrates a criminal level of ignorance, is the equivalent of child abuse, and puts neighbors, friends, and strangers at risk for preventable and sometimes fatal diseases;
  • that no one who is not going into a battle zone needs a Hummer, but people who blindly protest nuclear power plants can’t do basic math about energy needs and energy sources;
  • that proportional representation would greatly improve our country, but so would at least one of the major parties actually moving left-of-center;
  • that the right to believe as you wish includes the right not to believe at all, but rabid atheists are no less annoying than the other kinds of fundamentalists;
  • that being polite costs nothing while reaping great rewards, but no one should have to put up with disrespectful behavior;
  • that there isn’t enough science education in our schools, but there isn’t enough art, music, or history either;
  • and that you get out of life what you put into it, but you also get a lot of both the good and the bad through no fault or merit of your own.

Good luck with that (haters gonna….)

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So some of the usual suspects (*cough* American Family Association *cough*) have gotten something in a twist because Google is endorsing the “radical” notion that people shouldn’t be executed just for being gay. That’s the issue that kicked off the Legalise Gay campaign, in case you didn’t know.

So these people, who claim to follow that guy who said “love your neighbor as yourself” and “why do you worry about the speck in your neighbor’s eye and pay no attention to the log in your own?” are calling for a boycott of Google because Google is opposed to mortal violence against gay people.

Boycott Google? That’s going to be interesting.

Let’s forget about products like smart phones running Google’s Android OS, and services like GoogleDocs and such, and just think about their core business: search. So, who are they going to use? Bing?

Not that they can’t, but here’s the thing: a couple of decades back Bing’s owner, Microsoft, decided that maybe they should have a lobbyist go down to the state capital here in my home state (which is also Microsoft’s home state) because that’s what successful companies do. They polled their employees, including managers and executives, about what the lobbyist should suggest the legislators do. The overwhelming consensus: pass some statewide Gay rights law.

Not lobby for a tax break (that sort of thing would come later), but lobby for Gay rights.

And that’s what they did. Even now when the company (IMHO) has lost much of its way and become just another lumbering short-term profit making beast, it still sponsors and supports gay events, provides health benefits to same-sex partners, lobbied for the full domestic partnership refendum a couple years ago, the marriage equality referendum coming up for a vote soon, and in pretty much every way is at least as supportive of Gay rights as Google.

Yahoo, like most other large tech companies also has gay-friendly corporate policies and has sponsored gay rights events. It’s difficult to find a large tech company in the western world that hadn’t twigged to the fact a bit ago that one way to attract and retain talented employees is to be inclusive and supporting of, among others, gay employees.

So for search alone, they’re going to be hard-pressed to find an alternative that isn’t supportive of gay rights. I don’t see how a boycott is even possible.

As an aside, for the allies and defenders of the AFA and their ilk, getting angry because a company or person suggests that maybe gay people shouldn’t be executed just because they love who they love? That is advocating violence against gays. It isn’t a misinterpretation or distortion. It is exactly what they are doing.

And exactly what you are defending.

Parading

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Several years ago I wrote descriptions of three parades I’d attended in Seattle. The Seafair Torchlight Family Parade had been full of drunkenness, near-nudity (and more than a few flashed nipples and butts), and many floats built around a sexual innuendo or erotic pun. The Fremont Arts Council Solstice Parade had featured (as it does every year) the nude bicyclists, among other things. While the Pride Parade that year had had a lot of families, several church groups, fully-clothed people dancing, one large group with their adorable Corgi dogs… and in general a lot less nudity and sexual innuendo than I had seen the year before at the Seafair Family parade.

Which isn’t to say there wasn’t nudity and innuendo, along with brightly-colored feathers, beads, and way more body glitter than you can imagine. But the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Parade and Freedom Day March (if I am correctly recalling what the official title was that year) contained a lot less flaunting of sexuality than either of the other two.

Another big difference between the Pride Parade and those others is a tradition that’s been around since the very first: as the parade goes by, members of the community that have been watching step off the curb and join, performing the simple (yet significant) act of walking up the street proclaiming that you refuse to keep hiding in the closet. That’s how a dozen fully clothed people with Gay Pride signs who started marching up New York City’s Fifth Avenue that June morning in 1970 became a crowd of thousands of Gay men and Lesbians by the time it reached Central Park.

It’s not the same closet that each of us is refusing to return to. The first time I joined the march, I was only at the, “I’m not sure where I fit, exactly, but I know I’m not heterosexual and I’m ready to stop hiding” stage. A couple years later I was at the “Yeah, I’m Gay or Queer or whatever you call it; You have a problem with that?” Then I mellowed to the “Yep! I’m Gay!” which quickly became “What do you mean, you didn’t know we’re Gay?”

Others march to say, “I’m way too fabulous for any label!” While others march to say, “People I knew and loved have died, but I’ve survived, and I will not let you forget them!” or “No matter how many times you beat me down, I’m standing back up!” Others join the march to say, “I’m not gay or bisexual or any of those things, but people I love are, and if you have a problem with them, then you’ve got a problem with me!”

And because there are people who do have problems with us, because kids are bullied (sometimes to death) just because other people think they might be one of us, because we’ve come so far, because we’ve still got battles before us, because each and every person is a miracle, because no one should be ashamed to love, we need to keep having these parades.

So, let’s celebrate!

That agenda thing, again

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(I’m posting so much gay-related stuff because it’s Pride Week, a.k.a. the 43rd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, often considered the beginning of the modern gay/lesbian/bi/queer/transgender rights movement. I’ll get back to my usual observations on more trivial topics next week, promise)

Some years ago I wrote an essay, “What agenda?” in which, among other things, I listed my own agenda, not feeling I could speak for anyone else. I still think that’s a pretty good list of goals. Especially the part about making pie for people. Pie makes just about everything better, after all.

Lately certain people have been reading in public a document which they claim is the actual gay agenda, and it’s pretty horrid stuff. The thing is, the list originated as a joke–a joke on the very sorts of people misinformed enough or paranoid enough (or both) to believe that such a document exists. The original article identifies itself explicitly as satire, though the people quoting it now always leave that part out.

In short, they are lying.

Continue reading That agenda thing, again →

Failing to learn from history…

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Growing up in Southern Baptist Churches (though not, technically, in the South), I was taught that the denomination was formed during the Civil War. Because there was an actual war going on, annual conventions couldn’t meet. Also, I was told, a lot of the northern churches were mixed up in politics and had been looking for an excuse to ditch the southern churches who were more concerned with missionary work.

Later, I learned that almost every last one of those details was utterly false.

The Southern Baptist Churches split off from the nationwide Triennial Baptist Convention 15 years prior to the Civil War. The primary reason they split was that the Southern Churches were pro-slavery. They were extremely pro-slavery, arguing that God picked which people were born one race or another because he knew which ones needed to be subservient, and which needed to be in charge. Most of the people who attended Baptist churches in the North were anti-slavery, and thought that all humans, being God’s children, should be equal before the law.

Continue reading Failing to learn from history… →

Semi autobiographical

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I once read a book review that began, “If I have to read one more semi-autobiographical novel about a gay boy coming of age in the rural south, I’m going to scream.”

I know the feeling.

And I say this as a someone who was a gay boy growing up in a rural setting. It was the Rocky Mountain states, rather than the south, but it was also in the Southern Baptist Church. Plus, the tiny town where I was born (and later returned to attend middle school) was—due to economic and historical circumstances too complex to go into at this juncture—inhabited almost entirely by people who were either from the south, or their parents were. Which makes me sympathetic to the phenomenon, but not blindly so. Continue reading Semi autobiographical →