Gray Shades

The Subtle Evil I Encountered Today

2011-04-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

It's been an emotional day or two. Two former clients, one recent and one in the past, passed away this week. They both were good people and both moved me as a therapist with their spirit and their resiliance. The one from the past was one of the first clients I saw shortly after completing graduate school in 1991 and our work together gave me confidence in myself as a new psychologist. I paused today to remember him with gratitude. My work continues twenty years later. I have more experience now but the basics of respecting my client, listening mindfully and engaging in an active partnership for change remains the same. Today however, the realities of this brutal era in American history confronted me head on. In my perception, we have grown into a much more polarized society- Democrats over here, Republicans over there, corporations and profit versus individuals and well being. Almost every day, I hear stories of callous disregard for others and a new spirit of selfishness that seems to be gaining traction as the "new self-esteem". I became a psychologist I think because I deeply care about people and their suffering. Yes, I'm sure I had my own "selfish" reasons for pursuing this field- maybe to understand myself better, to ease my own pains, and maybe even searching for validation as a person worthy of the gratitude of others. I admit it. But I really do care. I couldn't do this work if I didn't care and I didn't hold myself to the highest standards that I can possibly reach in the work that I do. Compromising my values has never been something I could do without personal strife. That why today felt a bit like a body blow for a little while. I accepted a new client two months ago who was in desperate need of individual attention. She had been injured, was living in pain and was now in her third trimester of pregnancy. She had recently made a committment to herself to stop relying on medications, both for the sake of her baby and for her own quality of life. I've learned over the years in this field that living with pain is hard, VERY hard. Every fiber of our being tells us in every moment we feel pain that something is wrong and that danger is nearby. It is an exhausting, frightening and intense experience to have constant pain that doesn't go away and perhaps even has gotten worse with treatment. That's why today was particularly heinous in my opinion. My young client was injured on the job and was referred to me by her primary treating physician for six individual sessions. They pick the number six somewhat randomly, mainly because it is easier to obtain authorization for a lower number than to go for more. When clients come to me with a set number of authorized visits, if I need less, I use less and if I need more, I request more. It's very difficult to estimate exactly how many visits it takes to help someone feel better despite over twenty years of experience because each person is an individual- some with layers and layers of protection that come off slowly and some who open up quickly and are ready to make change when they walk in. In this case, she is a lovely, intelligent and articulate person who sincerely came for help. A bundle of fears and new skills for managing pain that she had yet to fully implement into her lifestyle. Near the end of our six sessions, she anxiously inquired about where we go from here. I reassured her that I would request more and that I would not leave her dangling as she approaches delivery. Within a week, I received notice that my request was denied by a physician with no mental health training or qualifications, a bizarre system from the start that allows health care professionals who have no contact with the actual client to make decisions that impact their treatment and their future (and get paid for it). I, of course, appealed on the grounds that a non-mental health professional could not ethically make the determination of what what necessary treatment and what was not. My appeal led me to a conversation by phone with another psychologist, who lives in Texas, who claims to have pain management expertise and sounds like she could be my daughter. Far from warm and empathic, she listened quietly to my rationale for continuing treatment, especially with delivery two weeks away and pain levels increasing as her spine tries to bare the extra load she adds each day. She's doing this without pain medication, I explained, and her fear about the delivery contributes as well. She replied with a cold "how has her function improved during the six sessions in which you have been seeing her"? "Improving function" is the new catch phrase in the Workers' Comp industry that signals whether treatment is a "success". I reminded her that improving function would be quite difficult during anyone's third trimester and that my major goal had been to help her reduce her worries and set reasonable expectations for herself. I shared my concerns that the delivery itself might be overwhelming psychologically, given hormonal shifts and the physical stress of it all. I guess I expected someone with similar values to mine as a psychologist, or as someone who had empathy for suffering or compassion for people in crisis. I found none of these qualities as she hastily stated that I would hear by the end of the week of her decision. Two hours later, I received a phone message from the insurance company consisting of a simple and impersonal "your appeal for more visits has been denied." My first response was to feel personally assaulted. It's hard to be in this business as long as I have, dealing with complex clients every day and trying to unlock the barriers to health and wellness, only to have someone who doesn't know you or your client decide that treatment is denied. I wonder why this person became a psychologist and how she lives with herself every day. The ego that it takes to believe that you can make the most intimate of decisions about a person in another state that you've never seen, never spoken with or taken the time to assess is mind boggling. To ignore a central ethical code of "do no harm" is unacceptable. Stopping treatment now would be devastating. To accept money for it is, well, just evil. Do not depair readers!! My ethics are still stronger than my desire for profit. I will see my client through her delivery no matter what. I am a human being with a soul and with empathy. We will look for other ways to get her treatment regardless of what Dr. Texas thinks. There's something very wrong with this system. I will continue to fight for what is right.

From Hero to Coward: The Long, Sad Fall of the Maverick

2010-12-20T20:19:00.001-08:00

I'm still a bit moist after this weekend's amazing vote by congress to repeal the Clinton travesty, Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Really though, I'm trying to savor every moment because this is one of the biggest advances for gay rights in my lifetime. When I was a gay teen, it was beyond my wildest dreams that I would have a lifetime partner, much less marry him. Being an "out" gay man in a professional setting would never happen and having the military become a place for lesbians and gay men to serve openly was unthinkable. It's sometimes hard, I think, even for my most loving and supportive straight friends and family to understand that hope just wasn't allowed then. Fear was the emotion I was most familiar with, constantly waiting to be exposed, humiliated, beaten or killed. I couldn't allow myself to wish for things to be better because I was too busy worrying about what could go wrong. Although I hear that some African Americans are insulted by the comparison to their struggles, I know about the pain of waiting for the day that good people wake up and realize that fear has kept them in denial about the ways that status and privilege can directly harm those without it. So, today, I celebrate the long journey that my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have taken, both the living and the dead, to get us to a place of celebration and true hope. And yet, I cannot fully celebrate because there are people who still are afraid and are still fighting for exclusion and discrimination. Yes, I know there will always be idiots on the "far right" like that jerk who runs the Focus on the Family who will fight gay rights forever because it raises money and makes them feel superior. What I feel most puzzled about though is the way that John McCain has fought the repeal of DADT every step of the way. There was a time that I respected McCain because he at times chose to talk back to the Republican establishment, especially when reason called for it. Sure, he was a member of the "Keating Five" in the 80's, investigated for peddling political influence, but he was largely successful in promoting himself as a man of reason, principle and heroism, for his status as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. I've been fooled before however, by the public profiles that we've come to accept as true about celebrities and politicians. In McCain's case however, I honestly believed that what he went through in the war might have made him a true patriot and defender of American values. Once you have faced death, I imagine in my own little fantasy world, you would decide what's important to you and stand by it. Over the years however, I've watched McCain waffle, vascilate and just plain give in to the pressure from the right wing of his party, even as they toyed with him and abused him for their own gains. The right wing spread vicious rumors about McCain during the 2000 Republican primary race in South Carolina, in order to tip the vote in favor of their darling GW. McCain took it and later jumped on board with the Bush train, despite the fact that he was defeated with lies and innuendo. I was shocked that he didn't stand up and say more. Then, while running for President, he selected a stupid, inarticulate and unqualified Sarah Palin to be his running mate, in a cold and calculated attempt to win the votes of women, because of her gender rather than for what she could do for this country. A selfish move then that still sickens me today, every time she opens her ignorant, narcissistic mouth. In Arizona, facing a tough Tea Party opponent, McCain consciously chose to move away from his reasonable positions on immigration in order to win. And now, McCain has sunk to the lowest point of all- outright homophobia and discrimination. First, he says that he wants to wait to repeal DADT until a "readiness" study has been completed so that the troops won't be affected. This despite overwhelming evidence that other countries have successfully integrated openly gay and lesbian troops with absolutely no effect on military preparedness. So, when the internal study is finally complete, and again overwhelmingly supports the repeal without significant effects, McCain still resists repeal, with no legitimate rationale. His wife and daughter understand that DADT is discrimination. The majority of Americans understand that DADT is wrong. The Federal courts have rule that it is discrimation and should be stopped. And now, the majority of both houses of congress and the President have done the right thing. The military itself says it's ready and it's time. And despite all of this, John McCain, who once served this country with valor, now has become the Strom Thurmond of his time. He's a man who has lost his moral compass and has forgotten what he was fighting for- freedom and fairness. His congressional colleagues now see him as angry, explosive and petty little man. Sadly, John McCain has shown that he is truly a coward.

How the mighty have fallen.

The Death of Reality TV

2010-10-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I was one of the first to jump on to the reality TV bandwagon back in the day of the original MTV's "Real World." The idea of watching real people living together under one roof and all the twists and turns of human relationships was just SOO appealing to me as a lover of observing people and the psyche.

Part of what attracted me to psychology as a field, was of course the helping people part of it, but I also truly enjoyed learning about social science research and I guess you could say, the highly scientific versions of watching how people dealt with controlled (or some would say "staged") circumstances.

The Milgram studies from the early 1960's, for example, were absolutely fascinating and controversial experiments about the power of authority figures to cause volunteer subjects to apply presumably painful electric shocks to confederate "subjects" when they missed answers to simple tasks. It was mind blowing to watch the old black and white films of these experiments and wonder just how far each subject would go, simply because they were told to do so.

Or the classic Stanford Prison experiment from 1971, where 26 male students were chosen to perform the roles of 'prisoner' and 'guard' to test how human beings conform to role expectations. The new movie "The Experiment" starring Adrian Brody and Forest Whitaker was inspired by a book about this real life study where the subjects go farther than imagined in their fake roles and situation.

So I guess when TV began tapping into reality setups, they tapped into my own curiosity about what makes us tick and how far will people go.

Among the first shows I became hooked on was the phenom American Idol and later the Amazing Race and of course Bravo's awesome Project Runway and Top Chef.

And I have to admit that I was tempted into the seedy side of it all with Tyra's America's Next Top Model and even, gulp, Big Brother for a few seasons.

I could overlook Tyra's over-the-top hysterics in each episode, just to watch the inevitable fight between the "plus-sized" token girl and the "I'm just too in love with myself" anorexic.

Who doesn't tune in to Survivor just to watch them wear less and less each week as they exploit a little flesh for instant celebrity?

But lately, I've been finding myself too often on the disgusted side of the aisle, screaming aloud that the judging was FIXED or fast forwarding through the increasingly obvious product placement in almost every reality show these days.

Who doesn't know for example that American Idol is sponsored by Ford and Coke. Or that Jenny-O turkey is apparently the only meat allowed on The Biggest Loser?

Again, I could overlook a lot of the constant selling selling selling, especially on my absolutely favorite shows because I thought they were of a higher quality, with actual ethics.

Project Runway used to be in that camp for me.

The first few seasons of PR had me so hooked, it was one of those few shows that I absolutely could not wait to watch every week. If I could, I would brave those damned commercials on live, non-DVR'd TV, just to be absolutely caught up. It just seemed that truly, from week to week, you never knew who was going to win the design challenge and that the judges absolutely tried to remain fair and unbiased.

I waited patiently with them through the long break when they were fighting it out with Bravo and trying to move to Lifetime. I even made it through the slightly boring (and a bit confusing) year in Los Angeles.

I breathed a sigh of relief when they moved back to New York and even when they brought back super-orange Michael Kors and slightly constipated Nina Garcia as regular judges again.

Yes, I vehemently disagreed from time to time with them.

I so disliked the neck-tatoo guy from season three that I railed at the TV and swore to stop watching (which I of course didn't as my senses gradually returned) because I actually did understand that his clothes were quite beautiful and exciting, even if I didn't think he, as a person deserved it.

This year however, was very different for me and there was something not right with this season.

Several times, the winners just didn't seem right to me. Michael C was one of the sweetest contestants in a while, but I never quite saw a consistent voice in his designs. He was so honest about it too because he never could quite explain himself, endearing me even more to him.

Gretchen's early wins were puzzling as well, especially the jumpsuit thingy selected for the cover of Marie Claire. Ok, I get that it's different and "edgy", but she never really brought that kind of edge again in my opinion.

And then those darned producers.

They absolutely played up the affected manner of Gretchen, every chance they got. Maybe she wasn't always so overly confident, critical or enunciating, but it sure seemed like it. And no amount of editing could excuse her constant talking out of both sides of her mouth about the other designers and about her own flaws in front of the judges.

Aside from her wretched persona on TV, nothing about her designs excited or interested me during the entire season so when she won, I felt different this year, even a bit betrayed.

I am willing to give credit where credit is due. An evil personality can create beautiful and exciting clothes. Jeffrey Sebelia as case in point.

In every other season, I understood early on, that the eventually winner had talent and was doing something new and interesting. I am not a designer, but I know what I respond to and in almost every other season, I responded at least a little in a positive way to the creativity or the skills or the choices of the ones who made it to the top.

This year, I felt nothing for Gretchen or her designs. I mean nada, zero, zilch.

Maybe it was just me, but when I logged on to the PR website and the PR Facebook page, I wasn't the only person shocked by the result or has such a negative and visceral reaction to her bland and monochromatic separates.

So it got me thinking.

Michael Kors and Nina seemed to dig their heels in during the "discussion" by the judges. Even Heidi, and fashion icon (just kidding) Jessica Simpson, could not convince them to change their minds.

I started to wonder if perhaps, the little disclaimer at the end of the show that states that

"The judges considered both the scores and input from the producers and Bravo in reaching their elimination decisions"

means that in effect, Gretchen was selected early on in the show and that what I am watching is less of a reality competition and more of an entertainment show.

I've watched the product placement so blatant in other shows slowly creep into PR over the seasons, from the Piperlime accessory wall to the Garnier Fructis hair products.

This season, of all others, has caused me to sit up and take note.

Maybe Michael Kors and Nina Garcia really don't have good taste. Or maybe they did but now their opinions and tastes are passe and it's time for new judges. I have to say that the two Michael Kors shirts that I own are among my least favorite, feeling rather cheaply made and showing signs of wear after just a few months of laundering.

But maybe, just maybe, PR has fallen into the pit of cash and ratings and this was the year to "shake things up" no matter how gross the result or how untalented the winner.

So, if this unhappy result can happen to my cherished PR, you know that it's been happening to the other reality shows too. Only beautiful people seem to be selected more and more and if I see one more close up of a product label, I'm going to puke.

American Idol has lost it's glitter and the Bachelor is just a mess.

On the upside of the evidence, we have better scripted TV shows than we've had in a long time.

I never miss GLEE of course and Modern Family actually has decent writing!

So here's to you, reality TV, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

You Don't Have to Die

2010-10-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

I read about the suicides this week of Tyler Clementi and Asher Brown in the SF Chronicle, but it took the Larry King Live show this week with Wanda Sykes, Kathy Griffin and Tim Gunn, for me to realize that there had actually been five altogether within a week.

Anytime I hear of a teen suicide, for whatever reason, something inside me rips a little. A girl who thinks she's too fat, or a boy who didn't make the baseball team, takes the final step to end their suffering and never has the chance to experience what could have been.

When I hear about a child who takes his or her own life because they thought that they could not face living as a queer youth, the rip is more like a shred.

Hearing about five similar stories in a short amount of time is beyond painful. Paying attention to each individual story is just too much to bear.

The sad truth however is that although we are fortunate to have a heightened awareness that lgbtq youth still suffer and are more likely to take their own lives because of it, there are thousands more stories that did not make the paper or the media and the real reasons behind the suicide were never explored.

When I was 13, I knew that I found other boys attractive.

One day as a hormone-driven early teen, while looking up any topic that related to sex in the family Encyclopedia Britannica, I found the word "homosexual" and my mind virtually exploded. As I carefully read the words explaining the term, it so deeply resonated that I literally shook. Before that moment, I had no idea that there was a word to describe what I felt.

More importantly though, in that instant, I knew there must be others like me out there.

I did, however, know that I had to hide this reality and that everyone in my little world at the time would view me as horrible and disgusting if they knew. How I knew this, I have no idea since I have no memory of any discussions about gay people prior to that moment.

So, I did what I could to hide this emerging part of me by acting like people wanted me to act. I pretended I liked girls. I attended the fundamentalist church of my parents and I said nothing to anyone. I prayed to God to take these feelings away and to make me "normal". I called my gay self "disgusting" and told him to "shut up" and I was afraid and lonely and frustrated.

Back then, there was no internet. There were no books about it in our local libraries. There were no TV characters or role models.

At 17, I met someone older who told me he loved me.

I fell fast and hard, and I finally understood what my straight friends were talking about when they talked about romance and tingling naughty parts and fireworks.

And then, my parents found out.

After four years of suppressing and hiding and emotionally self-mulitating, I could not hide it any longer so I admitted to them how I felt.

They were not happy. In fact, they were livid. They said things that parents should never say to a child. I remember them like they happened yesterday.

In small fundamentalist Southern towns in the late 1970's, gay people were not welcome. What I had been able to find out about homosexuals at the time was not good. They were mentally ill to many people and sinners to the others. For rednecks, they made good punching bags. For scientists, candidates for "treatment."

For months, my super-religious parents made my life hell. They took away my freedom, removing my driving and phone privileges and blasting me with Bible verses. Anita Bryant, anti-gay crusader of the moment, was on TV regularly, and my mother often turned up the volume loud enough for me to hear every hate-filled word. At breakfast, she would leave readings from her right wing religious propaganda on my plate for me to find when I arrived at the table.

I had no place to go, no one to talk to, and no other options, so I spent many hours locked in my room, so angry and lonely that I begged Jesus to take my life.

After several months, my parents arrived at a possible solution and I was given three choices, namely, to begin meeting with the fundamentalist preacher at the church, to see a mental health professional or to get out of their house.

Because I knew that praying had not been the answer thus far, and I had no resources with which to support myself if I left, I chose the shrink, who after two evaluation sessions, ended up telling my parents that I seemed to be a perfectly well-adjusted gay person. He went on to tell them that if they were having trouble accepting me, they should consider coming in for some sessions.

In the flash of that instant, my life changed.

For the first time in my life, an adult in a position of authority told me that I was ok and that society was the problem.

It was a moment that I will never forget.

Since then, I have spent much of my time trying to live authentically and sorting out the messages in our society that makes sense and those that are based on fear, hatred and evil.

I have learned that being gay does not make you unworthy of love.

Being gay is a normal part of life.

You love better when you love honestly.

The bad times will pass.

There are more of us out there who will understand you and love you and support you.

Do NOT listen to the hate messages from your family, your religious institution or your government. They are wrong and sad and corrupt.

Choose to live and be strong.

You have a choice and you have options.

There will be a day when you look back and be grateful that you survived. I never thought this day would come, but it did and now I am truly free and happy. You can be too.

If you think you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans, and you are alone and afraid, take the first step by calling the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.

There's a whole lot of love out there waiting for you.

Check out my video blog on this topic here.

Done with Politics for a While

2010-09-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

Now that Don't Ask Don't Tell has failed to be repealed by the Democratic majority Senate, I have made a decision.

I'm done with politics for the time being. I'm not voting for Democratic candidates, or left leaning independents. I'm not voting for Obama again and I'm not going to help Jerry Brown or Barbara Boxer. Anyone who reads this knows that I won't vote Republican either.

I'm also not donating to political campaigns now as well.

Why? Because I'm tired of politics that don't work. I completely understand the frustration that the Tea Partiers have. They too are disappointed by their elected officials who seem paralyzed to do anything. I don't agree with their solutions, to elect whack jobs who speak loudly and make no specific promises, but equally despise the status quo, just because they can "relate" to them.

No, I'm sick of politicians. I'm really sick of the Democrats and Obama, who could have made this happen. They could have used the force of their influence to push Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both Democrats, to vote for repealing this or face the weight of the Democratic machine helping oust them from important committees or in their next re-election fights.

Obama could have used the power of the bully pulpit instead of Lady Gaga doing it for him.

He could, with the stroke of a pen, order the military to stop enforcing DADT and when the next President comes into office, it would be virtually impossible to start enforcing it again once the military was integrated. He knows this and chooses not to do it.

Now, with mid-term elections happening and likely to go to the Republicans because of Democratic incompetence at getting "on message" or responding to Republican or Tea Party or Fox News distortion, the chance at legal repeal of DADT will be virtually nil. This was the opportunity, with a majority House, majority Senate and Democratic President. AND a recent federal judge declaring it unconstitutional. What better odds?

We have to wait for the issue to worm it's way up to a heavily biased U.S. Supreme Court to decide if gays are real Americans or just second class citizens. Imagine that a small group of people that you don't even know gets to decide if you deserve full equal rights in this country. People who were hand picked by Republicans, who will knowingly favor corporations over individuals, because they get money for favoring corporations over individuals.

Democrats, in my opinion, should have seen this coming and done whatever it took to stop the plan of replacing unbiased justices with highly biased ones. Yes, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagan have biases- they are humans- but at least they appear to try to interpret the U.S. Constitution in a way that favors American freedoms and not extend them to companies or restrict them from tax-paying, honorable citizens.

So Democrats, so long. Stop calling me for donations. Don't expect my vote for your hand-chosen successor. I left the Democratic party several years ago to become an independent, but like Bernie Sanders, I-VT, I voted for Democratic candidates or issues 95% of the time. Not anymore.

Until you repeal DADT and DOMA, I'm outta here.

And if that means America suffers because the nutjobs take over, then she will have to suffer.

Hello President Palin!!

A Week of Patience

2010-09-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

This is a week that I've been dreading.

For more than a few months I find myself challenged, almost daily, by circumstances that are harsh and disorganized. It is hard at this point in my life to be treated so disrespectfully and so crudely. It's compounded by my health challenges that have been surprisingly gentler to handle.

Even though my head tells me that this chaos has little to do with me, because of my conditioning, my first response is always emotional and irrational. Because someone treats me poorly, the reflex is to believe that their treatment is justified. It's hard for me to believe sometimes how people make the decisions that they do, that ultimately are not in their best interests.

I guess what suprises me most is that for most of my career, I have listened to thousands of stories of people who have made choices that weren't in their best interests. And I of course, am also guilty of making choices that came back to bite me.

So, what I don't get is why someone who could use my help right now, chooses to insult me instead. It does not make sense.

I've certainly pondered all the reasons that could explain this scenario. None of them seem rational in the real world. I supposed the most understandable reason is self-preservation in a desperate situation- basic animal survival where you lose your moral compass, but you do what you have to do. There are less kind explanations of this behavior as well but that's not what I choose to think about today.

Today, I need to prepare myself for facing the challenges with grace and dignity. I need to reflect on my strengths and not my weaknesses.

I gained some perspective on recent events last week and although it doesn't change the situation, it did help me understand it better and oddly, give me confidence that I can handle whatever comes.

Writing helps me find my center- helps me find a new angle, perhaps one that reminds me of what is important and what is not.

My plan for the week:

I will focus on helping my clients this week, more than ever.

I will breathe, relax and meditate.

I will pray for the strength and flexibility of a deep-rooted tree in a strong wind.

I will ask for support from the people in my life who show me love.

I will remember the things I know to be true no matter what I hear from those who don't know me.

I will think of the wonderful things in my life and feel gratitude.

I will be patient with others even while they are impatient with me.

And I will rest when the week is done.

A Single Man

2010-08-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

Finally, after weeks of the new DVD release of Tom Ford's movie A Single Man arrived from Netflix, we finally had time to sit down and watch it last week.

We knew we wanted to see it when it was in theaters earlier this year, but I wasn't ready emotionally to watch someone going through a grieving process since my plate was pretty full dealing with the surgery and all the layers associated with it.

In a way then, feeling ready to take this movie on is a good sign. I felt strong enough, and I guess safe enough, to watch something that I knew from just the reviews would touch me at some level.

I'm confident given the press about the movie that I'm not being a "spoiler" in describing the basic story, which is essentially about a middle-aged gay man in the 60's who loses his long-time partner early in the film and we spend the rest of the film watching him deal (and not deal) with his deep loss. The film was adapted from the Christopher Isherwood novel by the same name.

Within ten minutes, I was bawling.

To be fair to the readers who haven't seen the movie, I'm going to try to resist the details, but instead I want to share what the movie meant to me in a global sense.

First, on an immediate level, the thought of ever losing Brad is so painful, it's beyond description. It's an ache in the chest that's both gripping and total, that it forces tears to my eyes that just run freely even without sobbing. Literally, like my eyes are spigots that have been turned on and are slowly leaking the pressure from my chest.

I have never seen love between two men expressed so beautifully on screen. The level of mourning he felt paralleled the intensity of the relationship. The lead character's grief has many layers, from the vivid details of intimate moments that symbolized his joy when they were together to the heaviness of getting through another day alone, revealed in his dreams of sinking under water, unable to breathe or escape.

Another theme I strongly related to was the era in which the movie was set. A time when no one recognized or validated gay relationships (or gay people for that matter). The loneliness he must have felt as his best friend in the world, a heterosexual woman, couldn't even fully understand that his love was better than any relationship she'd ever experienced, reminded me of the days from my childhood when I could talk to no one about being gay. I lived in a world, not far from the 60's, where homosexuals were considered mentally ill, deviants, and second class citizens incapable of love and trust and spirituality. I remember the isolation and the condemnation. It has always been in the back of my mind as I grew up and tried to overcome those messages as I reached out for real love and affection.

He is not allowed to grieve openly.

He does not have society's support which is virtually universal when one of a pair of lovers dies.

And as a middle aged man, I so strongly identified with his insecurity about his future.

We see him question the value of continuing. He is certain at first, that the best part of his life is over and that the happiness he's felt for 16 years could never happen again.

But despite the rawness of the emotion and the fears that it evoked, I did not find the movie depressing.

On the contrary, it was an experience that opened me up to gratitude.

We do live in a different era. I am not a little gay boy living in a fundamentalist (Tea Party) world of harsh judgement, anger and hatred.

At 41, as a middle aged gay man, burned out from incomplete relationships and self-doubts, I met someone who loved away my fears and defenses.

At almost 50, my faith in love is powerful and sustaining.

A Single Man has reminded me to be grateful and fully present. I don't want to miss a moment.

I'm Still Here

2010-07-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about blogging.

Missing it...thinking of ideas...meditating on it.

But unfortunately, generally avoiding it.

It's kind of like when you have a really good friend who lives far away and you miss them dearly and really want to catch up, but you avoid calling them because the time is never "exactly right" or you don't want to call because you know you'll end up talking for a super long time.

I feel that way about blogging.

Sometimes I get inspired to write something meaningful based on current events.

Recently for example, I found myself shaking my head at Elizabeth Hasselbeck's disdain for Kathy Griffin and starting to wonder about what makes her type tick. You know, the humorless, ultra conservative, Sarah Palin types of women.

I'm being serious. I think the problem lies in my sort of starry-eyed vision of women being superior to men in many ways. I had this romantic notion of women from the 70's burning bras and marching for rights in order to change the bullshit that men had been putting them through for years. I envision the Gloria Steinems, the Bella Abzugs, Madeleine Albrights and the Hillary Clintons of the world as representative of the entire female population.

It confuses me when I see women who lobby against their own rights. Just like it confuses me to see a gay or African American person in the Republican Party. Let me clarify: an openly gay person in the Republican Party.

And it's more than just the political, it's the personal rage and bitterness that confuses me even more I think.

Yes, I also am confused by men (usually white men) who vote against their own interests out of some warped sense of patriotism or racism or classism or some other "ism".

I honestly do try to understand the anger that people feel and express when they join groups like the "Tea Party" (which doesn't really seem to be "for" anything, just against stuff that makes them upset).

It's not difficult to understand why people might be motivated by fear with an economy in crisis and two wars and terrorism everywhere it seems. I can even understand why watching the culture that you grew up with change might be threatening.

After all, if two men or two women can get married and live happy, productive lives, then maybe you have to question if you're really doing the right thing yourself if you married someone of the opposite sex when you were young because your parents said that's what you were supposed to do.

Not that everyone is a closeted gay mind you (unless you're a GOP politician it seems), but there's probably just enough identity insecurity out there to make fuzzy boundaries seem like the gateway to hell.

Fear and confusion have to land somewhere I guess.

So you're afraid that you're going to lose your house. Your daughter's a lesbian. Your cholesterol is high and your blood sugars are out of control. What do you do?

You watch TV and wait for someone to identify with your insecurities.

Or you go to church where they don't make you actually THINK about these issues.

You just want someone to tell you what to do.

Progressives and most good hearted women and men wouldn't think of telling you what to do or think.

We've all learned that (a) it's not our place to tell someone else what to do and (b) we learned to respect others even if you don't understand them or agree with them (as long as they're not harming someone else). It's the American Way right?

On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there who have decided to ignore (a) and (b), tell others what they SHOULD think and do, and a few even have made a very successful living out of doing so.

Rush Limbaugh was one of the first to figure it out on a massive scale. Just say out loud what frightened, frustrated people are saying to themselves and they'll adore you.

Glen Beck has co-opted the conspiracy theories and invests them with the power of good acting.

Sarah Palin finally addresses the concerns of frightened/pissed off women (and a few horny frightened and pissed off men) who forgot about the Steinem and Abzugs or feel trapped and insecure as America changes.

Entire organizations, some political and some religious, are structured around boosting self-esteem by condemning others (i.e. "I'm better than you so I must be ok").

Some are sincere in their beliefs, not intending to harm others, but gullible enough to follow like sheep.

Others find a way to profit from this ignorant paranoia, stooping to saying almost anything if it raises the ratings or garners publicity.

Kathy Griffin does it when she screams "suck it".

Elizabeth Hasselbeck does it when she screams "scum".

Meg Whitman seems like an angry woman who will say anything to get elected.

I take a deep breath and remember the majority of powerful women in my life who are sane.

Thanks y'all.

Achieving the Here and Now

2010-05-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

Although I've been an avid student of various theologies over the years, it was only about four years ago that Brad and I took a six week course together on mindfulness meditation at Sequoia Hospital.

Everything I knew about meditation and Buddhism came from my readings and discussion (and one gay Buddhist sangha meeting I attended 12 years ago).

There are so many things that are attractive about Buddhist thought to me from the emphasis on acceptance of things as they are to the active practice of detachment from things that may cause suffering.

I am especially drawn to the idea that loss is inevitable, and becoming excessively attached to our things, our ideas and even our self, will lead to more suffering. Walking the middle ground between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-punishment is a worthy goal achieved through the practice of nirodha, which is essentially learning to become dispassionate about things that lead to suffering. With much practice, Buddhists believe that you can ultimately achieve nirvana, which is a state of freedom from worry, troubles, ideas and fabrications.

Coming from a fundamentalist Christian background, it has not been easy for me to comprehend a world without right or wrong, judgment and penalty.

In my upbringing, there was an ultimate truth and there was no middle ground.

It was only when I left the household I grew up in, and made my way to college, was I exposed to other ways of thinking and believing.

This, of course, is the very reason that education and intellect is so frightening to evangelicals in my opinion. Maintaining control is much more difficult when you allow freedom of perspective.

In his extraordinary book, Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl, a Jewish neurologist and psychiatrist described his internment at Theresienstadt and the development of his existential theories of mental health and suffering (called Logotherapy). One crucial concept that he vividly illustrated was his realization that no matter what the Nazis took from him- whether his belongings, his family or even his life- what they could not take from him was his ability to view the situation however he chose.

This was a powerful point for me, that I believe has underscored much of my own search for meaning in the events that occur in my life.

Dr. Frankl helped me see that I am in control of my suffering and my pain.

And meditation offers me a specific path to achieve less suffering with the caveat that I must practice.

Interestingly, my family would be quite threatened by my exploration of thinking that is outside of their box. Leaving the box would mean abandoning the safety that comes with having all the answers in black and white and facing the potentially frightening shades of gray that fall in between. Maybe it's just me, but I see more compatibility between the words and actions of Christ and Buddhist thinking than I do between the actual examples of Christ and modern day fundamentalist evangelism.

I realize that I have been avoiding meditation because at some level, I must be avoiding the gray areas too.

In my case, I think those gray areas include the feelings that I would rather not feel, which in all likelihood blossom from thoughts that I have become too attached to.

My anger/fears/sadness arise only from thoughts.

Living in the moment seems like a nice alternative.

Stillness is Hard

2010-04-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

I find myself with more time than I can fill these days.

It is an odd place, not one that I am used to.

Even after my surgery, I filled my time with healing, or resting. And resting is doing something I realize because now, I'm not resting, nor do I need it.

Usually, I am a busy person. Except for two short periods of time, I'm worked fulltime, usually had at least something else on the side to do like teaching or writing. Before I met Brad, I was into training for marathons, playing softball on weekends and Match.com dating.

With my ex, at one point, I was working three jobs and writing my first book on chronic pain.

Now, it seems that the stars have aligned to give me pause.

As I begin to start my private practice, I find that I have large gaps of time in my day.

It is uncomfortable to be "not busy". I realize that I have had a motor inside that pushes me to go go go. Find something to do. Don't sit still. Sitting still is lazy. Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

But busy work for the sake of business doesn't interest me right now.

Organizing my closet would be productive, but ultimately not satisfying.

Surfing the net has lost it's glamour.

So I'm wondering if the natural next step is to try to be in the quiet.

I am curious and frightened by the silence, the unknown.

Will I like it? hate it? Can I get over the need to keep moving, challenging? Today, I spent a few seconds doing nothing. It was ok. It didn't kill me.

I have been saying that I will start meditating this year. I have been avoiding it for some reason.

Life is giving me this opportunity.

This week, I will give it a chance.

Me and the See

2010-03-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the news for the Vatican.

First, there was a question about how much the Pope's brother, Gerog Ratzinger, knew about the abuse of boys in the choir that he led for years. His first impuse was to deny and later Ratzinger eventually admitted to, and apologized for, slapping around a few boys.

Then there was the whole explosion of media attention around the sexual abuse of children that ran rampant in the Irish Catholic Church for years and then Benedict's letter of "apology", that condemned the abuse but dodged accepting responsibility.

And over the past week, we learned that the Pope himself apparently stopped the prosecution of U.S. priest who had systematically abused children over many years and was moved from diocese to diocese without consequence into positions that gave him continued access to children.

What seems surprising to me is the continued shock that people seem to have that (a) sexual abuse is rampant in the Catholic Church and (b) the hierarchy continues to deny that there was any organizational responsibility for these crimes despite losing huge court battles and paying out major settlements to victims The incredible, award-winning documentary, Deliver Us From Evil, does an amazing job of exposing the chilling callousness with which the case of a specific serial molester was handled by those in authority, even when he admitted his crimes and at some level wished for someone to stop him.

What I've really been thinking about however is less about the abuse itself, or even making judgment about the church's decision-making when these accusations arose, but more about the man himself, Joseph Ratzinger known now as Pope Benedict XVI.

He is a curious man, born in Germany in 1927 and as the official story goes, he was "forced" to join the Hitler Youth at 14, although he an "unenthusiastic member and refused to attend meetings" according to his Wikipedia bio. He had a long career in academia, as a professor of theology before working his way into higher and higher posts within the church until he reached the pinacle on April 19th, 2005, when he was elected to succede John Paul II.

He has spent much of his tenure fighting for conservative values and a return to the belief in absolute, rather than relative truth within the church, ironically paralleling the rigid dogma he supposedly was so opposed to in the Nazi era.

Here's where I have to admit what may already be clear: what I know of the man I do not like.

From my perspective, he has been irresponsible in the way that he speaks and teaches about homosexuality. His words have provided the foundation for hate crimes and violence against people who either are gay, or are perceived to be gay. It was Hitler's goal to dehumanize Jews. It is Ratzinger's goal to pathologize gays. His words and his actions speak for themselves.

I remember when things began coming out about the magnitude of the problem of sexual abuse within the U.S. church, the first public response (after finally being forced to admit that there was even a problem) was to blur the issue of pedophilia with homosexuality. I would like to believe that this strategy was just a vestige of ignorance about homosexuals within an aging hierarchy and not just a cynical, way to distract attention away from the failings of the church itself.

Of course raising the old "all homosexuals are pedophiles" slur goes way back. Although studies have shown that the majority of pedophiles identify as heterosexual and that pedophilia is a disorder separate from one's sexual identity, iit is still a favorite of right wing politicians, and others, who need to raise money or distract from the real issues.

In fact, one could explain the Pope's homophobia in three major ways.

First, he is deeply ignorant about the current and overwhelming scientific evidence about gay people that do not support his opinion that homosexuality in and of itself is a disorder. This however, is hard to believe, given his long tenure in the academic world, surrounded by scholars and scientists who have long recognized the errors of the church's teachings.

Second, if he is therefore aware of the disconnect between science and his tortured dogma regarding sexuality, then his homophobia may be symptomatic of his own deep-seated psychosexual confusion. As I have explored before in my posts, the same sad and irrational fears that drives the Larry Craigs of the world into denial may be responsible for the inept handling of sexuality by this Pope and on a larger scale the issue of sexuality within the priesthood.

Third, and hopefully least likely, he has risen to the peak of authority within the hierarchy not because of random chance or divine inspiration, but through hard work and ambition, much like the CEO of any large organization or the President of a country. That means then, that to maintain your authority, sometimes you have to tow the line, talk the talk and protect the company. This is the most cynical of the three I realize, and may have components from the first two mixed in like some fancy cocktail.

But, for whatever reason, I want to dislike him as a person VERY, VERY much.

And then I realized that I do not know the person, I only know the image.

I know Joseph Ratzinger only through his words and his actions (and sometimes inaction as in the case of the Uganda situation), not from real life conversation or connection.

It hit me that by judging him, based only what I have read or heard, which most certainly could be biased, I am doing to him what he does to me.

The Pope does not know me.

He in fact, may not know any healthy gay people.

He may only know the closeted men in robes who also struggle with their secrets and who advise him from their own biased lives as well.

Like me, much of the time he probably avoids what he doesn't want to feel and focuses on what he believes is truth.

I'm imaging the pressure that he must be under to hold together a large organization that appears fractured to the core on the precipice of breaking apart.

Compassion for one's "enemies" is central to Christianity I've heard. I feel sorry for him, despite whatever wrong choices I believe he has made.

I wish Benedict would do the same for me.

Taking Time to Heal

2010-02-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

I have truly missed blogging for these last few months although I have been keeping a private journal just for my own sanity I guess.

I owe it to my readers to 'splain.

About May of last year, with health insurance costs rising and services provided diminishing, I opted to switch my insurance to Kaiser. I was a healthy guy after all, in reasonable shape for my age and no history of smoking or abusing my body otherwise.

I made a special effort to find a gay-friendly physician within the network, whom I decided to see for a routine physical, as a way of getting to know him and setting a baseline.

I really like how Kaiser uses email and online communication to get you your results by the way. Love being able to email my doctors whenever I want and they personally respond, usually within 24 hours.

I see the doctor who does the typical exam, lab work, etc. and within a week, my cholesterol and electrolytes results were posted in my online account and everything looked just peachy keen.

So a week goes by, and I think it's all good, and as I'm walking in the door from work, the phone is ringing. It's my doc who says that one of my blood tests has come back with an elevation, the PSA. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I had no idea what a PSA test was and that I had even had one done. He explains that PSA stands for Prostate Specific Antigen test and can be elevated with benign prostate enlargement, a prostate infection, or it can indicate the presence of prostate cancer. He tells me not to worry because it would be unusual at my age (under 50) for it to be cancer, but that he's referring me to the urology department for followup exam.

Two weeks later, I see the urologist who does a manual exam and who also reassures me that she doesn't feel any abnormal growths or enlargement, but maybe just a little "firmness". When she hears that my mother had a fairly aggressive form of breast cancer, she prods me a little to go ahead with a biopsy in another couple of weeks. I agree, but I'm still thinking that this is all just a bunch of excitement over what will be nothing.

The biopsy, scheduled as a separate appointment is not pleasant but not horrible, basically involving an ultrasound and then a series of about 12 quick bee stings, which aren't too bad after the local anesthetic injection. All done and I go home. There is some mild discomfort and blood later, which goes away eventually.

I go about my life again, barely even thinking about what I've just been through.

A week later, my phone rings at work and it's the urologist. "We have the results" she says, "and they came back positive for cancer."

As is my pattern for facing big stressors, I go numb. I remember vaguely that she tries to reassure me that it "looks like it's very early stage" and "the cure rates are excellent". She tells me to take a few days to absorb it all, talk to Brad and then come in for a face to face appointment with her to discuss the options.

As we hang up, I pinch myself in my brain. "She just said I have cancer," I remember thinking, still stunned.

I call Brad and haltingly repeat what she said. He's quiet for a moment and just says, "I'm sorry honey, but we'll get through this." My rock.

Over the next few months, I visit five different specialists. I find out that I have a range of options, which is great. I can have external radiation everyday for two months, or radioactive "seeds" implanted once. Or, I can have the thing removed through open traditional surgery or with the newer robot-assisted surgery. After weeks of advice, research and discussion, I decide on the robotic prostatectomy and on the surgeon I like the most. The research suggests that surgeons with more experience have better outcomes and I find one that I like personally. He's done 150 of them and he has a sense of humor. I think I'll need that.

February 9th this year, I entered the hospital and on February 10th I leave the hospital, sans prostate and sans cancer.

I am at home now recovering. My body is healing. The postop report was excellent.

Removing the prostate is a little more complicated than say, removing the appendix. The nerves in the area serve multiple functions and in some people the nerves never return to normal again. I'm sending good thoughts to my nerves everyday.

Now I face the future and I wait and I try to be patient.

There has to be meaning in this experience and I want to discern it.

For now, there are deep breaths and taking one day at a time.

Colbert Destroys R.I. Governor For Denying Gay Couples Death Rights (VIDEO)

2009-11-18T12:43:00.001-08:00

Wow bmathers! First, I have to commend you on your honesty about your personal discomfort around gays and about the beliefs that you have about gays that are responsible for those feelings.

Honesty is a good start.

I have to admit that I too had a secret fear...being around someone who boldly calls him or herself a "Christian". In my experience, many Christians are extremely hypocritical, preaching one thing and acting completely the opposite. Many Christians use their status to justify every bit of hatred and ignorance that they hold. Most Christians that I've met only hold a very superficial understanding of the Bible and do not follow even the most basic of his lessons, including "love they neighbor as thyself" or "judge ye not lest ye be judged". I have seen people who fervantly proclaim the gospel of Christ while doing horrible things to innocent children and adults.

However, I have learned over the years that actually, not all Christians are like that. Some Christian truly are kind, compassionate and loving people. A few are able to transcend the popular, self-serving version of the Bible and find within it a way to live peacefully with other people, without the need to judge or stereotype. I am proud to call them friends.

It was scary at first to step outside of the box of fears, irrational beliefs and even personal experiences with religious zealots, but ultimately was worth it.

I hope you consider doing the same.
About Stephen Colbert
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

PC Update

2009-11-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

No, this isn't about the "PC" making the round on the talk shows about whether the military was being too "politically correct" in the case of Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged Ft. Hood shooter, when they didn't reprimand him for bad performance on the job severely enough in the past because he was Muslim.

Come on. I just didn't imagine that 2009 would be the year of the neo-racist!

I probably should have thought a little more about it like Jimmy Carter did and realized that electing a black President, no matter how smart or qualified or handsome (yes, I said it..he's hot!), he symbolizes everything that racist whites have been fearing for years. The "takeover" of America by nonwhites who will then pay us back for years of not minding our own "stewardship" very well as the majority race.

And for eight years, the fires of hatred and fear were stoked daily by the Bush-Cheney-Rove machine to maintain control and power.

No, this PC is not about all that today.

It's the thing that's been on my mind the most lately. Protracted constipation...

Kidding...my prostate of course.

You know, for a little guy that I hardly ever used to think about, he's managed to make himself known in a big way over the past few weeks.

Come to think of it, he's kinda like the Ft. Hood shooter afterall, going from obscurity to the objection of all attention.

He's acted up in a bad, bad way and now he must die for it.

My quandry is whether I should give him the death penalthy by radioactive injection, where he dies a slow death over time, or we anesthetize him and cut him out within a matter of hours.

Or, I could put him on parole, and just actively surveille him with checkups every three months to check his behavior and a full on parole board meeting once a year. Maybe he won't act up again? Hmmm, but who's responsible for him if he breaks parole and really spreads the damage around?

Hard to really have straightforward feelings at this point. Lots (too much) of information but no definitive answers.

It feels a little like that sensation you get when you've just rounded the top of the rollercoaster and you're just about to go flying down.

Living in the Moment

2009-11-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

When I'm teaching my wellness classes, I spend a lot of time talking about living in the moment.

It sounds so good and makes so much sense.

All you really have is now, so fretting about what hasn't happened yet, or something traumatic from the past, is pretty much wasted time.

Mindfulness meditation is so rewarding when you practice regularly, but it's hard for me to maintain because of the demands of everyday living.

It is something that I want to add to my life again. I think it would be especially beneficial now.

I can feel so much emotion just beneath the surface- a lot of trapped fears just waiting for the right moment to express themselves.

But I don't have enough information yet to feel rationally. I haven't heard from all the experts, or done enough reading.

I want to feel sad that I have to make a serious life-changing decision, sooner than later.

I want to feel anxious that time is running out.

I want to feel anger that I have yet another obstacle in my way.

But, my belief is that there is a reason for everything. It is not mine to question, but to accept with grace.

That is especially hard when those feelings want to show up and ruin my peace.

For now, I am going to try to look around at what I have to be grateful for...Brad, this place, a job in a bad economy, good health when I need it to bear what's next.

Don't panic, I think to myself.

It is, what it is.

Also Means Opportunity

2009-11-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

I've been taking a break from the blogging for a while.

Some things have come up and, well, sitting down to write hasn't been either convenient or something I felt the morivation to do.

The house has taken a lot of energy, but in a good way. Our first home together, my first home of my own, has been an endless joy of sweat and aching. I've watched too many "how to" videos on YouTube and WAY too much HGTV and DIY channels!

This year has been amazing in so many ways.

And it ws the year I discovered that I had prostate cancer.

If you are a friend or family person who did not know until now, I apologize.

I'm not exactly sure what the etiquette is for telling people about such things. I've tried to call or email as many people as I could, although I do wonder why exactly I am doing so. I mean it's kind of awkward for me and them and really, what can they say? I still have a bit of leftover something from my past that wants me to avoid pity or sympathy or attention about these kinds of things. Icky describes it well.

Another weird part of it all is that I have no symptoms. I changed insurances and decided to see my new primary care doc for a physical. He ran a PSA test and it came back elevated.

From there I was referred to a urologist who thought my prostate felt firm and recommended a biopsy.

A week afterwards, my phone rings while I'm at work and Dr. White shares the results that I have cancer.

I'm in shock for a couple of days after I think. It just doesn't register.

Now, three weeks later, I've seen a radiologist and have three appointments coming up with surgeons to talk about treatment options.

The good news is that it's early and curable.

The bad news is that all the treatment options carry risk of complications.

As the Chinese say, "Crisis also means opportunity".

I guess I have to make the most of it.

Enjoying the View

2009-09-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing in the blog much lately. I've been so distracted by moving in to the new place. There was so much do to get it comfortable what with the normal moving in stuff that every one goes through, but also redoing the floors, painting, etc.

I have a little streak of maniac in me I must confess, which means that sometimes, I take on too much all at once and I wear myself down. Two or three projects per weekend would have been more reasonable for example, but I take on three or four per day, and then feel exhausted by Sunday night.

Thank goodness though, most the big projects are done now, and I feel like I can spend more time enjoying it instead of fretting over it.

I can feel myself starting to relax and be in the here and now with it.

Today, I choose to enjoy the deck, the cool breeze after a hot day, good conversation with our neighbors and the twinkling lights in the valley and over the Bay.

Why I Support Putting Gay Marriage on the Ballot in 2010

2009-09-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

After the squeaker of a loss by proponents of Prop 8 in California last fall, although my marriage to Brad stands at the moment, thousands of other gay couples now no longer have the right to marry.

It was a stunner to say the least, watching California of all places vote to take away a right that had already been established.

Or was it?

Post election analysis revealed that much of the money that went towards misinformation and revving up the right wingers came from outside of California. How about that? Who would have thought that the nutjobs in Utah would give a damn about what the gays do on the coast?

Well, they care a lot apparently.

Stories of ordinary working Mormon families, whipped up by their community homophobic leaders, devoted substantial portions of their life savings to pass Prop 8, for fear of the saying "As California goes, so goes the nation."

Religious organizations, with deep tax exempt coffers, have money to burn to prove a point-which is apparently that you should either get on board with their dogma or they will make sure you suffer!!

Equality California, one of the major gay marriage advocacy organizations in the state who failed to see this coming or prevent it now have apparently decided to skip the 2010 ballot to try to overturn Prop 8 and wait until 2012.

Their rationale? Because they need more time to do grassroots organizing to make sure this time they win. Not a bad idea.

Yet I still have this burning desire to do something now besides donate money and talk to people for the next three years.

I therefore am putting my energy into the groups who think we shouldn't wait and we should put this issue back on the ballot at the first opportunity, like the Courage Campaign.

Here's why I don't want to wait.

First, I don't want to wait. I've waited my whole life and the time is always NOW to take action whenever possible. So what if we lose again? Maybe this time there will be more public discussion than last time. And by the way, we have the chance to start talking to our friends, family and neighbors now about this issue.

Second, I want our opponents to have to spend more money. The idea of destitute Mormons (and a few rigid Catholics) not having the money to put in a swimming pool this year or to pay for Sally's braces suits me just fine (of course the idea that there will be Mormons running around without huge perfect teeth is kinda scary as well). If we put his on the ballot, they HAVE to respond and over time, the message of fear and hate that they promote just starts to lose its punch. Next time, there won't be quite the right wing fervor that I believe was associated partly with the possibility that our nation was about to elect a black man. It made all the zealots and racists VERY nervous and if you are racist, there's a pretty good chance that you are a homophobe as well.

Third, I want the troops who are fresh from defeat and still smarting from the loss to keep the energy going. I believe that we will go into 2010 with a lot more energy for this fight after having victory snatched from us twice (once by vote, once by the lame California Supreme Court) while the homophobes are now out screaming about "death panels" and "socialism" (again partly driven by deep-seated racism in my opinion).

Fourth, there is no reason that Equality California can't walk and chew at the same time. Why not have a 2010 and 2012 plan?? Even if you believe that victory is more likely with more time to build grassroots, is there no value is siphoning off the coffers of the opposition just because? Won't they also have time to build more grassroots opposition to us and also earn interest on their anti-gay marriage monies between now and then?

And speaking of short-term plan, I hope someone is out there seriously challenging the Catholics' and Mormons' ability to pour money into these campaigns and still maintain tax exempt status. I know that I actually wrote to the IRS when I heard what the Mormons were doing last time.
It seems if there's a serious challenge going on that they have to fight, it might weaken their forces just enough for us to win.

If you're in a similar frame of mind to fight and are discourage by Equality California's decision, don't be. Hook up with Courage Campaign. And let me know if you hear of other groups eager to take up the fight again in 2010.

Forgiving God

2009-07-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

I'm considering the next book project I want to work on.

Something in the self-help genre would be a natural, but I've been thinking about trying something different.

I have two radically different ideas. One would be my memoirs.

That brings up a lot of anxieties like, would my life be interesting to anyone else? Can I write well enough to carry it off? Can I make it funny like David Sedaris? or dramatic like Augusten Burroughs? How does it start? Where does it end?

If I do write the memoir, my working title is "Forgiving God". I like the title because it reflects an ongoing process in my life and it's a double entendre, both adjective and verb.

My second option is a futuristic sci-fi thriller screenplay. I have the basic idea. I've already done a two page "treatment" with the setting, the plot, the characters, etc. I just have to do some homework on how to actually write one.

Both would take me down some interesting roads.

What do you think?

Mark Sanford: The Best Defense is a Good Offense

2009-07-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

Promise Keepers. Family Values. Moral Decay. Moral Majority. Focus on the Family.

Abstinence Only. Proposition 8. DOMA. Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

What do all of the above have in common? Hypocrisy.

Yes, I'm back with the blogging. How could I not? Sen. Ensign and Gov. Mark Sanford scandals within days of each other?

Moralistic politicians who use the idea that THEY have all the "RIGHT" answers to how to behave and that other people should be FORCED to live by those answers who then completely disregard their all holy rules and then have the gall to refuse responsibility for their actions.

Sheesh!!

How could I ignore that?

Ensign and Sanford not only raise the issue of "holier than thou" ethics and morality to win elected office, they are among the most ardent, vocal critics of others who do not follow their personal arbitrary standards. Sanford DEMANDED that Clinton resign after admitting his affair with Monica Lewinsky. His argument? That anyone who holds a public office should be held to a "higher" standard than others when they have ethical lapses.

NOW, however, when it's his own lapse, that same standard doesn't apply according to Sanford.

Does that surprise anyone? Someone with the twisted logic and rigid egomaniacal perspective on things from the beginning has something wrong with him.

Mark Sanford does not care about people. Mr. Sanford does not care about Monica Lewinsky or Hilary Clinton. He does not care about the people of South Carolina or schools. He does not care about his wife. He does not care about his sons.

Mark Sanford cares about Mark Sanford.

I even feel sorry for the Argentine mistress.

He will throw her under the bus when it serves Mark Sanford's needs to do so.

Here's the real question: Why does it seem that the people who yell the loudest about rigid moral values and have such harsh, intolerant views are always the ones who deep down are hiding something?

Larry Craig? Mark Foley? John Ensign? David Vitter?

And why is it often about sex?

As a cognitive behavioral psychologist, I have not practiced Freudian-based psychotherapy in a while.

But sometimes, Freud was a pretty smart guy.

You see, even back then, people did some strange things that people couldn't explain.

Like laughing when they should be crying. Or dreaming about cigars.

And he did his best to explain why people did these odd things.

He even had one that could make sense of rigid moralistic people who harbor secret dreams of getting nasty that perhaps they can't accept within themselves.

It's called reaction formation, which is a psychological defense mechanism in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are controlled by taking the sometimes extreme opposite public tendency.

Freud scared a whole lotta people at the time (and still does) with this concept.

People who cannot deal with their own deep seated desires often suppress and repress these desires but not without a price.

The theory goes something like this.

Men who have pedophilic impulses (having sexual desires for children) often choose public careers that openly are hostile to pedophiles. This serves two sometimes opposing purposes.

First, they believe that by becoming a public beacon of morality, they can overcome deeper, sometimes unconscious lascivious desires. The more you fight against it, the safer you will be.
The second purpose, and the more sinister (yet still possibly unconscious) possibility, is that holding yourself up as beyond reproach, the less suspicious people with be of you holding the deeper opposite desires and ironically, the more trusting of you they will be with their children.

Initially in some cases, people who use reaction formation may not understand or even be aware of these deeper frightening emotions or impulses. All they know is that they hate child molestors, or adulterors or homosexuals.

That's the beauty of the mind. It can create an "illusion" for you of self-righteousness, even as it covers up deeper desire and needs that are simmering beneath the surface.

In my book, Loving Ourselves, I spend a little time talking about the phenomenon of publicly homophobic men who secretly have sex with men on the side. This topic has always fascinated me as a gay person who knew about his own sexual orientation very early in life and chose to deal with it directly rather than hide or deny it (except for a very short time during puberty).

In the chapter dealing with these very specific types of self-esteem problems, I describe scientific testing this theory of reaction formation among heterosexual men with varying degrees of homophobia.

During the study, a same of self-identified heterosexual men were given a questionnaire asking their opinions about homosexuals and homosexuality and based on the responses, ranking them in terms of negative, neutral or positive feelings about gay men.

Then, in an ingenious second phase of the study, the men were connected to a penile plethysmograph, a device that measures blood flow into the penis, and volunteers were shown a variety of pictures of attractive women and men in various states of undress.

At the end of the study, the results of the blood flow measurements were correlated with the "attitudes toward homosexuality" scale they had taken before.

Ironically, the men who tested as having the most negative attitudes toward homosexuality showed the most penile reaction to the pictures of men!

Discuss.

Back to Sanford et al.

If Mr. Sanford was an isolated case of someone who preaches morality and taking responsibility who, in a moment of weakness, made an impulsive mistake, then I can see moving on. I also might be able to stomach him personally if he held himself to the same standard that he applied to Clinton (resign from office).

However, because this seems to be a fairly frequent occurrence (i.e. the most loudly moralistic zealots are the most likely to be themselves morally flawed), then perhaps we should get more comfortable holding some healthy skepticism for those in the political and power circles of the world who "doth protest too much"?

Do all supporters of Prop 8 harbor secret homosexual fantasies?

Do all celibate clergy have deep-seated sexual identity issues?

Do most extremists have something to hide?

The answer is probably "no".

But we should keep our eyes open for the next racist, homophobic, family values leader who assures us that they have the "correct" version of the truth and that intolerance is the ONLY option. They may have something to hide.

Blog Spot of Shame

2009-05-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

After the recent disasterous ruling by the California Supreme Court on Prop 8, I decided that someone somewhere needed to keep a list of the cowards, the zealots and the outright homophobes in our times. My list will include not only the hatemongers, but the people who fear change, who follow the "status quo", and the hipocrites in life who preach "values" but do not follow them. Feel free to send me your own lists and suggestions and I'll take the famous, the infamous and the local people who preach intolerance and self-righteousness.

Here goes my list of shame:

(1) Dick Cheney- former co-President and architect of torture and war

(2) George W. Bush- former President and pawn, brush remover

(3) Pope Benedict- largest perpetuator of homophobic religious dogma

(4) Rush Limbaugh- entertainer who pretends to be interested in politics

(5) Ann Coulter- entertainer/media whore who pretends to be interested in politics but is more interested in self-promotion

(6) Sean Hannity/Glenn Beck- Fox "News" entertainers who want to be as rich as Rush Limbaugh but neither bright enough to stand alone

(7) Michael Savage- entertainer who will say anything to get ratings

(8) Rick Warren- Christian minister who cannot control his impulse to eat, yet expects gay people to "control" their sexual urges

(9) Fred Phelps- Spawn of Satan

(10) Heather Wilson- sexually ambiguous and repressed former US Representative from Arizona

(11) Virginia Foxx- US Representative from NC without a soul

(12) Newt Gingrich- variable ethics opportunist and entrepeneur, cleverly manipulates the moment to his advantage

(13) Tom Tancredo- US House Representative and blowhard

(14) Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, Ronald M. George, Mind W. Chin, Marvin R. Baxter, and Carol A. Corrigan- California Supreme Court justices (and cowards) for voting to validate Prop 8 and create a second class citizenship for gay and lesbian Americans

(15) Lindsay Graham- sexually ambiguous U.S. Senator from SC and right wing tool

(16) Rick Santorum- former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania with questionable intelligence

(17) Rick Perry- weak Republican governor of Texas, idiot hypocrite (we hate the bailout-give us money!) successionist

(18) Mark Sanford- governor of South Carolina, hypocrite who would rather make a political point than help his state, Christian adulterer

(19) Kenneth Starr- legal whore who will work for the highest bidder

(20) Pat Buchanan (and his sister Bay)- irrelevant columnist(s) and right wing tools

(21) Carrie Prejean- Miss California USA, shallow non-natural "beauty" queen with fake hair, fake skin color, fake tooth color and fake boobs, with no known talent or skill other than pleasuring herself on video, posing semi-nude and then claiming a superior morality to gay people

(22) William Kristol- neocon pundit, supporter of "preemptive" war and anti-intellectual

(23) Jeff Sessions- U.S. Senator from Alabama, overt racist

(24) Norm Coleman- Former U.S. Senator from Minnesota- Republican tool and hypocrite

(25) David Vitter- U.S. Senator from Louisiana, adulterer, hypocrite

(26) Larry Craig-Former U.S. Senator from Idaho, tortured repressed soul and hypocrite

(27) Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia- U.S. Supreme Court Justices and radical right wingers who legislate from the bench about issues they find important

(28) Karl Rove- sexually ambiguous architect of attack politics and mastermind of getting religious zealots to vote against their own best interests.

(29) Sarah Palin- Hypocrite; example of what NOT to do as a parent (have a teen who gets pregnant, go on the campaign trail to further your career and leave your infant child with special needs at home, etc.); set up an unethical fund to defend herself from ethics charges, ignorant narcissist

(30) Pat Robertson- tv evangelist (in decline) who has the record for highest level of narcissism in a single human being- hypocrite, homophobe

(31) James Dobson- supposed "psychologist" who uses his degree to promote his personal beliefs and values from a "Christian" perspective- very anti-gay

(32) Joseph Nicolosi- debunked psychologist who believes that sexual orientation can be changed, despite lack of empirical evidence of effectiveness of his treatment practices and the evidence of potential harm to the people he treats (never met him but wonder about his own sexual "fluidity")

(33) Michelle Bachman-U.S. Congresswoman from Minnesota- unafraid to expose her ignorance in public regularly

(34) John Ensign- U.S. Senator from Nevada- hypocrite, conservative Christian adulterer

(35) John Kly- U.S. Senator from Arizona-racist, hypocrite- rails on Obama's bailout plan, but continues to accept the money.

(36) Joe Wilson, Republican Representative from South Carolina- showed lack of impulse control during President Obama's address to Congress which is at a minimum immature, and possibly indicates deeper seated racism

(37) Max Baucus, Democratic Senator from Montana- in the pocket of health insurance lobbyists, refused a seat at the table for single payor advocates, no public option in his committee's plan

(38) Chuck Grassley, R from Iowa, Mike Enzi, R from Wyoming, Olympia Snow, R-Maine, Kent Conrad, D- North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, Max Baucaus, D- Montana- "Gang of Six" intent on killing public option and true health insurance reform in a "bipartisan" manner

(39) Charlie Crist, R Governor of Florida- sexually ambiguous "bachelor" who is virulently anti-gay despite many rumors of his own sexuality

(40) Mary Cheney, Republican right wing tool, hypocrit, anti-gay open lesbian

(41) Ken Mehlman- sexually ambiguous anti=gay Republican operative

(42) Jason Chaffetz- Republican US Representative from Utah, strongly anti-gay, "big government in your bedroom" believer

(43) Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan- Catholic bishop with strong anti-gay bias

(43) Don Carcieri- Republican Governor of Rhode Island, anti-gay bigot, against law to allow gay partners to claim bodies of their deceased partner and make funeral arrangements

(44) U.S. Rep Parker Griffith- Elected democrat switching to Repub because he didn't get his way with the Healthcare bill although his constituents elected him to represent the Democratic Party. Good riddance.

(45) Bob McDonnell- Republican Governor of Virginia who recently signed an order to take gays and lesbians off the nondiscrimination policy for the state.

(46) Roy Ashburn- Republican State Senator from California, fiercely anti-gay who was arrested for DUI after leaving a gay bar with a male companion

(47) Nancy Elliott- Republican State Representative from New Hampshire, who has an intense fascination with the details of anal sex, yet remains fiercely anti-gay politically.

(48) Bryan Fischer- radio host for the American "Family" Association who laughingly believes that homosexuality should be treated like drug abuse.

(49) Donald W. Wuerl- Catholic Archbishop of the Washington DC diocese- anti-American homophobe who decided to eliminate spousal benefits for heterosexual employees of Catholic Charities there rather than comply with DC laws that require domestic partners of gay employees to be covered.

(50) Randy Neugebauer- Republican Representative from Texas who impulsively shouted out "baby killer" after Stupak made a compromise move to support the Health Care bill. Too bad we have so many people in public office who have no manners or self-control.

(51) Bart Stupak- Democratic Representative from Michigan, who decided that his religious beliefs should supercede the beliefs of others, signaling once again rampant egomegaly in our political process.

(52) Mitch McConnell- Republican Senator from Kentucky, who believes that his right-wing Kentucky constituents represent the rest of America apparently. Sorry Mitch, but take a look around.

(53) Jan Brewer- Republican Governor of Arizona who removed domestic partnerships in Arizona and signed into law the most hateful immigration law in the country. Sarah Palin with malice.

(54) Maureen "Rene" Portland, former head coach of Penn State U's women's basketball team, homophobe responsible for harassing many young women over her 30 year career and ultimately destroying careers. Female equivalent of #55 whose personal sexuality is questionable.

(55) George Rekers, Extreme anti-gay minister and co-founder of the Family Research Council recently caught with a male prostitute

(56) Ed Schrock, anti-gay Republican U.S. Representative from Virginia, caught on tape in 2004 soliciting sex from a gay male prostitute

(57) Andre Bauer, anti-gay Republican candidate for Governor of South Carolina, unmarried and purportedly gay

(58) Meg Whitman, anti-gay marriage Republican candidate for Governor of California and former CEO of E-Bay who says that she voted for Prop 8 because civil unions guarantee "virtually" the same rights as marriage

(59) Mark Souder, anti-gay "family values" Republican U.S. Representative from Indiana who admitted having an extramarital affair with a member of his staff simulataneously abusing his marriage vows and his position of power as an employer

(60) Andras Kiraly, anti-gay zealot and member of the Hungarian religious political party Jobbik, who was photographed frolicking with other males, smoking pot at a Toronto gay pride festival on his vacation

(61) Troy King, anti-gay Alabama Attorney General purportedly caught by his wife having sex with a male Troy University student.

(62) Richard "Dick" Curtis, anti-gay former Washington GOP state representative, caught cavorting with a male prostitute, offering to pay him for sex

(63) Bruce Barclay, anti-gay Republican commissioner of Cumberland Co., Pennsylvania, accused of the rape of a 20 year old male and after his home was search by police, hundreds of videotaped encounters with men were discovered including one that proved the rape accusation was false and the sex was actually consensual

(64) Robert Allen, anti-gay Florida state representative, arrested for offering to perform fellatio to an undercover cop in the men's room of a park for $20.

(65) Joe Barton, GOP Representative from Texas, who "apologized" to BP for "Obama's shakedown" when he asked them to set up a fund for victims of the oil spill. Turns out, the oil industry is a major donor to Barton, imagine that.

(66) Linda Lingle, GOP Governor of Hawaii, who vetoed a civil union bill for same sex partners, stating that unions were so close to marriage, that she couldn't support it and that the "voters" must vote on such an important issue

(67) Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family, anti-gay homophobe, very worried about "sexual tension" erupting in the barracks if Don't Ask Don't Tell is repealed.

(68) Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, anti-gay homophobe who appears to believe that the majority of the American public is stupid for supporting the repeal of DADT

(69) Penny Nance, Concerned Women of America, anti-gay homophobe and "concerned" woman about terrorism and the "Mirandization of the Christmas Day Bomber"

(70) Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness, anti-gay homophobe posing as "concerned" for the military

(71) Retired Admiral James Lyons, long-time anti-gay homophobe, who quotes navy policies from the "late 1900's" when "homosexuality was rampant" in the military

(72) David Keene, American Conservative Union, anti-gay homophobe who believes that he knows what's best for us all

(73) Ben Quayle, son of the worst vice president in the history of the US and GOP congressional candidate in Arizona, who is running on a "family values" platform after having spent time writing blogs for a porn website. He also sent out flyers with a picture of him and his wife and two little girls, implying that they were his daughters (he has no children) and in fact, they were his nieces

(74) "Dr." Laura Schlessinger- right wing radio talk show host, homophobic and racist, who believes that she is better than all of us and understands right from wrong. Recently used the "n" word on the radio 11 times while simultaneously mocking an African American caller

(75) Albert Mohler- President of the Southern Baptist Convention, homophobe and now, believes that Christians shouldn't practice Yoga because it's inconsistent with Baptist teachings. Perfect example of a false prophet who possess no real spirituality, but only proclaims his personal beliefs under the protection of the church

(76) Larry Brown- NC State Representative recently discovered to have sent out emails referring to gays as "queers"and "fruitloops". Not only did he send them to 60 people, he doesn't think there's anything wrong with it!

(77) Andrew Shirvell- Assistant District Attorney of Michigan, overt homophobe obsessed with an attractive Student Council president at a state university. He spend most of his non-work time making rainbow flag swastikas to post on his blog and "demonstrating" outside the student's home. Can't really explain his extreme attraction to following this young man around and spending hours thinking about him every day.

(78) Carl Paladino- Republican candidate for Governor of NY, extremely ignorant homophobe (which usually means that there's some secret in the closet!!!)

(79) Fred Davis- GOP public relations guru responsible for some of the most reprehensible political ads on the airways. Interviewed on CNN and refused to answer the question of whether he would create a campaign ad for someone that he didn't think was qualified to hold the office. Me thinks he's a bit of whore who will help elect anyone to office, using whatever means necessary, as long as he gets paid.

(80) Virginia and Clarence Thomas- Ginni is a consultant for the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation who recently attempted to force her version of the truth on Anita Hill about her husband's sexual harassment history. Sorry Ginni, he did it. Clarence is the unfortunate excuse for a US Supreme Court justice with no original thought in 20 years, choosing instead to allow Scalia to tell him what to do. Too bad neither of them understand integrity.

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

Today, I just want to take a moment to honor the veterans of all US wars and conflicts, particularly those of color and LGBTQ. It takes a special form of courage and honor to fight for a country that does not recognize you as having the full rights of citizenship. Thank you.

OutLook Video

2009-05-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of appearing on a segment of our local GLBT TV show, Outlook Video, to talk about my latest book, "Loving Ourselves".

Check it out here -> Outlook Video on YouTube.

Tomorrows Reflection

2009-05-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I blogged about the evilmeister Dick Cheney in a blog I called "The Dark Side". In that blog, I was discussing my desire to see Obama give the green light to prosecution of the Bush administration for war crimes and torture.

To make my point, I reflected on the Biblical premise of Jesus as a "pacifist" and I wondered allowed if even Jesus wouldn't eventually get angry when there was extreme injustice. I was reminded of one of the more well-known passages that describe Jesus becoming angry at the moneychangers who had set up shop in the temple, overturning their tables and throwing them out. I am hoping that Obama becomes fed up with Cheney's constant criticism, when he has no moral leg to stand on, and allow the attack dogs to go after him for his role in torture and war.

In that section, I cited, and linked to, a website called "Tomorrow's Reflection" blogged by teaching pastor, Jeremy Jernigan, where he had included a post about Jesus as a pacifist.

Not long after I published my post, I received an email from Rev. Jeremy himself who had noticed that I had linked to his website and he then check out Gray Shades.

Here it is:

Dr. Hardin,

My name is Jeremy and I’m a teaching pastor at Central Christian Church in Arizona (www.cccev.com). I’m also the author of the blog, tomorrowsreflection.com, which you referenced in your post called “The Dark Side” on March 15. I’m not sure how you found my blog, but as a result of your link I found yours. All of this to say that I would be interested in beginning a dialogue with you about the issues that you are passionate about. I’ll admit that we probably approach the topic of homosexuality from very different viewpoints. However, I don’t personally know many openly gay people and I would like to know more about your perspective and better understand how you see things. I believe that this is a topic that the Church (collectively) hasn’t handled well and I believe will be an even greater issue in the future.

You may be interested in hearing a pastor’s perspective or at least sharing your thoughts with one. I have no desire to preach to you or try and get you to think differently, I’m simply offering the chance to learn from each other. I realize this email is probably catching you totally off guard and for that I apologize. If you have no desire to talk with me about this, then no worries. If you do, then I’d be glad to learn more and try and understand a different perspective than mine.

I was impressed with (and curious about) his sincerity and honesty so I agreed to a dialogue that he could post on his website since I sensed a good opportunity to try to break down a few barriers between good Christians and good gays.

So far, two pieces of our dialogue have appeared on Tomorrow's Reflection and I was very pleased to see an overwhelmingly positive response so far.

In the second dialogue, I sent Jeremy a letter that I was asked to write for a small church in Pennsylvania by the pastor with whom I volunteered on the Gulf Coast with the Red Cross after Katrina. In the letter, I gave a fairly detailed accounting of my experiences growing up in a fundamentalist Christian home in the rural South and my spiritual evolution. It's pretty long, but there have been about 12 comments and I'm very encouraged at the lack of hostility or toxic judgement.

Rev. Jeremy seems like a pretty brave guy to me. Kudos to him.

Miss California and Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover

2009-05-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

My Bisordi girlfriends and I have a morbid fascination with pageants.

I don't know why exactly, maybe it has to do with being from the land of pageants (the South is all about crowns and trophies) or maybe there is something about my gay genes that makes me appreciate the fantasy of it all.

After all, there's nothing more exciting than the old "rags to riches", "shopgirl makes it big", story that I can watch over and over again. Cinderella come to life as it were.

I even have to admit (I hope you're sitting down), that as a teen, I was the accompanist to not one, but TWO, lovely Miss Rutherford County pageants contestants, one of whom performed Natalie Cole's 70's horny classic "I Got Love On My Mind" and the other was a drop deadon imitation of gay icon Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen". Both contestants, by the way, won the talent portions of the contest, I like to think because of my excellent but subtle piano improvisation in the background. These pageants were among the few ventures outside of church music that I sashayed into during those intensely closeted years. Oh God, was the writing on the wall or what???

I can still get a little excited even now when I hear that a national pageant is being televised.

Recently, Dana and her mother Marilyn and I attended the Miss Redwood City/Miss San Mateo County pageant after becoming re-invigorated by watching "Toddler and Tiaras" on TLC. Local pageants are really nothing like the big "show stopping" nationally televised pageants since this is where they weed out the real talent from the wannabes. Think early rounds of American Idol.

One thing you learn early on if you're into these things is that Miss America and Miss USA pageant systems are VERY different from each other.

"Why do we need BOTH a Miss America AND a Miss USA?" you ask.

First, Miss America's the one where you have to have a talent of some kind. This is the part I live for. Sure, there are plenty of singers, from Broadway to Opera and pianists, and dancers, but the ones I live for are the "nontraditional" talents, the bizarre and the excuse for talent in the non-talented.

Like the ventriloquists who move their mouths or the BAD soliloquies from the stage. Or baton twirling...hehehe.

Sometimes, Miss Americas actually have real talent, although it's pretty rare that they have risen to the heights of Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America later dethroned for racy photos and now starring in "Ugly Betty".

The Miss America system also figured out years ago that it was much more PC to begin trying to encourage women to enter for the scholarship money, rather than for beauty alone. They kept the swimsuit competition however, referring obliquely to it as the "health and athleticism" aspect to being a well-rounded woman. Gotta love that.

Miss USA however makes no bones about what this competition is all about. It's all about the three B's: beauty, boobs and butts. There ain't no talent and their ain't no serious interview questions. It's all about fake tans, faker teeth and hair and silicone.

These women don't pretend that they want to be attorneys or surgeons or teachers- they are in it to be models, spokesmodels or ...well, umm...models! They want the prize money and the furs, and they are not afraid to shake it to get it.

Here's an explanation of the differences taken from the Miss America website:

Is the Miss America program different than Miss USA?

"Yes. In 1952, Catalina Swimsuits founded the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants as product promotion tools. Developed by the Miss America Organization, the Miss America program exists to provide personal and professional opportunities for young women to promote their voices in culture, politics and the community. Almost all contestants have either received, or are in the process of earning college or postgraduate degrees and utilize Miss America scholarship grants to further their educations. The Miss America Organization is the leading provider of scholarships for young women in the world. Although some young women compete in both Miss America and Miss USA, the two systems are completely separate".

A few years back, noted beauty expert Donald Trump purchased the Miss USA pageant system, partially explaining, I believe, why many of the winners often look like Ivana and other Trump women.

This year, apparently as a frontrunner for the Miss USA crown, Miss California Carrie Prejean, a 21 year old woman from a small town called Vista in southern California, was asked by openly gay celebrity gossip guru Perez Hilton, whether she supported same sex marriage in her home state of California.

You know, first of all, I have to wonder if he knew the answer that he would get from her before he even asked. It probably wasn't too hard to predict her response if you knew anything about her background raised in an evangelical family. The party line is always the same "marriage is between a man and woman" or some such nonsense.

At 21, how mature could this aspiring model be?

Or maybe he thought that since most evangelicals don't usually bare their abs and a significant portion of other body parts, maybe she had put some of the religious fervor behind her. I mean come on, I was raised in a fundamentalist evangelical family in the South and walking around in stilettos and a string bikini on stage was definitely verboten.

And maybe Mr. Hilton was supposed to ask something controversial to boost ratings. After all, when was the last time you talked about the Miss USA pageant?

Maybe she was used to generate publicity for the pageant.

She's probably not a bad person. And she's probably no rocket scientist.

But she is likely someone who will do or say almost anything for attention and publicity. She lost the title, but immediately got to make the rounds of the morning shows and suddenly became a spokeswoman for the anti-gay marriage movement. Guillible? Opportunist? Both?

That's where Carl Joseph Walker-Hooper comes in.

If you didn't read about his story, he's the 11 year old boy who hung himself after school mates taunted him for weeks for being "gay". Sadly, there was no evidence of what his true sexuality was, or would be, but his bully peers felt a need to pick on him and persecute him. Until he couldn't take it anymore.

Just over a year before that, also in California, eighth grade student Lawrence King, age 15, was shot and killed by a fellow student, also later labeled a crime of hate.

When I was a kid, I knew I was gay, and I knew I needed to hide it. I must have been good enough at it to escape the likely torment I would have received by the fundamentalist Christians around me- fundamentalist Christians like Miss California Carrie Prejean.

When Miss California says something "innocent" like she believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman, she tells children everywhere that being labeled gay means that you are second class and should probably kill yourself.

And she covertly nods to the crazy ones out there that want to hurt or kill poeple, even children, who look, act or in face actually are a sexual minority.

Miss California, I hope your fifteen minutes of fame end soon. You are too young and too immature to have a platform. Go back to Vista.

It's just a feeling

2009-04-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

After two months (and one week), our place finally sold. We're almost done with the details of the sale, just waiting for the buyers' financing to go through, which our realtor says won't be a problem.

Now, I'm about to take one of the biggest steps of my life- buying a house with the person I love.

I wonder if it's just me feeling all the excitement and the jitters.

I do try to mark the milestones in my life, whenever they come along, in a serious and mindful way.

It wasn't until Brad that I decided that I could commit myself, in the form of a public ceremony, to anyone, even after several long term relationships prior to him.

I also celebrated getting my degrees- undergrad, Master's and Ph.D. After all, people from my little town just didn't do those things and god knows I wasn't sure I was smart enough back then. So when I did it, each time, I was grateful and surprised.

Mindfulness was one of those concepts that once I learned about it through my studies of buddhist philosophy and meditation training, that had immediate meaning for me.

It's like standing in the center of a moment, just being there, feeling it, and not overthinking it.

It's not easy to put aside worry about what's going to happen. Not when you're from a long line of worriers, that is.

But I do have an appreciation for the big moments at least and I try to relish them.

So, I'm trying to relish this moment right now. I'm about to commit myself and my resources to this relationship with Brad so that we can own a home together.

It must seem silly to someone who got married young, took that first stepright away and began the who childbearing thing before they were old enough to know how serious it all is.

Straight people are so lucky in some ways to have a lot of the milestones kind of figured out for them. There's school and dating, and then getting engagement, having a career and then children. Maybe not in that exact order, but close enough. Yes, I know that there's pressure there, especially if you don't reach a milestone in a timely way ("What? you're 30 and still not pregnant?").

For me, I had to spend so much time detangling my brain from all the stuff I was taught that didn't really apply, that achieving milestones at all was something I celebrated.

And having a healthy relationship wasn't easy either since I didn't have one as a model growing up. When that's the case, you spend time both undoing the wrong stuff you learned about how people should treat each other and then trying to figure out what "healthy" relationships really are.

After that, it's about finding someone else who has done the work on themselves enough to want to work through it together.

So, buying a house to me isn't really about buying a house: it's about accepting the responsibility to be in love, to make a committment and to finally say to yourself "my life now is worth staying here."

Having said all that, we are looking at places.

We've had no real strategy for how we look.

Brad wants to stay in the general area, somewhere here on the Peninsula, like Redwood City, San Carlos, Belmont and maybe southern San Mateo.

We'd each like a place to park our car, and I'd LOVE an office (that's not a guest room too).

Beyond that, a view would be nice. An end unit with only one shared wall if any. An easy place to walk Ella. And maybe a large patio or small yard for flowers and veggies.

More of a feeler than a thinker, my strategy has been to walk into a place, stand there, look around and check the "gut".

For the third time, we've been hovering around a townhouse, just up the street from us.

The UP sides of this place: Spectacular hilltop view of the Bay, a room that could be a great office for me, and a dog trail close by. We both like it and would be happy there.

The DOWN sides: original kitchen, bathrooms and carpet.

The BIG down side: the owner wants about 50K more than we can afford.

Keep us in your thoughts as we hold our breath and see if we can figure out a way to make it work.

Raymond and Russell

2009-04-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

Brad and I have some good friends in Fresno, California, Ed and Jay, that we see fairly regularly either on one of their frequents trips to San Francisco for a weekend in the city, or when we drive down there for a quick weekend away.

Brad met Jay and Ed while he was an undergraduate at Fresno State University at one of the local gay bars and he had lost touch with them for many years until a few years back when Jay called out of the blue to reconnect. I've enjoyed getting to know them both since they're successful and chic, but very down- to- earth and fun.

About a year ago, on one of their outings to San Francisco, they brought along some friends (in a big van!) to help enjoy the long weekend. That particular group included two amazing fellows, Raymond and Russell, a gay couple in their 80's who have been together almost 30 years now. We had a wonderful dinner with our big group in San Francisco and I was frankly amazed at Raymond and Russell's energy and enthusiasm as we moved from dinner to after dinner cocktails at one of the Castro's hippest spots, Lime, and at midnight, Raymond couldn't stop moving to the thundering house music! All that evening, they told us fascinating stories about their lives as gay men, before they were together, how they met, and the almost 30 years since that day. I sat there just in awe of their candor and the incredible history of gays in America through their personal experiences.

Here's a few nuggets that Jay and I pieced together from their stories.

Eighty four year old Raymond came out at a fairly young age and he recalls that his mother believed that homosexuality was an illness that could be cured with penicillin. He was one of the few "out" people in Fresno as a young adult, and he worked as a hairdresser. He's only had three "long term" relationships in his life, but there was a time when he was quite "busy" sexually, according to his own stories, especially before AIDS.

Russell, now 87, never came out to his family. He was in the military for a while and then became an attache for the US Government in Thailand before returning to Los Angeles where he worked for the city of LA before he retired.

Raymond and Russell met in a bar they affectionately dubbed "The Wrinkle Room" in Santa Monica in the early 80's and it was love at first sight. They've been together ever since.

A few weekends ago, we went back to Fresno for a visit, and I was determined to captured some of their sparkle on some video. Ed and Jay hosted a dinner for us and invited Rick and David and Raymond and Russell over and we spent the evening having cosmos and encouraging R & R to tell us some stories.

Here's one of the favorites on how they met. Raymond is one on the left (farthest away) and Russell is on the right. Russell begins the story. Enjoy!!

Even in the Heartland

2009-04-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed and pleased today that gays can marry in Iowa.

There's something very special about the fact that it can happen in the middle of America.

By a stunning 7-0 decision, the Iowa Supreme Court made civil rights the issue again.

And what makes this even more promising is the fact that unlike in California, civil rights can't be denied by a simple majority vote of the people.

In Iowa, there is no initiative process (thank god) and to add something so devastating and negative as Prop 8 is in California, the people of Iowa would first have to have a constitutional amendment pass the state legislature TWICE before it could even be placed on the ballot.

Now that makes so much more sense doesn't it?

Ok, so maybe you don't trust your legislators. And maybe you think that you know better.

But the truth is, sometimes you do and sometimes you don't.

Who would have thought that in my haven of California, anti-American zealots could vote to revise the California constitution by a simple majority vote?

I get that issues like taxes and bonds are important and maybe it is a good thing to hear our voice more directly about where our money goes.

But it just blows my mind that this California Supreme court didn't understand that allowing the majority (of the people who voted mind you) to encode discrimination was a MAJOR REVISION of the constitution, not an amendment.

I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but if the constitution guarantees the civil rights of all of its citizens and then a simple majority of the voters should not be allowed to add a discriminatory clause to the constitution since it clearly contradicts the intention of the document, making it a REVISION!!

Another scarier way to look at this: approximately 13 million votes were cast in the November 2008 election in California. There are around 23 million registered voters here. The total population of California is close to 34 million people

That means that around 56% of the registered voters intended to take away rights that were already in place by California Supreme Court decree. Mind you, the court's job is to determine both what our constitution says, but also to uphold fairness in a country founded on freedom for all.

Here's the biggest rub to me- only 38% of the population of California voted to take away my rights when you consider the entire population, but their vote took away my rights.

Yes, I know that many non-voters are children. But many aren't. Some are undocumented. Some are infirm and cannot get to the polling places. This is an American problem as well as a California problem.

I'm anticipating that our lame California Supreme Court will decided to wash their hands of this mess and give us a partial victory, partial defeat. Brad and I will be allowed to stay married since we took the plunge before the vote. But I think they'll also decide that this vote was an "amendment" and not a revision, so that 38% of Californians can decide to offend whomever they please.

Come on people! We're not talking about putting a lid on property taxes. Or funding school development. Or paving our freeways.

We're talking about fundamental rights.

The California initiative process is broken.

It's time to fix it...before your rights are taken away too.

My Reasons for Gratitude Today

2009-03-22T17:03:00.001-07:00

I really believe in the power of gratitude. Even before I learned that Oprah and the Big Book extoll the virtues of it, I made it a point to try to focus on the positive things in my life that I had, rather than on what I didn't have.

Because I'm so not perfect however, it is difficult sometimes to practice what I preach to my clients.

It's so much easier it seems to get all snarled up about having rain instead of sun. Or a 35 minute commute to work on a beautiful stretch of 280.

Or sometimes I think about how this place will never sell and we won't own a place together.

Sometimes, I focus on the five extra pounds I see in the mirror, or the fact that there is no other hairstyle choice for me than buzzing it short (unless I try the comb- over thing...ewwww) or shaving it bald.

I wish my seven year old Miata was a sleek, sporty Beamer with automatic convertible top instead this nasty old manual one.

I wonder sometimes if maybe I should have chosen music over psychology as a career.

And then I walk into the living room and Brad is watching basketball with Ella snug in his lap and my whole perspective shifts.

How fortunate I am to have a home, a job, my health, my rattly top down after the rain and someone to love.

I take a deep breath and as I exhale, I think to myself "life is good."

The Dark Side

2009-03-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

When I was young, and I was a little, gay fundamentalist Christian, I learned that Jesus turned the other cheek. You see, Jesus was a very mild-mannered man, a very spiritual and peaceful man, for the most part.

In my mind's eye, Jesus was unshakeable, unflappable, and he overcame injustice and shallow-minded people with consistency and wisdom. The example followed by MLK Jr. and exemplified by Ghandi.

Of course there was another image of Jesus in the Bible as well. The one who, for once, showed his fury to the money changers, who were making a mockery of the church, by knocking around their tables and scaring the be-Jesus out of them.

Was he a pacifist at all cost? There seems to be sufficient evidence that he was not (http://tomorrowsreflection.com/?p=313). However, he did preach patience and non-violence and at least in my little mind back then, overrode the Old Testament "eye for an eye" mentality that struck me as just "icky."

So where am I going with this?

You guessed it: Dick Cheney.

Huh?

Today I see in the news that Dick is now saying that Obama's policies are making the US vulnerable for a terrorist attack- like the one that he and Georgie didn't prevent on 9/11, remember?

This is the second time now the most important VP ever in the history of the universe has chosen to speak out to predict disaster for the US (almost in a wishful way don't cha think?).

Ok, Obama started out trying to calm down the people ready for blood after the end of the Bush nightmare. "IMPEACH" they all screamed. "WAR CRIMINALS" a few chanted.

"No, "says Obama, "we need to move forward, not backwards." A pretty damned decent attempt to let "bygones be bygones" no matter how illegal and unethical the recent past adminstration has behaved.

Yet, instead of feeling grateful, and giving bipartisanship a chance to take the country in a new direction, Republican leadership in congress obstructs at every angle, Rush Limbaugh, their de facto leader openly hopes that America fails, and now Dickie boy is practically drooling at the thought of mayhem and disaster in the form of another major terrorist attack.

He can't WAIT until it happens on somebody else's watch!! After all, how will he repair and rewrite the Bush/Cheney legacy without it?

That where I find the temple dwellers story so intriguing. Jesus was a pacifist to a point.

He tried patience and turning the cheek, but since we only have two, after the second cheek is turned it's time for action against injustice.

Mr. Obama, you have shown great restraint, and great wisdom. But it's time now to step up and hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their misdeeds.

I could get all serious now and talk about what's already been said. Like NOT investigating these jerks sends absolutely the WRONG message to future leaders who take the law into their own hands and trample on our Constitution. If crimes have been committed, and I believe there is solid evidence that they have been, then it is your responsibility to hold them accountable. But, that is for another day, another columnist.

Cheney will not stop until you shut him up, Mr. President.

I want him stopped and I believe most of America wants him stopped.

Time to overturn the tables and banish the temple dwellers.

The Ramble Redhead Interview

2009-03-04T13:28:00.001-08:00

About a year ago, I had a guest appearance on the podcast, Gay Men Talking, hosted by my friends Alex and Dean to talk about my book, Loving Ourselves. Soon after that show was broadcast, I received a nice email from another podcast host, Tom, of The Ramble Redhead Show out of Indiana, asking me if I'd be a guest on his show. It took a while, but we finally made it happen and Tom just told me that he posted the interview today at his website, http://www.rambleredhead.com/. We talked a little bit about the book, but it was actually a lot more about me and my life (which I didn't expect!).

If you're interested, take a listen.

The Piano Teacher

2009-02-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

Last year, when I was visiting the folks in Forest City, I found out that the woman who gave me piano lessons throughout much of my childhood had passed away.

Mrs. Taylor was important to me in more ways than one.

Ever since I can remember, I have loved music. I loved the radio, especially WBBO, our local station and I listened every spare minute of every day. Whatever they played, I listened to and I learned all the words to every song. And I spent lots of my allowance on records, those flat black discs that revolved around 45 times per minute with a needle tracking the grooves until they were scratched and crackly.

My favorite aunt Martha, a self-taught musician herself, held me in her lap whenever I visited when she played the old upright piano in the room off the kitchen and she eventually showed me some easy tunes I could play myself. It was Aunt Martha who introduced the concept of music notes and how you could read them to turn them into sounds with your fingers. Sitting in Aunt Martha's lap was always a highlight because I relished the attention and her encouragement. She was possibly the first person who recognized some tiny kernal of talent I might have had in those days.

So, by about age 6, I had a passion to learn to play the piano myself . I begged and begged until mom and dad gave in and bought me my own secondhand Baldwin upright! And, they agreed to send me for some piano lessons to learn to play it.

I still remember mom driving me to Ellenboro , which was out in the country for us folks from the urban Forest City world (pop. 7000). I had no idea what to expect, but I was squirming with anticipation during the whole ten minutes it took to get there.

We arrived at what looked like a regular country house, pulled into the gravel driveway and circled around back of the house to a tiny, plain white building, I'd soon come to know like my own room.

We sat in the car for what seemed like forever before suddenly, a small white haired woman emerged from the main house back door, beckoning us towards the small white building with small windows.

I remember her as kind and funny, with a deep Southern drawal and a natural grace about her. When she opened the door for us, I could finally see the small studio Yamaha piano, back to back with the electric Hammond organ, just like the one at our church. She and my mom worked out the details of our arrangement while I tinkered with the keys: half hour lessons, once a week, $5 a lesson, plus the cost of the music books. With a gentle nudge that I would be expected to practice at least 30 minutes a day, she winked and smiled and thus it began.

My official relationship with Mrs. Taylor lasted for almost 10 years after that, the ups and downs of those lessons, week after week, month after month and she taught me to play.

I know I wasn't always an easy student. As much as I loved the piano and loved music, it was sometimes hard to stay focused on the practicing, earning me many pseudo-threats of the lessons stopping until I found the discipline to work at it. As much as I sometimes hated the thirty minutes of scales and music theory, I also continued to love the breakthroughs in my ability to play real songs.

No matter what else was going on in my life, every week I found myself in that little room sharing the love of music and the ins and outs of the rest of my life with Mrs. Taylor. She laughed at my jokes and brushed her tiny pomeranian's fur, pausing occasionally to correct my hand position or timing, with the gentle patience of a true teacher.

Under her guidance, I became fairly accomplished at the piano, enough to eventually perform at my parents' church and later at school and at the local arts council.

One day, at my regular lesson when I was 15, she surprised me by asking if I'd be interested in becoming the pianist at her church, Ellenboro United Methodist, for $15 per service (at the time, a fortune!). She had been the pianist for years and was ready to retire at that point she explained. She also felt that I was ready and could handle the responsibility as long as my parents agreed and could bring me to church and pick me up after.

I was a little concerned about my folks' reaction since they were devout Wesleyans and taking this job would mean that I would no longer attend church with them, but I wanted to try it more than I'd ever wanted anything. It strikes me as funny now that I seemed to have no fear about it. I was just a kid who could earn some bucks and have some fun at the same time- oh, and the opportunity to escape the harshness of the fundamentalist Wesleyans that I had come to despise as a young man. At that point in time, I had been struggling with my sexuality for a few years.

Although I respected and cared for Mrs. Taylor, I wouldn't say that we necessarily had an openly loving or family-type relationship. She was my teacher and I was her student. I knew virtually nothing about her life outside that little white building. We spent ten years together, sharing our love for music and the piano and occasionally we talked about other things and laughed. Twice we met outside of the white building and church, both times on her initiative to expose me to music at a larger scale: a piano performance at Isothermal Community College and a music teachers' convention a few miles away for the afternoon.

At close to 17, my life became much more complicated as I began my first love affair, struggled to maintain my grades and dealt with the horrible coming out process with my family. Being gay back then meant that you were evil or sick and my refusal to reject that part of myself led my mother to say things to me that a mother should never say to a child.

Piano lessons got pushed aside and although I continued to play professionally, I left the comfort of those weekly meetings . Within the next couple of years, I struggled to survive until I left town for college, rarely looking back to Forest City. Mrs. Taylor wished me well with a quick hug and one last prod for me to continue my musical life after high school.

Over the years, I'd occasionally give Mrs. Taylor a call to say hello. She always sounded the same- excited to hear from me and happy when I could say that I was still playing. But I can say that I thought about her on more than a few occasions, the woman who was probably the most consistently positive force in my young life. She was always warm, always gentle and always happy to see me, 50 weeks a year for ten years.

A few years back, when my second book, The Gay and Lesbian Guide to Self-Esteem was published, I included Mrs. Taylor in the Acknowledgements section, among the other important people in my life who made a difference. She believed in me and made no demands on me other than to practice and to make good music. I never told her about it. We didn't talk about things like that. But she was the only consistently positive and regular adult presence in my life, who didn't judge me or manipulate me. I owe her for my self-discipline, a virtue which has brought me successes that I never dreamed at 13 that I could achieve.

Two years ago, I was thinking about her again, wondering how she was and remembering our times together. It hit me suddenly that maybe I had underestimated my relationship with her.

It's hard to know what kind of kid I must have been to her. What kinds of things did I really talk about with her? How much time in the 30 minutes did I really spend playing and how much did I share with her the details of my life?

I had always thought about what a wonderful "coincidence" it was that, just as I was feeling the peak oppression of my parents' fundamentalist beliefs while trying to understand myself, she "retired" as the pianist for the somewhat more progressive United Methodist Church and convinced them to offered me the job. Was I really that good? or did she have something else in mind?

What if, I wondered, Mrs. Taylor knew about struggle I was facing, without even a conversation about it. Surely, even in the back woods of Rutherford County, she had experience with little boys with a talented ear and musical expressiveness. Was it possible that this wise woman knew me better than I knew myself? Instead of divine intervention that took me out of that homophobic church under the spotlight of the small town mind, maybe it was Mrs. Taylor's way of rescuing me. Did she know me and my folks well enough to understand that without her intervention at that point in time, who knows what would have happened?

I choose to believe now that she did. I choose to believe that she was proud of me and loved me, quietly and patiently. During the times that I didn't love myself and thought I had nothing good inside, she was there every week. Recently, I revived my keyboard life, fumbling through some easy Beethoven and beginner Mozart. I wish I had practiced more during my life.

Good night Mrs. Taylor and thank you for believing in me when no one else did. I love you.

Living in a Clean House

2009-02-21T14:29:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm on an adventure.

We're in the process of trying to sell Brad's condo and it's the first time I've ever been involved with this procedure.

Open houses, I can tolerate. You basically get the place in perfect order, leave for a few hours, and then when you come back, it's done.

It's the keeping the place spotless EVERY DAY that's the hard part.

I'm not exactly

known for neatness (although I have to say that I'm not into filthy...it's more like having organized little piles). I'm not sure exactly how I missed that part of the gay gene. I mean, I do clean up when guests are coming and Brad's gotten me into the habit of making the bed everyday (well, except for when he's out of town), but cleaning everyday is just not important to me.

Maybe I'm working out issues from my childhood?

I remember mom's insistence on a clean house. Before "no wax" floors, I remember my dad stripping and waxing the kitchen floor every Saturday night. It seemed like it took hours of scrubbing and polishing. And there wasn't a Saturday morning without the vacuum buzzing through the house, spoiling my complete enrapture with cartoons, from Bugs Bunny, Casper,and the Flintstones, to the Archies, Josey and the Pussycats in Outer Space and Fat Albert.

Cleaning was a priority in our house on Price street, and I learned quickly that it was a way to earn favor and spending money. Taking out the trash, folding the laundry and washing the dishes could mean, I don't know, three dollars?

Maybe it's just a "lifestyle choice"?

Who says that neater is better? Who? WHO??

I think it's a matter of personal preference. I mean, little piles don't bug me. Honestly, there's something kinda nice about a comfy home that is "lived in". It's like my own personal little rebellion against the shoulds of the world. "It's my house so I get to live in it like I choose."

Except it isn't my house.

It's OUR home.

Two adults with separate identities, who choose to make a life together.

Which means we choose to compromise.

I make up the bed and Brad ignores a few little piles.

And miraculously, I am surviving living in a museum while we anticipate owning our own place together, continuing the compromising that is love.

Obama Obama Obama

2009-02-15T19:16:00.000-08:00

I'm finally ready to talk about it. I was so stressed out about it for the last two years, I just bring myself to blog until the climax was over.

The election I mean.

Somewhere between the press annointing Hillary as the Democratic Nominee and the second oath of office after the John Roberts' screw up, I knew that Barack Obama was the man for me in the White House, er, maybe the Multiracial House now, we should call it.

I probably did more in this election to get involved than I ever have before. I started by trying to get to know who this man really was, first by reading "The Audacity of Hope" and then by really listening to his plans and his speeches. I put his bumper sticker on my car long before it was cool and it was inevitable. That's how committed I was this time around.

If you've been reading my prior posts, you can tell that I have a problem with the Republicans as well. Honestly, I have a problem with the Democrats too, but at least they are a bit closer to how a real democracy should function than the current crop of neocon crybabies ("nobody listens to us anymore so we don't wanna play with you!").

I have to admit, I had a few seconds of doubt after Rick Warren, the blowhard evangelist from Southern California was selected to give the invocation (see my earlier blog on this idiot). And, I worry whenever Obama tries to go "bipartisan" on me. After all, what exactly have the Republicans done RIGHT over the past eight years? Anybody? Anybody?

Why would anything they have to say matter right now since they were the ones who messed us all up to begin with. Seriously, would someone please tell the Republican leadership that they lost because they screwed up? And that they'll keep losing as long as they keep doing it?

Watch them play games with the stimulus package just so they can "win" the media wars and try to make Obama look bad. Watch Judd Gregg play games with the bipartisan attempt by Obama to represent the economic perspectives of by accepting Gregg's offer to be Commerce Secretary. Watch Illinois GOP leader Jim Durkin call for Blagojevich appointee Sen. Roland Burris to resign so that a "special election" can be called. Hmmm...so that the national Repub party can pour resources into Illinois to prevent Obama from ever reaching 60? Or how about Norm Coleman, defeated by Al Franken, filing frivolous lawsuit after lawsuit, to prevent Franken from taking his rightful seat in the Senate. They'll do ANYTHING folks. No matter how un-American.

Enough about those lunk heads though.

I'm still excited about Obama, the man.

Yes, he's got to clean house with the vetting team.

And, he really needs to stay on top of the media wars and define the arguments.

But I have to say this, his personal intellectual brilliance, his grasp of the important issues and his refreshing candor, make me more excited about this country's future than I've felt in my life time.

I think he knows what he's doing.

I believe he has a plan for how to save the economy, how to bring respect back to the US in the eyes of the world and how to, most importantly, change politics as we know it.

For example, in a couple of years, when the economy is turning around- and it will- people will see Obama as the stimulus for that. And people will remember that the talking heads for the Repubs were against it.

I have to hand it to the Repubs...they have balls.

Part of my dismay for the Dems is that they don't stand up and fight back. And they are too timid to take a political risk that might pay off big, but might also blow up in their faces.

Repubs however do whatever it takes to win. And right now, they are losing bigtime. They are on the wrong side of history. And they are paying for the idiocy of the Bush-Cheney-Rove years.

Obama however has balls I think. Big ones.

It took cojones for him to run for the U.S. Senate, AND then for the Democratic nomination, AND then for President.

He defied the odds.

He'll continue to defy expectations in my opinion.

So, when I feel frustrated with the moment, or hear a Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity windbag, I click my heels together three times and say "Obama, Obama, Obama".

Why I Love My Husband and I Don't Need a Hallmark Valentine

2009-02-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

In lieu of a big mushy Valentine's celebration this year, I thought I might muse a bit about while Valentine's day isn't really necessary for me.

When I was growing up in that small Southern town, for the longest time, I thought I was the only gay person in the whole world. With no books, or internet or Will and Grace, there was no way to know that what I was feeling was shared by others, so on top of the shame and fear that I was feeling, there wasn't even the possibility of finding someone to love.

In high school though, I found out a few things that were encouraging, like the fact that there were other gay people in the world and that sex with them was good. But the idea that gay people were entitled to love was still a pipe dream. What I learned in the 1970's was that being gay was about sexual freedom and exploration, not about commitment and intimacy. Not very many people talked about making "commitments" and gay marriage wasn't even on the radar.

My 20's and 30's were about trying at failing at relationships. I realized that I was not mature enough, nor ready for real love in those attempts, but as time passed, I became less optimistic that the right person would come along.

And then, Brad came along.

Just as I was about to give up (at least for a while) on Match.com and blind dates from friends, a whole new bunch of possibilities entered my life by showing up at my door with flowers.

Forty year old at the time, and nursing scars from my previous long-term relationship that ended badly, I had just about decided that either I was too jaded at this point or that gay men in urban environments were too cynical for a serious relationship.

Little did I realize that a couple of things were about to happen.

First, I would meet someone who would completely disarm me with his sincerity and his gentle, sweet nature.

And second, I would enter into a relationship for the first time in my life in a mature and thoughtful way.

Yes, I was overwhelmed with infatuation. You know, when you are swept off your feet, you spend less time parked and more time with engines racing, and become consumed with forever after. Reason takes a back seat to passion. I was always good at that part.

Maybe because this was on the heels of the last failure, or maybe because I had met someone who was mature beyond his years, but as much as we felt drawn to each other, we took our time and believe it or not, actually talked about the process as it was happening.

For the first time, at least for me, building a relationship together became an intentional process. We talked and laughed and played and talk some more.

There was no denying the instant connection that we felt with each other. A knowing that transcended geographical differences, the age difference, and even religious traditions. It was different from what we each had experienced in the past and I knew there was something special here.

Experience has taught me however, that love is not infatuation, or an unspoken connection. Love, in my book, is something that grows over time with cultivation, like a beautiful bonzai garden. Great relationships don't just happen, as I naively thought from my inexperienced life, they take work.

Brad was willing to do the work. And that was an incredibly powerful realization, understanding that he is willing to work hard to be with me. He understands commitment means that through thick and thin, we are there for each other, patiently waiting for the time that it is our turn to draw strength from the relationship. His commitment to me makes me more committed to him.

Beside his work ethic however, I'm most amazed by Brad's basic goodness. Over the past six years, I've watched him go beyond expectations to be kind. This is true kindness, not the type that's only for recognition or out of obligation. I respect him for his commitment to honestly and charity. He does this at work, with family, and most amazingly, with me. It's the first time in my life that someone surprises me with kindness and I'm speechless when it happens. He doesn't even know really how much those little acts touch me. It's just who he is.

I never imagined until these last six years, that I could really be with one person for the rest of my life.

Never has a relationship felt so real and so honest. I have been more of myself with Brad than I've ever been with anyone because he's earned my trust.

I don't need a Valentine to know that I am loved this year.

My Valentine is the way that he looks at me when we talk, the way he listens to me when I complain, and the way he reaches for my hand just because.

Publicity blitz..of sorts

2009-02-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

I know I've been gone too long. I think about you guys a lot.

It's a lot of pressure actually, to think, sit down and write, especially with a life going on at the same time.

Let me apologize now for now for the randomness of this one. I'm going to try to catch you up on stuff going on with me and then the next one, I promise, will be about real issues again.

First, I'm having a bit of a media blitz, well a media blitz for me that is.

I was interviewed last week on the podcast "Ramble Redhead", which was an interesting experience for me in itself. Tom, the host (ol' Ramble himself) invited me to be on the show after hearing me on "Gay Men Talking" a few months ago and we finally made it happen last week.

My first assumption was that this was going to be mainly about the recent book, "Loving Ourselves" but I was sorely mistaken about that. It seems that Tom's goal with the shows is to really take an intimate look at gay men from all walks of life and to tell their personal stories, not just to talk about their work.

I don't know that I've ever talked so much about my self and my life, especially in the context of an interview for broadcast. I was on the phone for almost two hours, which I think he's going to trim down to two, half hour segments.

He's a pretty good interviewer, leading me to talk about all kinds of things including the first moments of self-awareness in terms of my sexuality, my early relationships and all about me and Brad.

For the morbidly curious, he should be posting the finished product within the next couple of weeks. He just posted an interview with comedian/actor ANT so I think mine is next after him. If it cures your insomnia (which would be my greatest fear), let me know.

**********************************
And, interestingly, I'm set to appear on the local cable show "Outlook Video" which is taped at the studio of KMVT in Mountain View. We'll do the taping next Thursday the 12th and when I get an edited copy, I'll post a clip here. Wish me luck and I hope what they say about the camera adding ten pounds is just a myth.

**********************************
Brad and I are also in the process of trying to sell the condo in which we live. Our goal is to buy a townhouse in the area together, which will be a first for both of us (owning a place with a partner). Yes, it always looks this clean and no, I never have a messy, unkempt closet nor do I leave my clothes lying around my room, REGARDLESS of what Brad says.

**********************************

I have re-established contact with several friends from college and high school over the past few weeks. It's partly a Facebook phenomenon, but I've been enjoying finding out what happened to who. Those were the days. Yikes!

**********************************

I am excited by the fact that the California Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case regarding the constitutionality of Prop 8 in March. I will be watching with baited breath, hoping that the $40 million spent by gay marriage foes was totally wasted. There apparently are homeless Mormons somewhere who donated all the life savings to support Prop 8, but are smug in their continuing attempts to define marriage (after they got the whole polygamy thing figured out).

**********************************

The whole Obama thing has just been too much for me to discuss thus far. I wanted to just experience it for a while before I start talking about it. It's coming soon.

She Told Us So: Remembering Molly Ivins

2009-01-29T18:14:00.000-08:00

Maybe ten years ago or so, as an avid reader of editorial pages, I found myself reading a column by Molly Ivins and cackling with glee.

For those of you not familiar with Ms. Ivins, she was one outspoken, witty... really a genius... of a columnist who wasn't afraid to bite back at the powers that be.

Born in Monterey, CA but raised in Texas and proud to stay there most of her life, she had a keen eye for observation and I loved every thing that came out of her pen.

Most times, her columns were bold and brassy, taking the political right wing, that she lived beside day after day, to task for their un-Democratic and un-progressive platforms.

I particularly loved how she incorporated her strong Southern drawl into the thoughts themselves, simultaneously mocking and loving her own roots deep in the Bible belt.

And, I snapped up her books, from Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, which unsuccessfully tried to warn us all about the perils of electing an incompetent boob from a weak governorship state to the Presidency, to Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, a searingly accurate accounting of his first term in office, she was serious, funny and dead on.

She had a talent for taking the absurd in American life and politics and making me laugh. Molly was one of those people who made me feel like someone else out there gets it and therefore, got me. Cynthia Tucker, of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, another brilliant columnist that I crave, gives me that same kind of feeling but without quite the same edgy pizazz of Miss Molly.

Although I never met her, she was one of those writers that you felt like you knew. I was incredibly sad when she succumbed to breast cancer in January of 2007.

Bush is finally gone, but we'll live with his unfortunate legacy for years.

I remember you Molly, and I remember that you tried to warn us. I miss you.

A Different Light Book Signing

2009-01-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to the people who turned out for the book signing last night at A Different Light in the Castro. Lots of wonderful friends and a few people I didn't know showed up on a Monday night after work and made the experience so much more fun than I expected.

You're all fantastic!

My Response to Joel's questions about Rick Warren, Catholicism and other stuff

2009-01-24T08:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged on Rick Warren much yet but I've been thinking about it!

The only issue that Brad and I have ever really haggled over is religion. He's such a good man from his head to his toes and that gives me pause when I criticize the hierarchy of Catholicism.

But, as we've discussed before, I came from a very rigid, dogmatic fundamentalist Christian family and as you can imagine, I came away with quite a few scars from that experience that makes me very sensitive to hypocrisy in a religious system. Nothing makes me more upset than the notion of using Christ (or any other religious figure for that matter) as a tool of the powerful to oppress others. In a weird way, it makes me defensive and angry for Christ himself that humans use the threat of condemnation from God to impose their own flawed logic and irrational fears on others. That just flies in the face of the Christ that I learned about, even from the fundamentalists themselves. Does that make sense? At some point, I started thinking that to be truly Christian, ones needs to avoid the churches!!

Having said that, I cannot support the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in particular for the blatantly homophobic statements that they regularly make about gay people. I cannot understand how or why they continue to ignorance the scientific evidence, and the personal experience of good gay men in the priesthood, to continue to hold on to unnecessary dogma. And I believe that this dogma contributes to the continuing stigmatization and hate crimes against gay people around the world. With one stroke of the pen, the Pope could begin an amazing reconciliation process and healing for millions of oppressed gay people everywhere!

As far as Rick Warren goes, I think clearly the moment was bigger than the man. It's incredibly difficult for evangelicals to think "outside the box" and a big flaw in their judgement revolves around their tendency to be "all of nothing" thinkers, you're with us or against us kind of mentality.

I think the fact that supposedly Rick Warren is more open to environmentalism, etc. than other evangelicals, gave Obama hope that this was a way to connect with this previously ignored subgroup within the Democratic Party. I am trying to trust Obama's judgment about him right now, hoping that this might pay off with less opposition to his Presidency when Obama makes the big moves toward civil rights.

I watched Rick Warren discussing his views about gay people on an interview on NBC a few weeks ago. He is so hopelessly ignorant that I realized at that moment that he's simply a chess piece in Obama's larger plan to bring the Sarah Palin supporters of the world to the table. Same thing with Mike Huckabee. You know when men like these can't rationally discuss the issue, knowing that they are going to be on a national stage, they can't be that bright. Giving a Christ-centered invocation at an international event is more evidence of the lack of sophistication and sensitivity of the man.

Stonewall Kitchen

2009-01-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

I believe it was my friend Drew that first recommended that I try the Stonewall Kitchen products at the Chef Shop in San Carlos. I can't remember if there was a specific product he recommended, a jam or a pancake mix or salad dressing, but I did remember the brand name and while wandering around on Laurel Street in San Carlos, I decided to give the Fig and Ginger jam a try. I love ginger. And I love figs. Who knew?

Breakfast the next day was amazing. The fluffy English muffins from Whole Foods were the perfect complement to the jam and I think within a week, I was at the bottom of the jar.

Next, I tried the Wild Maine Blueberry Jam, and as a longtime blueberry freak, I was amazed at both how many real blueberries were packed in there and how fresh and juicy they stayed. Ahh...no preservatives! And less syrupy blue stuff than other brands I've tried.

Last Christmas (2007), I gave most of my clinical team at work some variation of a gift package of Stonewall Kitchen products that included the Pumpkin Pancake or Banana Pancake mixes along with a SK spatulua, etc.

My readers know that I don't usually go into product endorsement mode on the blog. I probably wouldn't have if it wasn't for my experience yesterday.

Also on Christmas in 2007, Brad gave me a gift certificate for the cooking school at Draeger's Market. I love to cook when I have the time, but I'm self-taught, and I'm really wanting to learn the basics of cooking from a pro. So, in December of 2008, I was feeling guilty (and a little pressure from Brad) about not having signed up for a Draeger's class yet. As luck would have it, I received the cooking school schedule in the mail that week, and there on the cover was Jonathan King and Jim Stott, the founders/owners of Stonewall Kitchen, coming to the San Mateo store for a demo!

Yesterday was an amazing and inspiring event for me. Of course the food that they prepared was fantastic. Classic Down East Clam Chowder, Roasted Beet Salad with Fried Goat Cheese and Fig-Balsamic Dressing, Salmon Ginger Cakes with Orange-Miso Sauce, Mediterranean Orzo salad, Asparagus Bundles wrapped with Prosciutto, and Molten Chocolate Cake were demo'd and served to the class of about 50 of us.

The school itself is amazing with comfortable "classroom" style seating, high tech camera/HD screens for detail viewing and professional staff assisting with clean up and serving. There really wasn't a bad seat in the house and I can't wait to take the Basic Knife Skills class coming up this wednesday.

Having said all that however, what really impressed me the most was Jonathan and Jim themselves.

They struck me as real people who had a good idea and made something happen with it. Nothing's more inspiring than that.

Both are warm and funny in their own ways and it's clear that they love what they do. I'll even go a step further- I think they feel grateful for the incredible whirlwind that turned their little card table at the local farmer's market into a multi-million dollar business with 6000 accounts currently worldwide and producing 50,000 products a day at their main factory.

Using a combination of good taste, "ignorance" (as Jim jokingly stated during the demo) and plain old hard work, they took a passion and created something healthy and tasty that appeals to me not because of the promotion or packing but the simplicity, quality and comfort that goes into each product. They probably wouldn't sell something if they didn't like it themselves.

Jonathan hand-wrote every label on their first major order of 3000 jams from Crate and Barrell and it's still his handwriting printed on every label even now. Gives you the feeling that this stuff just came off grandma's shelf!

I think we all need a little inspiration during these rough economic times. Obama is one inspiration for me. These guys are another.

Holy Rollers and LYRIC

2009-01-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

Just a quick mention of the upcoming fundraiser at Rainbow Skate coming up on January 14th at 8 pm.

We were approached by the famous Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence of San Francisco a few weeks ago about doing a skating event to raise money for LYRIC, which stands for Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center.

Here's a little history on LYRIC that I borrowed from their website:

Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center (LYRIC) is a community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQQ) youth. In 1988, two young women, Donna Ozawa and Beth Kivel, dreamed about creating a safe and fun place for gay and lesbian youth. A few months later with generous community support LYRIC was born out of the first dance for LGBTQQ youth in San Francisco.

Within a few years, through strong community organizing we gained the support of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office to purchase a building in San Francisco’s traditional “gay neighborhood,” the Castro. In the fiscal year ending June 2004, LYRIC reached over 2,000 young people through our local programming and received 10,284 calls to our national Talkline/Infoline (60% from within California). We also reached approximately 5,232 youth in San Francisco through our outreach activities. Because of our emphasis on peer-based support, youth participation reaches all levels of the agency, including the staff and board. LYRIC has become an acknowledged model for similar agencies around the country.

In the last few years as LGBTQQ adults have found greater mainstream acceptance, youth are coming out at younger and younger ages. Today, it is not uncommon to have eleven and twelve year-olds access our services. However, the increased visibility for adults has not made the world any safer for LGBTQQ youth. In fact, it may be just the opposite. According to a recent study by the California Safe Schools Coalition, two-thirds of LGBTQQ students reported harassment and nearly half (47%) of these students experienced repeated harassment. Students targeted on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation are three times more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe. They are more than twice as likely to be depressed, to consider or make a plan for suicide, to have low grades, to use drugs or alcohol, or to be victims of violence.

The growing economic divide between individuals and communities across the nation and the erosion of funding for social services has left many LGBTQQ youth without any basic support in their lives. We are finding a growing number of LYRIC participants challenged by homelessness, family rejection, unemployment, violence, HIV/AIDS or lack of means for basic survival. Our population base is also increasingly diverse, including greater numbers of participants of color, transgender participants as well as youth from low-income backgrounds.

Our message is clear: these youth are part of our family. As a community, it is our responsibility to come together and build a diverse society where LGBTQQ youth are embraced for who they are and encouraged to be who they want to be. By working towards social justice and supporting young leaders, their families and allies, LYRIC is building a world that honors, respects and appreciates LGBTQQ youth and their contributions. What began as simple dream between two friends—and came true because of the tremendous work and support of a broad community alliance—is needed today more than ever in the world.

So come on out and support the event and support our young people!

Beautiful day in San Carlos

2009-01-11T14:42:00.000-08:00

I was tempted to write something snarky today about Sarah Palin again. Something about how now that she's off on a tangent about how it's the media's fault that she came out of the election looking so incompetent, you'd think that the new interview with a right wing filmmaker (http://www.howobamagotelected.com/) would actually counter that impression. I never really understood how five to ten minutes of unedited video of her talking in circles and half truths was the media's fault. It's like she's saying that they didn't show the hours of her speaking articulately and brilliantly. To me, she comes across in exactly the same way on this "conservative" guy's interview as she did with Katy. And it's pretty amusing that blasted across the interview is the web URL stating "How Obama Got Elected".

Anyway, what I really want to write about today is how beautiful today has been.

It's in the mid 70's, sunny and clear. So clear, we could see all the way across the bay to Fremont and beyond.

Brad and I just took Ella out for a long walk along our favorite ridge trail, just yards from our place.

I realized today that I spent too much time in 2008 stressed out. My job change, the election, Prop 8, the economy- you name it, it was stressful.

I didn't spend enough time in the present.

Too much energy went into how things should be (or should've been), rather than how they are.

We saw two great movies this weekend, Gran Torino and Doubt, which made me think about 2009.

From Gran Torino, I take away the reminder that life is short and that human connection through community is important. And that there is redemption for mistakes you make if you look for it.

From Doubt, I'm reminded that no one has a monopoly on the truth- including me. We are as united in our doubts and confusion in life as we are by our certainty and absolutes.

I know they're just movies, and that now even if they didn't actually happen, they serve as powerful metaphors for how I live my life.

I'm inspired right now to change my attitude a bit. To let go of my distaste for Sarah Palin. To try to be kinder to people in general. To be happy with what I have now rather than what I want.

Maybe you'll see my cheeky side slip out again in a new posting now and then, but for today, I'm working on it.

Upcoming Reading at A Different Light

2009-01-08T06:33:00.000-08:00

Let’s play a game. Name the source of each of the following quotes. (Answers at the end).

“Contrary to claims by gay activists, homosexually active persons as a group appear to be less psychologically healthy than the general population.”¹

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."²

“The homosexual inclination is … 'objectively disordered' and homosexual practices are 'sins gravely contrary to chastity’.”³

”God hates fags”⁴

If this game gets under your skin, join the club.

All four quotes were made within the past five years, are highly visible in the media and fuel the fires of hate crimes everywhere.

And they really tick me off!

I know, as a clinical psychologist, I shouldn’t be upset by statements like this. I should be able to laugh heartily and analyze the speaker’s true feelings. After all, I went to school all those years to fix myself first, didn’t I?

Well, if I’m being brutally honest, YES, I did wander into the psychology classes with some pretty dysfunctional history in my background, some related to my being gay in a small Southern town and some related to just plain ol’ regular dysfunction.

I guess I stayed in those classes because some of it actually made sense to me. And some of it helped me.

The little town where I was raised was super conservative, the center of the Bible belt and home of the National Dairy Goat Association. Much of my world back then was about “right” and “wrong”. My parents were devout fundamentalists and we attended church three times a week, or more if it was time for revival.

By the time I was 13, I knew that homosexuals were “bad” and that whatever feelings I had about other boys were forbidden. I learned to hide who I really was and to pretend that I felt something for girls that I didn’t. Life in that small town was about survival.

What I didn’t realize was happening though, was that I was being conditioned all those years. I was bombarded with messages- some overt, some subliminal- about myself as a gay man, and most, if not all, were horribly negative.

In my part of the world, anti-gay sentiments were open, obvious and even righteous. There was only Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell talking about being gay. There was no Ellen, no Will and Grace, and no Internet.

Thank goodness I escaped.

During my training, amidst the classes on Freudian theory and Jungian archetypes, I heard about a radically different form of therapy that caught my attention, known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (also known as CBT). While exploring the meaning of dreams and early childhood traumas was certainly interesting, I found the simplicity and immediate power of CBT personally and professionally exciting.

The central tenant of CBT is basic. Recognize problematic thinking and change it.

I learned that those negative messages from my childhood about my worth and my core identity, continued to affect my choices even as an out and proud adult. I realized that for many of my lesbian and gay clients, they too carried the remnants of earlier struggles, almost like they were programmed to self-sabotage. Hearing a publicized statement like one of the examples above could be enough for some of them to start a spiral of negativity, despair and self-destruction.

Coming out, it seemed, was only the first step in the journey to a healthy life. Learning to recognize the leftover anti-gay messages that we’ve internalized and then stopping them dead in their tracks was a powerful way to feel better and stop undermining our health and goals.

My memories of those days in the South, and the healing that occurred after I left, prompted me to write Loving Ourselves: The Gay and Lesbian Guide to Self-Esteem, to share what I’ve learned, both personally and professionally with the rest of the LGBTQ world out there. Yet beyond changing your thinking, this book is also about cultivating a better, more loving relationship with the real you.

The evidence is clear. LGBTQ young people are still significantly more likely to feel bad about themselves, to use drugs and alcohol excessively, and to be subjected to harassment and violence than their straight peers. And it’s also clear that homophobia remains strong and promoted by powerful voices in high places.

Learning to love yourself means learning to regularly counteract negative messages wherever you find them, whether from your past or in the headlines of Fox News and then replacing them with new messages of genuine affection, respect and hope.

Loving Ourselves is my way of sharing the very best parts of the journeys of my clients and myself towards healthy self-esteem and providing a starting path for readers who want to go there.

Kimeron Hardin, Ph.D.

Answers:

1-James Dobson, Founder, Focus on the Family

2-Rick Santorum, former US Senator from Pennsylvania

3-Benedict XVI, Pope, Roman Catholic Church

4- Fred Phelps, Preacher, Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, KS

For those of you in the SF Bay Area, I will be doing a reading/booksigning for Loving Ourselves at A Different Light Bookstore on Castro Street in SF on January 26th at 7:30 pm. Join me if you can!

False Prophets in a Modern Day World

2009-01-01T10:23:00.001-08:00

Part of my fundamentalist upbringing conditioning was that not only were we the ONLY correct Christians, but that there were people disguised as Christians out there that we needed to avoid. These pseudo-Christians might look like us and act like us and even proclaim that Jesus was their Lord and Savior, but they weren't us. In fact, the devil himself might cloak himself in the form of a highly appealing, Bible-quotin', Gospel singing, big-hair wearing preacher of the Word.

We were coached from an early age to be suspicious and to look at others with skepticism, no matter what they said or how nice to us they were. As a matter of fact, the nicer they were, the more distance we should probably keep.

Apparently, the Bible talks quite a bit about being wary of so called "false prophets"- or proclaimers of faith who don't practice what they preach. Or even more sinisterly, use the mantel of Christianity to advance their own selfish motives- for money, for power, for sex or ego.
(http://www.hol.com/~mikesch/false-prophets.htm).

We certainly had our fill of powerful religious leaders who have fallen to their own greed and power in big, media-frenzying ways. I can name a few off hand like Jimmy Swaggert, Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, Robert Tilton- all victims of their own rigid standards, perhaps examples of Karma in action.

Another irony they all have in common in their rise to power was their dogmatic approaches to Christianity as they knew. Preaching from the same texts, they often rail against liars and cheaters while at the same time ignoring these values in their own practice. Many seem content to portray themselves as flawless, examples and beyond reproach. They may preach a sermon on the Biblical directive to avoid judging others on Sunday, and the next providing Biblical justification for being self-righteous and for condemning others that don't follow the same path.

For some, I'm sure, they are aware that they are playing a game. Some I think are deeply narcissistic and just like any other entertainer, aren't the character they portray on stage. Being held in esteem by others, fawned over and praised regularly feeds some deeper need that they may not even understand or see in themselves.

Others, I think do try to lead ethical, consistent lives. There are Christians, albeit rare, that do reserve judgment towards others, do practice loving their neighbor, and are quick to show compassion and understanding regardless of passages in the Bible that seem contradictory to the words and actions of Jesus himself. These Christians understand that living a good life is an ongoing process and not one act of declaring yourself "saved" and then resting on your laurels as you use your membership in a larger religious organization to justify immoral, hateful or discriminatory behaviors.

Unfortunately, although we were warned regularly of "false Christians" when I was growing up, very little information was actually provided on how to know when you might be following one.

As a matter of fact, the message was "trust the preacher you have" no matter what, as a sign of faith, it's OTHER people's pastors that were suspect. Very convenient. And, questioning of your church leader was not acceptable, even if you had some.

I guess you could say I was sensitized to hipocrasy at a young age by the often double messages from the pulpit in the churches I grew up in. Preacher Smith taught us about love and kindness on Sunday mornings, but was a son of a bitch most of the time in real life. Petty favoritism was a regular experience in Sunday School. And I can't tell you how often I heard stinging and unkind gossip from the preachers' wives, Bible School teachers and the circle meetings.

So now, when I hear a religious leader, of any faith, proclaiming as truth their own matter of opinion and with little to no ration or fact to back it up, I make a mental note.

Every time the Pope resists science, personal experiences and the obvious lack of true Biblical justification to bash gays, I know that he is fallible. Listening to Rick Warren stumble around his answers to Ann Curry's questions http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/rick_warren_interview_with_ann_curry/on about homosexuality reassures me that he does not speak for God. And clever, smiling "religious" entertainers like Mike Huckabee who can't figure out a way to reconcile his "faith" with his homophobia when pressed, convinces me that the false prophets of the world are many and the true sons and daughers of Christ are hidden by their own humilty http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/10/jon-stewart-mike-huckabee_n_149906.html .

Wisdom is something I expect from a religious leader. Being perfect is not.

So what is a false prophet to me these days?

Someone who believes that because they think something is true, it is, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

A person who feels free to defy some tenants of their faith, such as loving their neighbor or withholding judgment of others, because they believe in their own superior perspective.

A religious leader, at a local, national or international level, who uses his or her religion to justify immoral behavior, regardless of intent.

The Rick Warrens of the world aren't worth our time or energy and his 15 minutes of fame will end soon.

No amount of religious zealousness makes George W. Bush's actions as President defensible.

People who truly live their faith understand this. False prophets do not.

What Does Obama Know that We Don't?

2009-01-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

Since I've been mulling over this whole Rick Warren thing (the evangelical minister chosen by Obama to give the invocation at his inauguration), I thought I'd spit out a few thoughts that have popped up for me.

My first, gut reaction is feeling hurt that somehow Obama has "betrayed" me. I haven't been this enthusiastic as a supporter for a Presidential candidate in a long time. I donated multiple times to Obama's campaign. Brad and I sponsored a voter registration table by the Democratic Party at Rainbow Skate and had at least a few people take advantage of the opportunity and register. I had his sticker on my car months before the primary was over and taped large yard signs in our windows (since we don't have a yard). I even read "The Audacity of Hope" to try to get to know him before I made any rash decisions politically.

I seriously doubt that Obama would have picked an overt racist or antisemite to give the opening prayer, so picking an open homophobe, who worked to promote Prop 8, seems questionable at best. Actually, I wonder if maybe the selection of an overtly racist evangelical (and they do still exist mind you) minister might have made a case that Obama is truly in it for unity.

On the other hand, perhaps Obama is taking a different path than I might have taken. Maybe in order to change the completely dichotomous and oppositional atmosphere of Washington, it means taking risks to open the tent to people who have really different voices, even if they aren't where they are supposed to be on every issue.

Maybe it's not easy to get an evangelical to accept a role at a supposedly "liberal" President-elect's inauguration.

To Rick Warren's "credit", he supposedly is slightly more progressive on the environment and addressing poverty than other right wing leaders. He did invite Obama to debate McCain in front of his very biased church audience.

Is Rick Warren a "crack" in the stone ceiling between progressives and right wing conservatives?

By cultivating a relationship with Warren, does Barack have a chance to bring him along on other progressive issues? Does he sense an opportunity to change the relationship with fundies so that they become more willing to stop the hatred?

I am concerned that Obama has not appointed one single openly gay person to any position of power or meaning thus far in his Cabinet or advising staff. It doesn't mean that there aren't closeted ones of course, or that he plans substantial appointments later. It also might be the case that for the foreseeable future, there may be no qualified openly gay people with the level of specific expertise that he needs right now.

Hard to know what Obama's intentions are until we see a tangible move. My hope is that he moves this year to eliminate "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the military, something he can do without much effort or fanfare as he tackles the economic problems, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, etc.

We'll just have to wait and see what Obama's true intention is for tackling the injustices towards the LGBTQ world out there.

I think I'll do a second post on Rick Warren himself later today. Stay tuned.

George W. Bush, WPE*: Legacy of Death

2008-12-28T18:18:00.000-08:00

Seems like you can’t turn on a radio or TV these days without seeing Bush or his crew working hard on his “legacy”. I’ve watched a few minutes, just to get an idea of how they might be trying to spin history in their favor. Bush has no regrets. Laura and Condi think that he’s done a good job. Cheney lives in his own little world and just seems secretly glad that no one figured out that he was the mastermind.

I’ve been mulling it over for some time now. I started working on my own version of what I think Bush’s legacy should be months ago, long before the election and the signal for change by the American people.

One key feature of the Bush administration over the last eight years has been the interesting use of propaganda and word-smithing to hide the true nature of their policies and agendas. For example, the gutting of existing environmental laws was called “The Clean Air Act” and the gigantic over grab for power by the Executive Branch that weakened Constitutional protections was called “The Patriot Act.”

Randi Rhodes, the goddess of left-wing talk radio, recognized early that whatever the neocons called a bill, it actually did the opposite of what the title suggested.

It occurred to me that Bush’s legacy was fraught with irony on many levels. So much incompetence at management despite his MBA “credential”. Wasn’t this supposed to be the first time we brought business management to the White House?

His laughable promise to “control spending” brought us the largest deficit in the history of the US, despite inheriting a surplus.

He campaigned on bringing the country together. We’ve never been split further apart by a leader.

But the real joke on us all was that George W. was “pro-life” in any sense of the word.

I started thinking about this man, who used the religious right wing of his party, particularly the anti-abortionists, to push himself over the magic majority number to win the office in 2000. Interestingly, despite control over the Executive Branch, the US Supreme Court and majorities in both the House and the Senate, he did not accomplish his promised overturn of Roe V. Wade. Think he forgot? Not likely.

Quite the opposite I think.

How the right wing continues to stick with the Republican Party and how 17% still believe this man has done anything good is beyond me.

I propose therefore that we begin Bush’s legacy with an more honest naming of it, specifically, I propose that we call it Bush’s Legacy of Death.

At some point during the last eight years, I began to wonder exactly how many actual deaths George W. Bush might be responsible for. There is no way of course to determine an exact figure, since many of his policies have had indirect effects or effects that are yet to occur, but will cause death in the near and likely distant future. The best I could do then was to find existing estimates of deaths using reputable websites and news sources.

The data is as follows:

(1) Prior to becoming President, Mr. Bush presided over 152 executions in Texas

(www.nybooks.com/articles/17670)

(2) Despite warnings of an impending terrorist attack using airplanes in the US, 2752 people died as a result of the attacks on 9/11 . (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/10/29/wtc.deaths/

(3) Coalition soldiers killed in Iraq: 4488 (US troops: 4185)

(www.iraqbodycount.org)

(4) Iraqi civilian casualties: 87.833

(www.iraqbodycount.org)

(5) Coalition soldiers killed in Afghanistan: 985 (US soliders: 609)

(www.nolanchart.com/article5111.html)

(6) Afghani civilians casualty estimates: 3000-3400

(cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm)

Policy positions leading to deaths include:

(7) US deaths attributable to lack of health care/insurance: 22,000 per year x 8 years= 176,000

(www.pnhp.org/news/2008/january/make_that_22000_uni.php)

(8) Deaths due to poverty in the US: unknown

(www.unh.edu/academic-affairs/discovery/dialogue/2008/pdf/packet_seavey.pdf)

(www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0908-06.htm)

(9) Deaths and suffering from slowed medical research including stem cell development: unknown

(10) Deaths attributable to lowered environmental standards: unknown

(www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/10/09_402.html)

(11) Deaths due to deregulation of industry- unknown

(www.impactlab.com/2008/10/08/does-an-economic-downturn-affect-your-health)

(12) Hate Crime deaths over the 8 years of the Bush Administration: 96

(www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/hate.htm)

(13) Deaths associated with Hurricane Katrina: 1698

(www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/08/28/2008-08-28_nearly_50_of_hurricane_katrinas_louisian.html)

(14) Deaths attributable to growth and expansion of Al Qaeda in the world: unknown

(15) Deaths among US detainees including Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo: 108

(www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/statements/abu-yr-042605.htm)

Total deaths, on Bush’s watch, many of which were directly or indirectly a result of his decisions or lack of attention: 277,112 plus countless unknown.

This is a vast underestimate mind you, and I'm sure you may be able to come up with numbers that I've never even considered, but it does speak to the unspeakable damage this man has heaped upon our nation.

So, just like some people would like to put an asterisk by Barry Bonds’ name in the record books for his suspect behavior around steroids, I propose that right by W’s name, we place the letters WPE, to denote his status as Worst President Ever*.

Prop 8 and Holidays Blues: Two New Interviews

2008-12-22T09:25:00.000-08:00

I had the honor of being a guest on two shows yesterday, Gay Men Talking with Alex and Dean, a regular podcast on iTunes and through their website, http://alexanddean.com/ and Queer FM hosted by Heather Kitching on CITR 101.9 FM and available through archive at http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/xml/queerfm.xml.

Dean and Alex and I discussed the psychological aftermath of the passage of Prop 8 and a little bit on "Holiday Blues" and what to do about them.

Heather and I continued the theme of what to do about the blues and stress around the holidays.

Both are great shows to download and listen to when you want information and fun.

An Open Letter to Ted Haggard

2008-12-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

Ted Haggard, the disgraced evangelist who was accused of sex and drugging with openly gay-for-pay call boy, Mark Jones, has resurfaced today in the news as the subject of a forthcoming HBO documentary by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra.

I have not yet seen the film, but advance information suggests that while Mr. Haggard continues to live with his wife and children in an attempt to save his family, he says that he has "never claimed to be heterosexual" and has had a "lifelong battle" with his sexuality.

It is with this in mind that I began thinking about how I might reach out to this man if I ever had the chance and I decided to write this blog.

Dear Ted:

With all this press about the new film about you, and the revived attention to your past indiscretions, I imagine that this is quite the holiday for you personally. I understand that after you fell from the grace of your church, your professional life has taken quite the hit as well. Selling insurance is in many ways I guess what you've been doing all along.

We open gays are struggling ourselves at the moment too by the way. As you know, it is difficult to have someone hate you because of something about you that you can't change. But what made it particularly difficult for me growing up was that not only was my family telling me that being gay was bad, the church that I spent so much of my childhood in also followed the traditional script that gay is a choice and therefore condemnation was acceptable. To me, that meant that I was so evil that even God did not love me.

I have to admit that I am not familiar with your teachings about gays before you were "outed". I would bet that you were exposed to the same kinds of homophobia I experienced and were therefore a product of the same indoctrination. My church taught me to hate myself before I even knew who I was. I understand, Ted, what it's like to fear rejection by the people you love and to live every day of your life remembering to hide who you are and to pretend that you're something your not, just to bask in the illusion that things are ok.

In my own adolescent mind, the choice was drawn for me- reject myself or reject my God. As is the case with many fundamentalist religions, there was no "in between", no gray areas about this. You were either straight and good or gay and bad. You pick.

Living a lie was my first choice. Like you, I tried to have it all. I tried to hide who I was from everyone including my parents, my church, my friends and myself. I prayed to God for something different. I begged God to fix me or kill me. And, as you well know, God did neither. Eventually, I could not hide it anymore and I chose to reject my religion and my concept of God. I remember the moment that I said "ok God, since you're not taking this (gayness) away and you're not taking my life, I'm going to go the other way and accept myself as who I am." I remember swallowing hard and wondering if I'd just sealed my fate into hell if the God of the fundamentalists really existed.

But then something started to happen. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I began to feel less anxiety and less fear. I began to meet other people just like me. In my college classes, I began to understand that the world does exist in shades of gray and that no one has a lock on the "truth". My black and white world began to fall apart and I began to think differently. What I once thought was off limits to me, namely a full and fulfilling spiritual life, started to emerge.

Since then Ted, I have to tell you that things have only gotten better. The tortured life I lived (both inside and outside) began to improve. I found people who weren't so concerned about judging me. And I realized that all though myths about homosexuals weren't really true at all.

One might say now, Rev. Haggard, that I have had nothing short of a blessed life since I acknowledged my own inner truth. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I am a "Christian" in any organized way, I would say that the story of the person who was Jesus Christ inspires me today. As does the Buddha and the Kabbalah and Sufi mysticism.

Today, because I've learned to love myself as I am, I am more inclined to love others. Because I love the man I chose to settle down with, I feel a deep contentment that I never imagined was possible.

Not to say that I don't continue to struggle because I do. Nowadays, I struggle with people who continue to perpetuate the negative myths and the stereotypes about gay people that have long been shown to be false. I struggle with the Rick Warrens of the day and the people who support Prop 8 in California. I get really angry at religious leaders who refuse to seek the truth about this issue and subliminally encourage the lunatic fringe out there to act on homophobic impulses by committing hate crimes. Ignoring the truth intentionally is one of life's true evils I think.

Ted, I am curious about your inner life right now. Perhaps you have made your peace in your own way. Maybe you have been honest with yourself about who you are. Maybe you have found a way to be gay, Christian, a father and married to a woman that works for you. Maybe not.

But my first reaction to the stories about you (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470038,00.html) were to identify with the awful conflicts that you've had to face. It is a place that I am familiar with.

If no one's said this, I am sorry that you had to go through this. If you are in the beginning process of acknowledging that you are gay, I applaud you and your courage. I encourage you to live your truth and I see an enormous opportunity for you to share your story in ways that will bring healing to other lesbians and gays out there who face the same struggles you've faced. And anything that you might have said disparaging gay people in your ministry is forgiven.

I would not be surprised if you are tired and feeling alone in many ways right now. Many of us have faced similar battles, if not quite so public.

Welcome to the LGBT community. If you need to talk, let me know.

Ella eating an Apple

2008-12-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

I know I need to get back to writing on this thing. I have a post already started in draft mode. But, in the meantime, enjoy this little snippet from my life this morning.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w-4Srx6LGQ

Huckabee vs. Stewart

2008-12-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

I stumbled onto a clip of Mike Huckabee, former Republican presidential hopeful and Arkansas governor, as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (on my friend Walt's blog) and I shuddered.

Mike Huckabee is another one of those right wing, folksy Repubs, who seems likeable and he's smart. He's in the Palin category, but he has tons more charm and actually understands politics and government.

Those types scare me. They put a human face on some very ugly, self-righteous beliefs and he so reminds me of the preachers I grew up with in my face three times a week telling me how things should be.

That's why Jon Stewart's brilliant moves on the show were so interesting to me.

Mike Huckabee suffers a little bit from an overinflated sense of self-importance I think. My observation is that he thinks he can use his wit and his good ol' boy persona to push himself into the spotlight. At some level, you have to wonder if he thinks that making a joke out of something potentially heated or polarizing makes the issue go away. After all, how can you be mad at someone who can laugh at himself?

There in lies the danger.

Jon Stewart however, is also no unfamiliar with using humor to convey a serious point. And he's also not afraid to step right out of his comedy mode to skewer the guests that bring their outrageous values onto his stage and think they'll get away with it. At some level, Mike Huckabee, overconfident in his own wit and smarts, must have thought that appearing on The Daily Show would boost his "coolness" factor, show the world that he's not just a hick from Arkansas, but deserves a place at the national debate table.

And then Jon Stewart pounced. It was a beautiful thing to watch as Jon brought Huckabee to task for his stand on gays and gay marriage. Huckabee had no answers. He had nothing. He sputtered and hemmed and hawed, spewing the same old slock that is not rational, nor articulate. When Huck talked about keeping the "traditional" definition of marriage to "one man and one woman", Jon was there with the fact that the Bible supports polygamy in the Old Testament, thus the definition of marriage HAS changed. No articulate response from the Huckster. Jon then drove home the point that in the spirit of humanity, wouldn't it make sense that two people who love each other be allowed to make a legal commitment to one another. Huck's response: the tired old nonpoint, once you change the definition from one man and one woman, then anybody can get married, reared its ugly head.

Which means that either Huck hasn't really truly thought this thing through, or he's truly confused about right and wrong.

There is no rational or spiritual argument that justifies keeping gays from marrying. And Mike Huckabee, thanks to Jon Stewart, revealed that he's nothing to be concerned about. As long as he tries to twist and rationalize his own self-righteous views about me and my marriage, he'll never be who he wants to be- a great man instead of just a funny man.

The Holy Ghost People

2008-12-07T16:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a short story I wrote some time ago about the snake handlers of West Virginia:

The Holy Ghost People

by Kimeron Hardin

The best thing about the meeting place had always been the music. The old Yamaha organ with eight pedals (two of them broken since he could remember) was sounding “Just a Little Talk with Jesus.” Mrs. Jolly, the organist, had always been there, playing the same songs and wearing the same faded and frayed choir robe. He always sat in the same pew, in the same spot, every time his momma made him come.

“He’s such a good boy, always tryin’ to do right and comin’ to church when he can- you know how hard he works since Mr. Jackson was taken from us.” His momma used to tell the other ladies of the circle meeting how hard he worked, to excuse his many absences from the services.

Isaiah Jackson was getting more restless than he had remembered in the past. It had been years since he had been to the Holy Ghost Divine Gospel Church with his mother.

“Why did I even come tonight?” he thought. “I never liked to sit here and listen to somebody tell me how bad I was when I was growing up and momma don’t try much to make me come anymore. Maybe things’ll get better if I go to church…can’t hurt.” He’d been through a bad string of luck lately and was feeling low.

Preacher Stamey made his way from the back of the church to the rough wood stand he called a pulpit, holding his guitar under one arm and the jacket to his worn gray suit under the other. The Reverend was a hefty man with the start of a double chin. His crew cut was already glistening with sweat and the veins in his nose were bright red.

Mrs. Jolly cranked up a quick intro to “Take Me Lord” and his momma got whole-heartedly into each of the four verses. His momma was a true believer and she believed every word she sang. He could tell she loved her church and her faith by the way she stood straight up- tall and proud- and smiled at the preacher as she sang.

A fervor was building in the crowd, a quiet intensity at first, but then slowly louder and more powerful as the service progressed. Preacher Stamey started his opening prayer with a burst of the tongues.

“Habaarabashanibadoba…PRAISE THE LORD! Hallelujah!”

The preacher listened for the “Ay-y-mens” and “Hallelujahs” echoing back from throughout the congregation.

Somehow, Isaiah had never received the gift of tongues. His Momma said it would come when he got older and grew in his faith. He watched the bare incandescent light bulbs hanging from their long, thin wires. The temperature seemed warmer now and he tugged at his collar.

Testimony time began with Henry Millard telling how God had saved two of his crops from the blight this week. Sister Sarah, from Beaufort, shared her testimony about how she was near death, and then something about an angel dressed in white nursing her back to health overnight. Isaiah tried to listen to the speakers, but his concentration was pierced with shouts of “Amen!” and “Yes Lord!”, and the slow buzzing of the people speaking in holy gibberish.

“Shananaribantahosh…” screamed the young woman behind him, startling him into turning around.

He had never felt so strange at the meeting place. The intense heat was making him squirm and he wanted desperately to close his eyes for a few moments to re-organize his thoughts.

Preacher Stamey coaxed the congregation to their feet and to the front of the tiny sanctuary to kneel at the altar. Carried away by the “spirit,” a woman (Isaiah couldn’t remember seeing her before) began shaking from head to toe and dancing some exotic steps into the aisles. It was like seeing a life-sized puppet on a string with no control over her body. She had a blank look on her face and a piercing stare as her arms and legs whirled faster and faster through the air.

“Hallelujah!” shouted the crowd “the Lord’s got her now!” Squeals of delight and syncopated cries of joy came from everywhere.

Isaiah felt strangely drawn, almost compelled, to join his mother at the altar.

“Am I going crazy? Or is the Lord God really dealing with me?” he wondered.

“Come….COME! The Holy Ghost is drawing you to his bosom. Be saved NOW if you’re guilty! Come on, do it now!” he heard from the pulpit.

“Hallelujah, Amen! Praise to God….naahbarabida! Lord, have mercy!” People wailed, screamed, hissed and shook on both sides of him.

“Should I go?” He paused.

“NO!”

“But God’s dealing with you Isaiah. “

“NO! NO!” He tried to resist the seductive call from the front, to snap himself back into reality.

The room was swaying as he felt himself slip out of his seat and begin o walk slowly and mechanically to the altar. A quartet started singing in the corner of the room and several more stringless puppets rolled on the floor and jumped around the prayerful.

Preacher Stamey signaled for the snakes.

“And the Lord God said, ‘Let my people handles my most despicable creation, the serpent, without fear.’” He reached into one of the black boxes carried to the front by the deacons and pulled out four hissing and spitting rattlers, two in each hand. They wriggled and twined around his arm, obviously upset and agitated, but not one of the struck. The preacher seemed to have control…over the snakes and over Isaiah’s very thoughts.

“It is the Lord! Yes Lord, I hear you. I’ve been bad Lord, REAL bad!” He flashed back on the turn his life had taken through hard liquor and the gambling and the women. He thought about the shame he brought on his family and his momma. He knew it was wrong at the time, but he couldn’t stop himself after he lost his job at the mill and then losing his daddy. He gave in to the devil and he knew it was time to make things right. He knew he had hurt his momma bad.

“Hallelujah!!” Isaiah shouted.

Just like his momma said, this power…this intoxication…that had entered his mind, MUST be the Holy Ghost. It was strange, and new…exciting.

The Reverend passed the snakes around the crowd, throwing them through the air, to be caught and caressed by men, women and children.

“You must believe! Have faith! If it’s God’s will that you die by snakebite, then die you WILL! God knows all. Come…PRAY!! Preacher Stamey walked over to Isaiah and extended a large, shiny rattler.

“Here son…do you believe?” he said.

“Yes, Preacher, YES! Look momma, I’ve got faith…look!”

He was immediately carried away by the excitement, the euphoria, like a child discovering something wonderful. And then suddenly, he felt a sharp quick sting on the back of his left hand. Within seconds, he realized what had just happened.

“Oh my God! I’ve been bitten!” He jerked back into reality as he flung the snake to the side.

“What the hell am I doing here? How did I get up to the altar? Who are these people? Where’s momma?” His thoughts began to race and he felt his breath start to quicken.

He felt a searing pain now, starting to throb its way up his forearm. His pulse was racing and the room started to blur and clear as he dropped to his knees.

“SOMEBODY HELP ME… HELP ME!” he screamed.

All he could hear was “It’s God’s Will” and “Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.”

“God’s Will, God’s Will, God’s Will…” The voice was familiar.

“MOMMA!...Mo….?”

Movies That Make Me Cry

2008-11-29T09:10:00.001-08:00

Oh man...you'd think by now that I would be desensitized to crying at movies.

Probably the one movie that has made me cry the most even to this day is The Color Purple. Then next would be Sophie's Choice, Schindler's List and Brad's favorite, Terms of Endearment.

I can now add another one to the list: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

So, to make my list, the movie doesn't have to be a masterpiece- it doesn't really even have to be great. But it does speak to something in me, and even if one scene turns on the sprinklers, I might consider adding it.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas touched me I think in several ways. First, it is about the Holocaust, and I'm set up already to be amazed in horror at the brutality and senselessness.

What is interesting and different though, is that we see the action through the eyes of an 8 year old German boy, who sees the world in a more honest and innocent way than most adults remember.

As he slowly begins to understand what the uniforms and barbed wire really mean, his innocence serves as a kind of wisdom that allows him to cut a swath of truth through the circumstances around him.

Yes, this movie was bordering on schmaltzy. Yes, I know it was pulling at the heart strings in obvious ways, but putting that aside, there is a perspective here that didn't get lost with me.

The lessons of the Nazi era are still relevant today, if not more so.

No one is trying to put gays into death camps in the US.

But we are subject to propaganda campaigns and less than equal civil rights. Some religious leaders rail from the pulpit in ways that sound so similar to the Nazi propaganda in Boy in Pajamas or the whites determined to put poor Sophia down in Purple.

Stories of oppression out of fear and ignorance move me the most.

See this movie.

New Article on LGBT relationships

2008-11-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

I was quoted in an article that appeared today on Match.com's website. Check it out at http://www.match.com/magazine/article0.aspx?articleid=9548.

My Week of Gratitude

2008-11-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

It's been an effort of mine over most of my adult life to find personal meaning in the various holidays that we celebrate on a national basis in this country.

For most of my childhood, Thanksgiving was first about eating turkey and big meals and lying around watching the Macy's parade and then football on the TV the rest of the day.

Once I got to school, Thanksgiving was more of a history lesson- the Pilgrims and the Native Americans coming together to celebrate the harvest and bounty of the land. Who hasn't made a Pilgrim hat out of cardboard or construction paper or traced around their hand to make a basic, but pleasing turkey image to color and take home to post on the fridge?

Loathe to celebate nowadays in a Hallmark-ian, commercial and rote way, I try most years to focus on the Thanks-giving part of it. Or in another word, I try to spend a little time truly feeling gratitude for the wonderful parts of my life BEFORE someone goes around the table and I'm struck dumb with stage fright and my mind goes blank.

I've learned a lot about gratitude in my clinical practice.

I watch people who have lost almost everything to tragic circumstances still find the grace to express gratitude for the things they still have left. I'm grateful for that because it makes me humble. I have so much even on my worst days.

Gratitude seems to have some healing properties. Oprah knows it because she's always talking about gratitude and even had a guest once who promoted keeping a gratitude journal. The guest's suggestion was to keep a notebook by your bed and before you go to sleep, write down five things you are grateful for, for that day.

I think shifting your perception away from the things that you DON'T have or how things haven't gone the way they "should" have gone, to focusing on the joy you do have, is an amazing process. I watch my own anger dissolve into peace, my frustration melt into quiet joy when I stop and think about how far I've come.

So, here are some things I'm contemplating this week.

(1) During a year when marriage rights were granted and taken away, I married the man of my dreams. And even if the legal "right" was taken away, he will still be in my life and will be there for me forever.

(2) My best friend Rob, who has been in my life for almost 18 years, faced down cancer this year, and won. It was one of those breath-holding times of your life when you really know what matters most and what not to take for granted.

(3) I made a major career move this year, leaving a practice where I had invested so much of myself, to start over in a new venue. At times overwhelming and scary, I've learned so much about myself and what's really important over the past few months. I am thankful for what I am learning about meaning and purpose this year.

(4) As my mother continues to battle with a progressive decline in health, I am grateful that my father is strong enough to make her journey better. His example, of "for better or worse", reminds me of the power of commitment and faith.

(5) This year, my little book on self-esteem, that nobody seemed to want to publish again, was given new life at the last minute through the efforts of a kind and generous agent in Boston, Sorche Fairbank, and found it a new home with Alyson Books. Lately, I've been hearing from readers who have found that it is making a difference for them and that makes a difference for me.

(6) I am so grateful for Ella, who makes me laugh, who makes me walk her, and who tells me when it's time to stop focusing on TV too much and pay attention to her! She's my natural mood "Ella-vator", even when I want to worry about this and that.

(7) Finally, I'm grateful for change in America. I am so hopeful that Obama and company are going to change the path of selfishness and greed that we've been on and will help heal some of the deep wounds left after years of war and neglect.

And I'm thankful for the readers of this blog, who may not even know how much I appreciate it when you say that my words have some meaning for you. Actually, I'm even grateful for the idea of you being out there because it makes me stop and think. I'm grateful for you.

Thanks. And I wish you a bountiful harvest of gratitude this year.

What Straight People Can Do

2008-11-16T15:32:00.000-08:00

I gotta tell you that I feel much better today about Prop 8 than I did on November 5th.

Gay and lesbian people everywhere seem to be energized and I'm terribly proud of the marches and protests that have been a long time coming.

On the other hand, when you step back a little, the fact that Prop 8 passed with so little support, after outright lies by the proponents and millions of dollars coming in from organized religions outside of California, we definitely have the "momentum" as courageous "out" leader, Mark Leno so eloquently stated yesterday in a rally in San Francisco. Something that seemed so unlikely in my lifetime, and I say that sincerely, is almost here.

It's wonderful to see gay people stand up, fight back and demand to be treated civilly and equally in a country founded on freedom and justice for all.

Yet, real change for gay people will only come when good NON-gay people stand up and make a difference in their own families, communities and churches. Voting against Prop 8 is great and a lot of straight people voted against it, not because they were particularly "for" gay rights, but because they were intelligent enough to realize that just because they may not share someone else's lifestyle, this is a democracy and taking away any law-abiding subgroups rights is just plain wrong.

Brad and I are blessed to have many loving straight friends and family members. They make our lives so much richer and take the edge off the harsh reality of living in a homophobic society at large. I know that many of them talked to others about their stand on Prop 8 and did their best to make a difference.

To that end, I have a few suggestions for the straight people out there who know that Prop 8 is wrong and aren't quite sure what they can do about it besides attending a rally or holding up a sign. Here's a few things to think about if you're of the change mind.

First, think about the emotion behind the proponents of Prop 8. No matter what kind of intellectual, rationalized answer they may give you about "protecting the sanctity of marriage" or "continuing a tradition of one woman, one man in a marriage", remember that ultimately behind their stance is fear- fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of people who are different.

It's the same fear that kept the racists of the 20th century burning crosses and menacing our brothers and sisters of African American heritage. It's the same fear that kept average German citizens quiet while the Jews were shipped to Auschwitz and that prompted them to put on the Nazi uniform and perform atrocious acts against their better natures. Many racist whites and Nazi Germans weren't evil people by nature, they were driven to do evil things by their own need to belong, to feel strong and to be safe. It doesn't excuse their behaviors, but it does explain at least some of it.

A gay person trying to talk about this issue to someone who is encased in fear and rigidly holds on to a posture of defensiveness won't have nearly the opportunity to get inside than a non-gay person would have about this issue. A black person will never have the same power to denounce racism in a racist society than a white person would have. It's too easy to dismiss the speaker as self-serving and too easy to close your ears against an impassioned speech in front of a large crowd.

What does work is using every opportunity you have to talk to people who you care about and who care about you about why you think that full civil rights is an American issue and a fairness issue. You are the Germans of the 1930's and the non-racist whites of the 1960's who had a chance to stop something awful, except this is now and you have the power.

Here is my list of simple things you could do to stay in the fight for rights:

(1) Educate yourself about gay people. Do you your homework and read the research studies that have shown again and again that gay people are not crazy, nor are they sick and that they make quite excellent parents and contributors to society. There hasn't been ONE credible study to suggest otherwise despite the myths to the contrary. Take a look at the American Psychological Association's large overview of research on GLBT parenting studies in 2005 if you want facts, not fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_parenting).

If you are a religious person, learn about religious views that do NOT condemn homosexuality and in fact, there are just as many interpretations of the Bible that would condemn homophobia as unholy as would condemn any particular group of people (http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible).

(2) Put a bumper sticker on your car about Prop 8 or Marriage Equality for All. (http://www.zazzle.com/marriage_equality_bumper_sticker_bumpersticker-128388830593675054)

(3) Talk to your clergy person about how you feel about this issue. Approach them in a nonconfrontational way and let them know that your experience with a gay friend or family member is different from what the religious hierarchy may be teaching. Let them know that you don't support using the pulpit as a forum for political ideas. Ask them how they reconcile the teaching of Jesus (if you are a Christian) who was all about love, with church stands that lead to harm.

(4) If you regularly tithe or donate to a religious institution that is openly anti-gay, consider skipping a donation and in its place, putting a note about your reluctance to support speech that contributes to the harassment of gays. If you can't bring yourself to put your lack of money where your mouth is, attach a note to your hard earned cash stating how you feel about contributions used to support hate speech or to interfere in the American political process.

(5) Join Soulforce, an organization devoted to nonviolent change within mainstream organized religions towards gay people.

(5) Don't be afraid to say "that's not funny" if someone makes a homophobic remark or joke at work.

(6) Vote for political candidates who have a good record on civil rights for everyone, including gay people (http://www.hrc.org/laws_and_elections/your_elected_officials.asp).

(7) Join the Human Rights Campaign Fund (http://www.hrc.org) or the American Civil Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org). Both are politically active organizations that support equal rights for everyone.

(8) Donate to the Lambda Legal Defense Fund (http://www.lambdalegal.org) or the National Center for Lesbian Rights (http://www.nclrights.org). Both organizations joined the lawsuit to challenge Prop 8 after its passage.

All of these involved only a bit of your time. None of them needs to be aggressive or confrontational. Do what you can.

Thank you.

Keith Olberman: Patriot and Hero

2008-11-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

This is truly amazing. Please watch it and forward it to everyone you know.

Palin 4 Prez 2012

2008-11-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

It's finally sunk in. The election is over, it was REAL and I was not just dreaming all this.

Obama doesn't disappoint as he is already ahead of the curve with his transition team and plans, much like he ran his superb campaign.

Honestly, think about it. You can be assured that a candidate will govern like they run their campaign. Obama showed discipline throughout all the negative attacks. He showed grace under the most vile circumstances, and he never lost his focus on the prize.

Grumpy McCain however, showed exactly what kind of President he would have been- undisciplined, erratic, impulsive and self-serving. I mean come on, Sarah Palin was the best he could find? Let's be real, this woman is the worst of the worst- someone not very smart, who doesn't know she's not very smart but actually thinks she's got what it takes!

I have to pity her.

She's the Dan Quayle of the 21st Century (sorry Dan- I actually think you're smarter than Caribou Barbie). The Kato Kaelin to McCain's OJ Simpson. The Vanna White to Pat Sajak.

And knowing the right wing fundies the way I do, they are LOATHE to admit they were wrong when they first hooted and hollered about her at the convention when no one knew her.

Well, boy, do we know her now. She is ambitious, but not wise. She's pretty but not poised and she doesn't know when to shut up.

You know, I could actually forgive someone who was gracious about their shortcomings. If there was one hint of recognition that she was not ready or that she didn't have the capacity to be ready any time soon, I might be able to salvage some respect for her. But she doesn't.

And just because McCain was able to deliver a speech that someone else wrote for his concession, that made him sound like the person we all thought he was, I'm not buying it.

It's like Joe Lieberman, the turncoat traitor to all Democrats, who suddenly wants to "work" with President-elect Obama. Where were you three weeks ago Joe?

As far as I can see, Joe, John and Sarah share the same fatal flaw- they love themselves more than they love their country.

Hey, I think it's a FANTASTIC idea to get Palin pumped up to run for President in 2012!! I mean, first of all, she'll never be ready, because she doesn't have the intelligence necessary. The intelligence of a Hilary Clinton or Olympia Snow for example.

Maybe she could even pick Elizabeth Dole to run as her VP, now THAT's a ticket!

Between the "you betchas" and "you godless whores" from those two, you have to admit that it would be wildly entertaining. Let's make Sarah the face of the new Republican Party!!! PLEASE!!!

I might even donate.

Mixed Emotions

2008-11-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

I am so happy still that America made the right choice yesterday to elect Barack Obama. I am also thrilled that my home state of North Carolina was a part of the change process yesterday. Goodbye Jesse Helms and Helms in a dress, Libby Dole. Hello Governor Purdue!!

But sadly, and I didn't realize that it would hit me this hard, Prop 8 passed.

There will be no more gay marriages in California. We are apparently not good enough. We are evil because we have "promiscuis" sex outside of marriage, but we also cannot now be married to the person we love. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'm sorry I threaten you. I didn't mean to.

Check out what is happening legally with Prop 8 now through the ACLU at the link above. Support the ACLU, Lambda Legal Defense Fund and the National Center for Lesbian Rights with a donation if you can.

So, what do I do when I am so profoundly hurt by my fellow Americans? I will think of the old fable that I always try to remember when something happens that confuses me.

It goes like this:

Once upon a time, in an ancient land far away, there was an old farmer.

His family farm was small and he ran it with the help of his 18 year old son and their strong work horse.

The horse was the center of the farm, pulling the plow in the field, carrying the farmer and his son to market and hauling away the brush and debris.

One day, the farmer's son accidentally left open the gate to the corrall at the end of the day and the next morning, the horse was gone.

The old farmer's neighbor, in a gesture of sympathy, comes over to commiserate with the wise old farmer. "I'm so sorry for your loss. What a terrible thing to happen!" to which the wise old farmer replies "Who knows what is good or bad?".

The neighbor, surprised by the old man's response persists. "But your horse was the center of everything here!! You can't plow your fields or haul your produce to market!".

Again, the farmer replies "Who knows what is good or bad?"

The next day, when the son got up to tend to his chores, he rubbed his eyes in amazement when he saw that not only had the family horse returned to the corrall, but ten wild horses had followed him home!

The neighbor, quick to celebrate, encouraged the farmer to express his joy over his bounty.

"You are a rich man! What a wonderful thing! It's a miracle!"

To which the wise old farmer replies, "Who knows what is good or bad?".

Again, the neighbor scratches his head, puzzled at the farmer's seeming indifference, and walks home.

Later that day, while the son was trying to tame one of the wild horses, he was thrown from the horse, breaking his leg in two places.

The neighbor, feeling the young man's pain, exhorts the old man to admit that this event was truly awful.

"You son was injured and is suffering needlessly!"

"Who knows what is good or bad" he replies.

Frustrated, the neighbor leaves, feeling bad about the son and worse about the father.

The next morning, the farmer and his son are greeted by a sharp knock on the door.

They are greeted by a military leader, looking for young men to take to war. He cannot take the farmer's son because of his injury.

The moral of the story?

WHO KNOWS WHAT IS GOOD OR BAD?

McCain, Palin Lieberman say goodbye to careers

2008-11-04T21:28:00.000-08:00

I have never been more excited than when President-elect Obama took the stage to address his supporters. It was a moment of awe and inspiration for me. I never thought that in my lifetime, I would see the white elitist, neocon movement put in its place, among the diseased and dying of this country.

I am SO glad to be saying goodbye to Bush/Cheney/Rove. Good riddance. Get out of here!!

Time for bed, McCain/Palin/Lieberman! Your time is done and your moments in the spotlight are over. Time to give back the wardrobe and for Tina Fey to focus on 30 Rock. You can keep us safe from Russia by guarding your post with a gun in Alaska, Sarah.

Time to end this war in Iraq and to buildup our middle class again.

Time to provide healthcare for everyone in this country.

Time to rejoice that the Supreme Court will have a chance for reason and fairness again.

I will sleep better tonight, even as Prop 8, that ugly piece of anti-American trash initiative leads with 12% of the vote counted.

Go to bed and dream of a better America and a chance for all of us to succeed.

UPDATE: Ok, so Lieberman remains in power after Obama turned the other cheek and let him stay in the Demo caucus. But he's been warned at least. And I'm learning from Obama to stop thinking in the old way of "Win/Lose" when it comes to politics.

At least Palin continues to "OPEN MOUTH...INSERT FOOT" on a regular national TV basis!!

Election eve eve jitters and Prop 8

2008-11-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

Well, we're down to less than 48 hours before election day. The polls are crazy, as are the pundits. McCain has "momentum" here and Obama has it there. People seem to be darned anxious in the Obama camp. I like to call it "PESD" or Post-Election Stress Disorder from the last two elections that the idiot Bush was able to steal. Why wouldn't we be nervous with all the spin from the McCain camp, the past horrible eight years and SARAH PALIN potentially a heart-beat away??

Given the craziness of the general election though, I'm even more nervous about Prop 8 in California. I just don't want to believe that there are people so threatened by me that they would vote to take away civil rights.

The truth is however, and I'm saying this to any right wingers that happened to drift to this blog (if any), your vote on Tuesday will not make ONE difference in my relationship with Brad. I will love him the same no matter the title you allow us to have and no matter the legal benefits you take away. Our relationship is not based on your consent, nor your approval.

We will continue to live together in our home and we will continue to be your neighbor. We will continue to be responsible adults and will continue to pay more than our share of income taxes, which will go to improve your children's schools and the roads that you drive on to go to work.

Brad will continue to go to St. Charles Church despite the shameful position the Catholic hierarchy took on this issue. He will continue to help people who are dying, regardless of whether they voted for this proposition or not. I will continue to help people who are suicidal because they live in severe chronic pain no matter what slur they've ever said about gay people, and some of them will never know that their psychologist is queer.

If this passes and you take away our legal right to marriage, we will watch you enjoy the benefits of your marriage and will likely say nothing to make you feel embarrassed or self-conscious because of the inequity. We will watch you abuse the institution by cheating and separating and divorcing but we will not wish for you the same kind of second-class status that you wish for us.

We will still be Americans because we were born here and we will act like full citizens, even if we do not have the full rights of a heterosexual immigrant who chooses to become naturalized.

Would McCain offer me an extra tax break to compensate for my lack of full civil rights in this country?

Hate Crimes on the Rise

2008-10-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

On Page A4 of the SF Chronicle on 10/28/08 in the Digest section, the article screams "Hate Crimes Against Gays, Lesbians Rise". Here it is:

WASHINGTON- Hate crime incidents decreased slightly last year, despite a surge in crimes targeting gays and lesbians.
The FBI reported more than 7,600 hate crimes incidents in 2007, down about 1 percent from the previous year. The decline was driven by decreases in the two largest categories of hate crimes- crimes against race and religion. But prejudice against sexual orientation, the third-largest category, increased about 6 percent, the report found.

I'm really glad that racial and religious hate crimes are down. It's about time.

But I have to ask myself why crimes against LGBTQ are up? Is there something going on that might stir up public contempt? Particularly in the less stable, impulsive, violent, antisocial types out there?

Ok, Palin wasn't around when these incidents were occurring, so I can't blame her. But Palin types have been around forever. The "I oppose gay marriage" but love the gays mentality.

Remember when "love the sinner, hate the sin" was big? One big ol' justification for continuing your homophobia, your bigotry and your discriminatory beliefs.

I've always felt that politicians, religious leaders and other people in positions of authority who use their power to whip up divisive attitudes, were also responsible for the loonies out there who use the words of the President, or the Pope, or the Fox news commentator, to justify in that split second, the use of violence and oppression to solve their own emotional problems.

Un-American sentiments, expressed recently by the "Yes on 8" people in California, are wrong. If you are "Yes on 8", you bear the blood of every person in those numbers who was harmed or killed by a fringe nut empowered by your beliefs. Deal with it.

The Diva

2008-10-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

I can't take it anymore.

Every tarted up appearance, every faked "Joe the Plummer" inflection, every attack on Obama's character...has baited me into yet another blog about the bee-yatch from Alaska.

I've written about how the right wing mob is so easily susceptible to idol worship before. I'm going to write a "So you want to go into politics" how-to blog soon where I discuss the basic things you need to do to run a campaign in the US. Beginning with saying the words "I love Jesus" and ending with something about "family values". This strategy is guaranteed to work, no matter your true ethical standards, behaviors or beliefs. Just say the words "gays are inferior to us all" or "abortion is murder" and you are virtually guaranteed to lock up the fundamentalist base. They don't think. They invest their full faith in you no matter how corrupt, narcissistic or phony you really are. It's part of the training.

But Sarah Palin really takes the cake.

Ok, she's so "pro-family" right? Can somebody explain to me how any mother could abandon her "special needs" child during the first year of life, particularly when we all know that later bonds are established during these first few months and perhaps even more so with a child who needs extra love and support? What does this say about this woman's true beliefs? She flew on a long flight after her water broke, during a time in her pregnancy that most physicians would caution against flying.

Now, normally, I say let's not bring the candidate's children into our discussions. BUT, in this case, this is a woman who regularly brings her judgment to what other families should look like. She injects her own purported religious belief system into the political dialogue, obviously attempting to win points with the voters, regardless of whose civil rights are affected or which hate groups she stirs up.

So, a woman who believes in family values, who has a baby with Down's syndrome and a pregnant teen daughter, who are likely in great need for a close bond with their mother at important times in their lives, chooses to forego her role as mother to run for national political office.

So I'm thinking if she REALLY believes in family values first, wouldn't you think that she'd want to be there for both her children with high needs at the moment? And also, if she were self-aware, wouldn't you think she'd say to herself "I am a rising star in this party, but I'm not quite ready for national office, maybe given my family situation at the moment, I'd better pass on McCain's offer"?

To me, her personal choices speak volumes. This woman uses her religion affiliations to further her political ambitions. She chooses to use hateful, divisive attack speech on the stump to further her career rather than bringing the values of a real mother to the campaign. Perhaps that's why she's not convinced the majority of women that she's the right choice for them. Something about her doesn't ring true. She's a true diva, concerned with only herself, her appearance and her career.

She's the epitomy of hypocrisy.

From Jay Leno: "According to a recent poll, 61 percent of people surveyed said that they'd rather see Sarah Palin in a bikini than Pamela Anderson. Although 99 percent said they'd rather see Pamela Anderson as vice president."

You won't believe it!!

2008-10-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

This has got to be one of the funniest videos about the campaign I've seen. An Obama-McCain DANCE off!!!

http://www.minimovie.com/film-128460-McCain-Obama%20Dance-Off

Opie and Richie go for Obama!!

2008-10-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

Ron Howard shows his support for Barack...in an amazingly funny way.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cc65ed650d

Christian Shame

2008-10-23T19:58:00.001-07:00

Here in California, we're fighting for basic civil rights.

Yep, some people out here think that it's not only the right thing to do to stop gays from marrying, but it's the Christian thing to do.

Ok, I get that religious fanatics are threatened to the core by social acceptance of me and my husband. I get that their rabid homophobia is irrational, emotional and reeks of their own disturbed and fragile sexual identities.

What I don't get is:

(a) how come as an adult, tax paying, professional, responsible, peaceful person in the United States of America, my full civil rights to marry the person I choose is up for a simple majority vote? Huh? Liberty and justice for all? What kind of crap is this? Why don't I get to vote on which straight people get to marry? I'd have definitely stopped George the first and Barbara from tying the knot and probably would've stepped in between whoever Karl Rove's parents were.

and

(b) how the Catholic Church (and other right wing religious groups) continues to get away with blatant political activity without losing its tax-exempt status. I mean, isn't one of the reasons that churches don't have to pay taxes is that they promise not to pursue a political agenda from the pulpit? If they truly believe in the virtue of honesty, wouldn't you think that they would relinquish that status so that they could pursue their political activity with integrity? Ok, so back to the Christian thing.

It's one thing to fight for tradition. Tradition can be a great thing, a comforting thing. Like canning peaches from your own tree or following in the family business footsteps.

But to blatantly ignore everything modern science and culture has to say about homosexuality in favor of antiquated and twisted logic and beliefs blows my mind. Have we learned nothing from our history of exploiting and oppressing other minorities?

Let's just say, for argument, that homosexuals DO choose their lifestyles (which they don't). Isn't this a free country? So it makes Father Pedophile uncomfortable to have to look at a proud and out gay man who makes no apologies- does this give him the right to make church policy? What does give him the right to sit in judgment of me and the people I choose to love?

One day, the church WILL apologize for how they are behaving now. Just like they had to apologize for their role in the Holocaust and for their treatment of priest abuse victims who were ignored for years, the church will eventually have to admit that their 21st century treatment of gay people was wrong and harmful.

Politicians who use my civil rights as a "wedge" issue to divide voters will be remembered one day just like the racists of the the past who felt so comfortable in their "rightness" about separation of the races, they promoted their support for oppression of minorities in campaign ads. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond's political records will forever be tainted with their reputation as racist bigots, doomed to the tiniest of footnotes if at all.

I'm no angel. I make mistakes.

But I do try to live up to some standards. I learned a lot about Christianity from the inside, growing up in my fundamentalist family. I learned for example, that judgment of others is reserved only for God. That means that when I want to get really angry at someone, particularly someone I don't really know, I try to keep myself from going too far with that snap assessment I just made. Just because I might not agree with someone, like John McCain or Sarah Palin, for example, it doesn't mean that I want to take away their rights or assume that my way is the only way. I also suffer when I am not being sincere or genuine. Something inside me screams "you're a fake! you're a fake!" and I have to eventually stop the charade. It's like that virtue thing again- not lying. I take that very seriously.

The stories of a peaceful, loving Jesus were the most moving and memorable to me from those times. Amidst all the hell fire and brimstone sermons, there were these pearls of beauty. Stories of Jesus healing and inspiring and accepting. Jesus hung out with prostitutes and thieves and challenged anyone to cast the first stone.

My problem is that the Christian church seems to have veered way off that path. The church is a place to go to validate your prejudices, to feel "ok" about your judging and to hear little sermons that justify your fear of strangers and your self-righteous take on life.

It's hard to try to live up to those standards I learned about as a child in Sunday School. It's particularly hard to continue to show compassion and peace and to love my neighbor when they put up "Yes on 8" signs in their yards.

Yet, I will continue to try to turn the other cheek and to show love to them even when they show so little love to me. If they come to me for advice, I will give it. If they come for food, I'll feed them.

Being a real Christian must be hard.

And lonely.

What a shame.

Firenze to Venice

2008-10-15T02:12:00.000-07:00

Florence had a different pace. The hotel Albani was much better than the Ludovisi in Rome. The room was bigger and much more comfortable and the hotel had a gym! Believe it or not Brad and I both worked out yesterday! Combination of lots os pasta,pizza and gelato plus guilt I guess.

Florence felt more like a real working city and less of a tourist trap than Rome. Loved the quick tour of the Uffizzi Gallery but not really enough time to enjoy the Michaelangelio's or Leonardo works.

The David was breathtaking. Photos could not do it justice. I remember as a teen becoming facisnated with this period in history and been blown away by the attention to detail and perfect proportion of the forms arising from a block of white marble.

The sense of delicacy and life emerging from the masterpiece were almost too much. A metaphor for me perhaps of a life carved out of the stoney place I grew up. Not enough time to take it all in. Pictures are only shadows.

Michaelangelio's vision that the work was trapped already inside the block of stone and needed to be freed of the extra marble around it sounds familiar. Makes me want to continue chipping away at the unnecessary chunks of life that get in the way.Peeling away the nonessential and hanging on to the present.

On to Venice.

Ciao bella!

2008-10-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

I'm on a bus on the way to Pisa this morning. The guide says the famous tower doesn't lean as much now. There goes the hope that I will be the one who gets to scream "Look out!" as it finally topples over after centuries of.slowly struggling with gravity.

We spent four fantastic days in Rome doing everything touristy you can imagine. This was the trip to touch the Coloseum,gaze at the Forum and look for the hammer marks on the Pieta left by a mad man.

Yesterday's drive through the Tuscan countryside was spectacular as was our favorite stop at the perfectly preserved midievil town of San Gimignano with the seven towers on top of a hill.

I'm starting to feel the energy here. There's an appreciation for history for style and for the here and now.

I can't describe really the feeling when you listen to stories about a simple stone structure built THOUSANDS of years before the US even existed. I feel so silly!

Brilliant!!

2008-10-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

Check out Tina Fey's brilliant take on Sarah Palin's VP Debate performance!
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421/

Italy on my mind

2008-10-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Brad and I are heading to Rome in three days.

It's the first time for both of us in Europe so we're totally excited. I think we've both been on buying sprees for everything from new jeans to new boxer briefs to even a new fabulous Tumi upright. What does the sophisticated American wear in October in Italy?

Thank goodness, we live in an Italian ancestry-heavy part of California. Just this evening, we hit a hip birthday/housewarming party at Dana and Dan's house- pretty much Little Italy of the Peninsula. Everyone there, at least on Dana's side of the family had their own lovely story of the wonders we're about to enjoy. Multiple generations of Italian mothers and daughters with at least one father and son. A good time was had by all.

Brad is half Italian and half Irish while I'm pretty much Irish and mutt. Brad's mother was a DiBennedetti.

We didn't really have too many Italians in Forest City when I was growing up. We only had the movies and TV to tell us what Italian-Americans were like- not always flattering. I imagined that they all had Bronx accents and ate only pasta with red wine.

My experiences here in California have given me a broader perspective. Here are my observations:

Italian Americans are fun. They love to laugh. They love to cry (especially Erin when she's had a few cocktails...LOL). The love to argue and they love to make up.

The men are good at conversation. The women are strong, beautiful and funny (e.g. Dana, Marilyn and Erin). They all have opinions, and will defend them to the death, but they respect your right to defend yours to the death.

They have great skin, which makes them look younger than they really are. Or maybe they look younger because they act young and know how to laugh.

You can feel the passion about Italy. You can sense that there's a pride in identifying with a culture that is so rich and has contributed so much to the world in terms of art, style, and amore.

It's really exciting to think about visiting the place that brought us fine wine, great food, sleek fashion and Italian Americans.

If it's half as wonderful as was described tonight, I may not want to come home.

Winning by not F**king up

2008-10-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

How do they do it? The king makers, I mean.

W never met a debate he won. I mean, let's be real- the man is an idiot! If substance and stature were the criteria for which we judge debates, there wouldn't be a Republican winner in decades.

When did the bar get set so low though that just showing up qualifies in the spin machine as a "win"?

Ok, granted, Sarah (or Caribou Barbie as Stephanie Miller puts it) didn't faint or scream "fuck you Obama!!" or stammer awkwardly into the camera like Cindy Brady on the school quiz show, but come on!! She didn't answer half the questions, choosing instead to insert the five or six talking points that she's finally managed to memorize extolling the greatness of her "maverick" John McCain.

She did not look presidential or vice presidential.
She didn't reveal substance or a command of the issues.

Was she sympathetic? No, but I did pity her for exposing the fact that she doesn't know that she's not qualified.

She comes across as someone with a mighty high opinion of herself. No, I've never studied the Constitution, and no, I don't actually know what the Constitution says about the office of the vice president, but gosh darn, I believe in myself!! One too many pageants if you ask me.

The only really interesting point in the debate was her answer about gay marriage.

So she made it clear that she does not support same sex marriage, but in a sly but brilliant move, Biden nudged her into a corner when he commented that what he thought he heard her say was that she supported full equal rights for gay couples. She flustered her response, essentially agreeing that they both didn't support MARRIAGE for gays, but supported full equal rights.

Although overlooked in the post-debate chatter I watched, I wondered in the moment what her right wing, strongly anti-gay supporters might be thinking. After all, her appeal for McCain was her appeal to the base. The base is not "tolerant" of gays (her word), they want to see us disappear.

By acknowledging that she has gay friends and that she agrees that full civil rights are in order, she flies in the face of James Dobson, who wants us "cured" and homophobes everywhere who want to encode discrimination into law. What will they say tomorrow I wonder- that her remarks were a mistake?

And if she really does feel that way, does that mean she's not the monster I've been imagining? Is she just a poor, misguided pawn of the McCain/Rove/Bush political machine whose perhaps promising career will be destroyed in a matter of weeks?

Ok, I started out hating her and everything she stands for. But now, I actually do feel sorry for her. She's trying her hardest. Someone told her that she was ready before her time.

When they lose in a few weeks, McCain goes back to the Senate where he will face the colleagues that he has thrown to the wolves. The "maverick" will be a joke.

Sarah Palin will go back to Alaska. And Tina Fey will go back to 30 Rock.

The 19%

2008-09-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

Bush's approval ratings are below 20% now. Like watching a fish out of water slowly gasping for oxygen, this worst of the worst administrations is finally making a not-so-glamorous exit.

Yet, incredibly, 19% of Americans polled still approve of this President, who got us into debt, war and economic crisis. Yeah yeah, I know you can't blame everything on him, but if you applied the same standards of a corporate CEO to the Presidency, one would say that the buck stops there. You'd think there would be a least a few substantial accomplishments that supporters could point out to support their support. "Spreading democracy" or "protecting us from terrorism" just don't cut it as accomplishments to me, especially with no specifics to back it up.

So, I find myself wondering about these 19% of die hards. What motivates them? How could they be so blind to the facts? Are they in denial? or just sadistic and cruel? Uninformed or with "issues" from childhood?

I used to be a die hard Democrat, voting party line above all else. I understand the process of identification with a party or a group so strongly that I feel accepted and a part of a whole.

Growing up gay in the South left me feeling so different, so isolated and so lonely in my formative years, I spent much of my twenties searching for a sense of belonging. It felt so good to walk into my first Carolina Gay Association meeting as a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill. Although it was a patchwork group of people, mostly leftover hippies, cultural bohemians and grad students in their 30's and 40's, I finally felt like I could be myself with these people even if I was 19, a redneck and a bit naive about the world still.

Going to my first gay bar, the Capital Corral (or CC's) in Raleigh (http://www.cc-raleigh.com/), was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. It still ranks up there in terms of life changing moments when I entered a room full of men who loved men. Watching men dancing together, holding hands and even sneaking kisses held for me an awakening of a spirit of community. I remember being so nervous and excited, I was shocked and awed that such a place existed.

My new found community carried both fascination and excitement. I wanted to go back over and over again. I wanted to experience that excitement and that freedom as much as possible. I could hardly concentrate on my classes or my homework, I just wanted more of that experience.

Everytime I went, I focused on what people were wearing, how they acted, what they talked about and learning the "gay" code language. Back then, it was all about "Mary" and switching pronouns, and "friend of Dorothy". I wanted to belong so badly, I adopted almost every mannerism I could find. I had been rejected by my fundamentalist family and church so I just couldn't risk rejection by my newfound friends. I was at CC's or the other club in Durham two, sometimes three nights a week dancing until dawn and hanging out with my new friends.

Reality hit me at the end of my freshman year. For the first time in my life, I failed a course at UNC and barely passed most of the rest. With a 1.4 GPA at the end of the year, I was staring at academic probation and the possibility of having to go back to my hometown and live with the parents. NOTHING could have been more frightening. After screaming out of the closet, I couldn't imagine sealing back up the suppression that it took to survive my gay teen years in that little town. I had to buckle down. I had to pull back a bit and learn to find some balance. I allowed myself to continue my social learning experiments, but I made myself study and I never looked back. It took me the rest of my college career to overcome that first year deficit and it created a somewhat more difficult and circuitous path to my career now as a psychologist. I entered my Master's program on probation, not because of my more than adequate GRE score, but because of my GPA. Although I started weak, I finished strong thank goodness.

So, I get the notion of holding on to what you have no matter what. I understand the desire to belong to a group that symbolizes the "right way" for you. I sympathize with the inner need to ignore the evidence to the contrary, to fiercely protect an alliance that fuels a sense of personal power and to suffer the consequences of that membership.

I just hope that the 19% who continue to believe that George W. Bush is on the right path don't have to fall too far. And I certainly hope that at some point, they can see the real truth of his disasterous Presidency so that we can make real change in the country. Hanging on to something beyond it's time has consequences.

Caitlin vs. Palin: You Decide

2008-09-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

"We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state."

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.”

One of the above statements was made by the third runner up to the Junior Miss USA. during the interview phase.

And one of these statements was made by the first runner up to Miss Alaska during her recent interview with Katie Couric.

Can you tell which one has more foreign policy experience?

I didn't think so.

Sunday 49er's game

2008-09-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

Brad's family have been fans of the San Francisco 49ers for years and years. They buy a block of season tickets every year, Brad, his mom, his sister Cath, and his brother Steve. So, chances are, one of those tickets will be available every once in a while. Today, his sister and mom are in Maui so we got to invite a couple of friends, Kevin and Randy with us.

We met Randy and Kevin while training for the 2007 AIDS Life Cycle. They are both great people, down to earth and low drama (well, there was that time on the ride.....).

It was a beautiful day and SF kicked Detroit's butt on the field.

I like going to the games even though I'm not really a big fan of football. It's an opportunity to see a wide variety of other types of people in the Bay Area. I've always loved watching people.

Growing up in NC, in a small town, we didn't have much diversity. At the last look, I believe the makeup was something like 88% white, 8% African American, and the rest was "other". It felt so boring to me because I wanted to know more about other cultures, more about the world out there.

When I was in the fourth grade, Ms. Vassey's class, we had just been "integrated" in Rutherford County. Instead of separate schools for blacks and whites, after the third grade, we switched from Forest City Elementary School to Dunbar Elementary, which had formerly been all black.

I didn't really understand much about going to Dunbar for the fourth grade. It just seemed kinda exciting to start a new school. I had heard that it was the "black" school, but that just made me more excited since even though I was born and raised in the South, somehow I missed heavy doses of racism. I know it was there, and all around me, but I just didn't have much direct experience with black people or with their experiences living in a little racist town.

I also remember, a special day, a couple of weeks after school had started. Despite the fact that I was now attending the former black middle school, my teacher was white and all the students in my class were white.

Until Gary started. Gary started the school year late, so he was introduced by the teacher to the whole class at once. Gary was the first caramel-color person I'd ever seen. And he was beautiful. I hadn't even begun to deal with my own sexuality at that point in time, but I knew that there was something intriguing about Gary. I was fascinated by him. I introduced myself right away and tried myself to make him feel welcome and comfortable.

During recess, my heart started racing when he agreed to be my sack race partner. We had to hold hands as we laughed and hopped and fell. I don't know what Gary might have been feeling, but I'd have to say looking back, he was my very first crush. After those first few weeks, Gary made other friends and what I had hoped would be a special friendship turned into just another friend in the class.

I have to give my parents credit. Despite the virulently racist attitudes of many of their friends, family and neighbors, they did not raise me in an overtly racist way. We were taught never to use the "N" word and to be generally respectful of people who are different. Of course, that didn't mean that you should MARRY them- which of course makes any forbidden group or person all that much more attractive.

Racism was much more overt when I lived in southern Mississippi. I did hear the "N" word more often, and there was still a lingering historical sentimentality for the "war". I later realized that the war they waxed passionately about was the Civil War. In North Carolina, much of the local historical identity revolves around the Revolutionary War, and being one of the thirteen original colonies. There was a pride inherent in standing up to the British and King's Mountain, a little town close to my own hometown was the site of a grave of a supposedly heinous British soldier who attempted to declare the countryside for the British crown. Today, visitors heap rocks upon rocks on the supposed grave of this anti-American symbol.

I still remember though from the first social gathering I attended in Hattiesburg, the casual reference to the Civil "wo-er" with a sense of dreamy romanticism. I curiously listened as they described a time in their family (but not necessarily personal) history when they had money and land, and power. And, oh yeah, slaves.

The white, middle class gay men at this party didn't project a sense of hatred of blacks or even a direct wish to return to the days of ownership of other people. What they conveyed though was a sense of lost fantasy- a beautiful dream of status, of velvet and bone china. It was as though thinking about having come from wealth eased the fact that they had anything but it today.

Not to say I didn't see the effects of lingering xenophobia, including vague suspicions of anyone with skin that included pigment. When I walked into the student union on the campus of USM in 1986, it was like two parallels universes- a white world superimposed onto a picture of a black one (or visa versa). It was curious to me why they didn't mix. I couldn't even find the intersection.

In the fourth grade, with a crush on the only boy of color in the class, I started to understand that somehow the color of our skin made us different in some way. Different to me was good then. Different meant being able to have a conversation about things that weren't already known to me. Everyone I was raised with was the same. We all went to the same church, the same kindergarten, the same Tri-City Mall. We were brainwashed with the same catechism and the same perspective. Other white people were boring. And I just faded into the background of the same white-washed fence.

California has its problems, but the thing I love the most about this big state is the chance to know other cultures. The endless opportunity to listen and learn about the way other people think is such a privilege still. Everytime I hear another story about a completely different background and belief system that is different from the one in which I was raised, I feel deeply satisfied. I think it's because it frees me from the heavy, repressive thinking from the fundamentalists I was raised by. There are SO many other ways of thinking in our melting pot. It's a good thing. Go 49er's!

Kay Hagan for Senate

2008-09-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

As a native North Carolinian, I suffered through the Jesse Helms years of bigotry, hatred and homophobia. I'll never forgot him screaming on the US Senate floor "those damned lesbians!!".

I'll also never forget the recent attempt to whitewash his rampant homophobia by trying to portray him as having "softened" by embracing global AIDS funding later in his life.

Ya know, I'm not sure that late is better than never. Undoing a lifetime of truly evil words and behavior by "softening resistance" at the end of your career does not, in my mind, entitle this person to avoid the legacy that he has created, by his own stubborn and narrow-minded choices.

He never attempted to see things from the other person's perspective. He never listened and he never admitted that he was wrong. I have experience with negative politics. Jesse Helms was the king of it. He knew how to strike fear into the heart of working class people everywhere. He used "God" and gays to convince voters who don't follow politics that he was their man. He also knew where his bread was buttered.

Jesse Helms was a big friend of big tobacco. As the major crop produced by the Carolinas, Jesse fought hard to defeat legislation that would impinge on tobacco companies in any way, shape or form. He didn't care that people, not only in our home state of NC but people all over the world, were getting sick and dying horrible deaths from tobacco. He only cared that big tobacco continued to funnel big money into his campaign war chest.

Jesse had a national constituency. Right wing, racist, homophobic zealots all over the US rallied with the bucks whenever he needed them. Send out a few letters with a drag queen on the front and he could guarantee a flood of cash.

During one of his senate campaigns for re-election in 1990, while I was still living in North Carolina, I got involved directly with the fight to oust Jesse. I volunteered for Harvey Gantt's campaign, the former mayor of Charlotte and the first African American nominee for US Senate in North Carolina. I attended my first state Democratic convention as a delegate that year and was mesmerized by Mr. Gantt's intelligence, heart and passion.

It was a battle from the beginning. I poured a lot of my heart and soul that year into doing what I could for the Democrats. Harvey, much like Barack Obama this year, was the inspirational leader that I could get behind.

Unfortunately, Jesse won again with familiar and ultimately dishonest tactics. According to the Raleigh News and Observer around that time, "Republican Party operatives came forward as having worked within the Democratic Party of North Carolina. The Helms' campaign then used well-crafted TV ads against affirmative action. An advisor to Helms at the time, Charles R. Black, Jr. has since gone to work as chief campaign adviser for John McCain. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Gantt for more.

He never won an election in North Carolina by a landslide, but managed, through despicable campaigning, to hold on to his office until his health finally led to his retirement from the Senate in 2003.

His seat was taken over by Elizabeth "Libby" Dole, wife of unsuccessful presidential candidate for the Republican Party and Viagra spokesman, Bob Dole. A right wing conservative in her own right, Libby Dole has continued the tradition of rubber stamping essentially every position that her party leadership tells her to vote for. A recent estimate of her voting agreement with Bush is 88% (http://www.newsobserver.com/659/story/1187072.html) suggesting that there is nothing new, or even interesting about this token Republican woman.

Who, then is Kay Hagan? I discovered, amongst the tons of emails I received from Democratic and other progressive operatives daily, that Kay Hagan is Libby Dole's current Democratic opponent for the NC Senate seat. And I learned that she is leading Libby, albeit by a small margin (3%) at this point in time.

I don't know her and I don't follow her. But I sent her a small donation today because it's time to take down the Republican reign in my home state. For all the racist campaigning against affirmative action, for all the homophobic scapegoating, big tobacco protecting, and AIDS funding preventing, it's time to send a message that we want our state back.

And if you find out anything bad about Ms. Hagan, like she doesn't support gay rights or "Republican Light"...don't tell me.

Palin's Pallor

2008-09-17T09:04:00.000-07:00

A tanning bed in the Alaskan governor's mansion? Makes me wonder what Sarah Palin's true colors are.

One thing is for sure. She is all about image.

I'm sorry right wingers, but I think you are being taken for a ride- yet again.

Do you think for once you might question the credentionals in an honest way of someone that pretends to be "one of your own"? Just because someone attends a born-again church, does that automatically grant access to your favor? If so, you might want to think again.

Some of you might be surprised to know that I am not a member of the Democratic Party. Nor am I a Republican. I changed my political affiliation to "declined to state" in California about three or four years ago. In California, you essentially have four options, namely Democratic Party, Republican Party, American Independent Party, and "declined to state."

And before I forget, be VERY careful about selecting the American Independent Party. They are not what you think they are. They are a group of extremists who have taken the deceptive name of AIP, but are a fringe group who begins their platform with "The American Independent Party gratefully acknowledges God as the Creator of all and appeals to Him for help in protecting all He has graciously given us. With all these gifts comes the right to use them justly. Hence all such rights are the gifts of God as affirmed in our Declaration of Independence. http://www.aipca.org/platform.html".

Although much of the time, I have supported Democratic Candidates in local and national elections, there have been a few times that I supported an independent candidate or other third party candidate. And it's not that I disagree with the party platform, it's the recent lack of courage in the Party itself that I found distateful enough to leave.

Who could have possibly lost to George W. Bush in 2004? I mean, let's get real here, the man was already slipping in the polls, the Iraq occupation was already understood to be a big mistake and the economy was showing signs of failing. I blame the Democratic National Committee for it's weak response to the lies and distortions of the Bush machine.

And then there's Nancy Pelosi. Living in the Bay Area, I was terribly excited about the possibility of winning back the majority of the House. The House is our main avenue for holding corrupt Presidents accountable. Finally, we would have someone who talked tough and would take the Bushies to task for their war crimes and misjudgments.

What did we get? "Impeachment is off the table" as a strategy. Wrong, wrong wrong! Nancy, the people who voted to put you into power wanted more from you. I wanted more from you. Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for a blow job and you won't push for accountability from the man who took us to war under false pretenses, has taken us from the largest surplus to the largest deficit in history, failed to respond appropriately to Katrina and blocks every major attempt to improve conditions for children, etc. I am SO disappointed in the Democrats, I sent a donation to Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist who's running an uphill battle against Nancy.

Is Obama the savior? Maybe, maybe not. I've been burned by the Democrats too much to the point that I won't support the party itself. I donate directly to individual candidates or to groups like MoveOn.org, but forget the party.

I like Obama's intelligence. I like the fact that there is so much pressure to simplify his responses to complex questions, but he continues to treat the American public as if they have more than two neurons. I read the Audacity of Hope and I like his honesty. I like that he doesn't sound like the average politician who panders (like McCain). I like that while he may shift a response, he doesn't shift change his basic positions (unlike McCain). He willing to lose the election to maintain his dignity. He chooses the high road, even while attacked on the low road.

But, Obama is a man. Just like Clinton is a man and Bush is a man, with human frailties.

I cannot fathom why Obama cannot support gay marriage (or why anyone wouldn't, for that matter). He, more than anyone ever in his position, has the experiences of racism and the first hand awareness of what the US Constitution means. How can he not understand the blatantly anti-democratic stance of denying two adults the same rights and responsibilities of marriage simply because they are of the same sex? Is it one his of compromises to win election? Are there other things that he says now to help him appeal to the independents and moderates that he honestly does not believe? Probably. They all do it.

McCain is the most blatant of blatants. He picks the least qualified woman Republican in America to be his running mate simply because she's a woman apparently and would accept his offer. No reasonable person of either party can honestly say that she's prepared to be the President of the US.

Maybe it's her tan.

Imperfect marriage

2008-09-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

About twenty years ago, an interesting arrangement began to form between the Republican Party and right wing Christians in the US. On the surface, it would seem an awkward match between the party of Goldwater and the followers of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. After all, Goldwater was a dyed in the wool Republican with moderate leanings, the perfect symbol of northeastern conservatives who believed in fiscal discipline but consistently supported individual freedoms socially.

It made sense and was logically coherent- keep the government out of our lives as much as possible. Avoid wasteful spending on political pork, keep taxes low, and what people do in the privacy of their own homes was their own business as long as those activities did not directly harm a neighbor. I get it.

Slowly however, perhaps due to the changing face of America, the waves of immigration, the urbanization of the coasts, the power base in the Republican party began to get nervous. So nervous in fact, that in order to guarantee a hold on power, someone began to create a rationale for an alliance with a small, but vocal minority in this country, the "family values" voters in America.

Who are they you ask? Poor, white, mostly Southern voters who consider themselves very religious and who have been indoctrinated from birth to believe in "born again" principles of the straight and narrow path, the rapture, an angry, paternal God and the inerrancy of the Bible.

How could the Republican elite ever appeal to a group so different from themselves? How do you convince the very people who benefit from government intervention to vote against their own interests? The link it seems was multi-factorial. First, you win over the leaders of the right wing media. You coax them. You flatter them. You invite them to the table. Pat Robertson, a founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), one of the largest religious cable shows on TV, was one of the first to recognize the power grab he could make by cozying up to Ronald Reagan http://www.cbn.com/; www.patrobertson.com/Biography/index.asp.

Next, you begin to talk about new "threats" to America besides war and poverty. These new threats include the "deterioration" of the nuclear family unit, the decay of moral values and the dangers of unchecked progressive agendas. You start to associate taxes with government waste, and that trickle down economics benefit the larger whole instead of the upper few. You hammer this agenda over and over in the media and through the local churches on a regular basis. Deregulate the media anti-monopoly rules and allow your friends, the superwealthy and corporate entities to purchase our TV networks and major newspapers to control the flow of information.

And you use wedge issues, like abortion and gay rights, to drive your message home.

Soon, a new type of Republican was created, a hybrid of sorts that we now refer to as neo-cons. You don't have to necessarily believe in the wedge issues that you use to get elected, you just have to play to your new right wing base. Campaign hard on how much you despise gay marriage or how much you love unborn babies despite the evidence that you yourself have a family member who is gay or have quietly ended an unwanted pregnancy in your past. It's interested me that after Bush/Cheney/Rove/McCain came to power after relentless campaigning on an anti-choice platform, that in eight years of control of the White House, both house of congress and the Supreme Court, they were "unable" to overturn Roe versus Wade. Think it was because they were distracted by the war? Think again. They just don't care about the issue.

That's the beauty of this imperfect marriage. Growing up inside the fundamentalist mindset, I was amazed at the power of forgiveness my pastors preached on Sunday mornings. There is almost nothing that you can do that is not forgiveable if you ask Jesus to do so. I witnessed many acts of contrition and community forgiveness based solely on the premise that all you need to do is make things right with the Lord to let go of the past. Many times, I believe this occurred in a most sincere way and that it led to healing of individuals and families. But I also witnessed the cynical and self-serving use of this trust by people who were up to no good. People who had no intention of using this opportunity to start again, to gain access to innocents who could be used, again and again. "But he gave his hear to the Lord!!" I'd hear after an extortion or lie was exposed. Better yet, I was constantly amazed at the good "Sunday Christians" who scrubbed themselves clean, put on their best clothes and showed up with the family service after service to display their commitment to Christ. Only later, I came to find that for some of them, the other six days were spent cheating on taxes, committing secret adultery and gambling away the kids' college funds. It seems a fundamental flaw (no pun intended) that the very trust-embuing faith messages also led to a kind of vulnerability to malicious intents.

Another kind of vulnerability also manifested from time to time in the form of a belief that God is all powerful, that the King James Bible is God's direct word and the local representatives of God, namely the preachers, interpret this document without error or personal bias. No matter the particular spin on a verse here or a chapter there, the minister was generally seen as an important community figure, one who was above question and was to be deferred to in times of crisis.

When you are raised with the model of a strong moral authority, you learn quickly that criticism is unacceptable and that any dissent is considered evil. Yes, you heard me right. To even question someone who has been empowered to speak for the church, you are not just considered an agitator, but your desire to dissent is considered suspicious and grounds for damnation to hell. A lifetime of training to have complete and utter faith in the message and the messenger pays off when you want to manipulate. "Hey! I'm one of you!" they say. And then they use your faith to abuse you.

It is powerful behavioral conditioning to believe that you not only risk community and family rejection for speaking out, but your very soul is at risk for anything less than total investment in the mores of your religious community. Imagine that this is the prevalent attitude in 98% of the community around you, that you were raised in this environment from the time you were born, and that even small testing of authority is met with hostility, threats and shame. Fundamentalist Christians thus share another feature with Republicans- namely, an air of self-righteousness and demonization of anyone with a different opinion. Question represents uncertainty which represents threat. No issue can have uncertainty associated with it because it could lead to a collapse of all givens and all absolutes. Bush is a born again, therefore, whatever he says is ordained by God. Period.

The use of fear based politics in Republican campaigns make perfect sense. It is a way of living that most fundamentalists understand and live with day to day. It is not the fear of eternal damnation however in politics- it is fear of the Big Government, of social decay, of loss of lifestyle and tradition and of real world enemies instead of Satan himself.

Where the alliance between Christians and Republicans begins to show strain however is in the apparent lack of compassion, altruism and unconditional love. I was raised in a fundamentalist church, yet despite all the noise, I learned through the examples of the life of Christ that his message was simple: wealth is not what matters, giving to others is a directive, all people are created equal in the eyes of God, and it is not our responsibility to make judgments of others. Killing is wrong.. babies, convicts, and innocent civilians during war. Consistency is a virtue.

Yes, I think it would be difficult for me personally to have an abortion if I had an unexpected pregnancy, but who am I to impose my personal beliefs on another American who may have a completely different value system than my own? Isn't that what America is all about?

In the fundamentalists' world, unfortunately, too often dissenting views are viewed as not just different but deserving of respect, but inferior, suspect and even Satanic. How odd it was to grow up around many different forms of fundamentalism- the Southern Baptists, the Assemblies of God, the Nazarenes- who ironically condemn each other for their subtle differences in interpretation of faith. "We believe that people who smoke are disobeying the word of God" or "People who dance with the opposite sex are encouraging lustful behaviors" weren't uncommonly held beliefs. It encouraged in me an air of superiority, that my church was the right church and all others fell short somehow. How could I then love someone who evokes pity in me?

How do people who identify themselves as Christian reconcile the politics of Bush/Cheney/Rove and McCain with these principles of Christ? How does paying less taxes, leading to the cutting of government programs for the poor, jive with the multiple messages that implore us to give to the poor, to abandon our wealth, and to love our neighbors?

How does Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh resonate with a community taught to seek peace? Why can Bush lie about going to war and yet still command a strong following by people who have read the Bible?

Jesus was a progressive. So shoot me.

My Interview On OutSpoken for Loving Ourselves

2008-09-14T17:55:00.000-07:00

Here is my interview on the Comcast show, OutSpoken, with host Tim Gaskin on 5/19/08. I was discussing my new book, Loving Ourselves: The Gay and Lesbian Guide to Self-Esteem.