Gay Family Values

On Cynthia Nixon and Balancing The Kinsey Scale

2012-01-30T11:54:00.000-08:00

We've all heard the same tired, worn-out "Being gay is a choice" arguments before. We have heard it from religion when they want to characterize being gay as sinful, we here it on television when those same religious viewpoints are used to reinforce political ones, and we here it from out parents when they are looking for something...or someone...to blame when we come out to them. After all, if it wasn't for our reckless choices or that person who "recruited" us into being gay we would all be straight. Right?....Right? Um........Anybody? I'm being absurd here but the notion that we woke up one day and decided to be gay...or worse...yielded to some form of temptation has led to the emotional and psychological torture of thousands of LGBT people.

Yet not everyone stands with both feel planted fully in the "gay" or "straight" camp. Each persons individual sexuality is a shade somewhere between those two polarities. Alfred Kinsey defined a scale numbered 1-6 with "1" being exclusively heterosexual and "6" being exclusively homosexual. Now...most of us fall somewhere along the length of this line with few of us being on the extreme ends. For myself, I would place myself at about a 5.5. And...as someone who fought his orientation tooth and nail, I see that as an inborn part of myself I could not change if I wanted too. Yet there are those who disagree...

Cynthia Nixon, who did an incredible job of standing up for marriage equality in New York has recently come under fire for comments made in a New York Times article in which she defines her sexuality as a choice. Nixon is currently engaged to be wed to her longtime girlfriend Christine Marinoni after a previous marriage to English professor Danny Mozes. This change is not so unusual, many of us come out later in life or perhaps we sit a little closer to the center of the Kinsey scale and have attractions to both sexes...as seems to be the case with Cynthia. there issue here is not whether or not Cynthia was being completely honest to her experience of her own sexuality...but in how her account of that experience gives ammo to those who claim that homosexuality is simply a behavior that can and should be changed. Nixon's comments to the NY Times leave a lot of room for debate and heated opinion:

(emphasis mine)

...... “I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

There is a part of me that understands where Cynthia is coming from because we have all heard the arguments(that often come from gay people) that bisexuality isn't real. As if it's just a "phase" they are going through on their way to being fully gay. And while some gay men and women do refer to themselves as bisexual for a while until they become for comfortable with their homosexuality....utterly rejecting the notion of bisexuality seems crazy to me. In rejecting the experience of others, we do to them the same discrimination toward them that we seek to end toward ourselves. It is a failure of empathy.

Additionally, while Cynthia is being totally honest to how she views her own experience I am one of those people who did a double facepalm when I read it. So here is Cynthia Nixon with the ability to feel attraction to both men and women looking to her own experiences and acknowledging that she made a choice to follow the ones that made the most sense to her....I get it. But......the problem lies with the self same bigots that Nixon doesn't want to concede the ability to control the conversation.

See...just as Cynthia won't use the term "bisexual" for herself because she claims they get "dumped on" she is making a conscious choice to use labels or not use labels as they benefit her. The problem is that many of us though we may be sprinkled along the continuum of sexuality don't see our sexuality as fluid. We have found something that feels right for us and in most cases we have had to sacrifice the acceptance and love of our biological families to see that through. We have endured the discrimination and disdain of a society that see us as not deserving of equal respect and legal protection under the law. Those very conditions exist because society still struggles with seeing a gay, bisexual, or transgendered person as someone who did not "chose" to be what they are....and in that choice is the implication that we can simply make another choice to be the opposite, which we all know is not true and kills hundreds of kids through ex-gay programs, bullying, and suicide every year. I do not think it is conceding a point to bigots...even if her use of the word "bigot" may have alluded to a portion of the gay community. It is acknowledging the awful on-going damage that is done to LGBT people every year that at best poisons are ability to accept ourselves and be accepted as a part of our communities and at worst can lead to despair and death. We've seen it happen time and again.

Just the notion of their being a word for people who are predominately drawn to the same sex is only as old as the 1880's when sexual acts and those who engaged in them began to come under scientific scrutiny. Before this time there really was no solid state categorization for a gay person other than "sodomite" which focused more on their acts than an orientation. Even sex in the ancient world was viewed as an appetite with everyone having the potential to engage in heterosexual or homosexual acts with different cultures having their own separate opinions on those same acts. A wealthy or powerful man could be the aggressive sexual partner to anyone below his station....a women, a young man, or a slave, and suffer no judgement because he was of higher status than them....But, being a passive partner could end in fines or imprisonment...even in the days of early Rome. And yet, it was all seen thought the same lens that we commonly use when approaching an all you an eat buffet. It was all regarded as taste and appetite. I think it is that view of sex as a smorgasbord in which we all pick and choose our dishes that we inherit today and manifests in the idea that being gay is a choice. And while Being gay, Bisexual, or transgendered was seen as merely a choice of behaviors we know a little bit more about sex and biology now to know better. We do not get to chose who we are attracted to...we do get to chose whether or not to follow that impulse.

For a young person struggling to accept themselves, that definition of choice can mean all the difference. I respect that Cynthia Nixon was being truthful in her disclosure of how she experiences her own sexuality. The trouble lies in the fact that not everyone else experiences it in the same way. And in a perfect world her story would be accepted as merely her personal experience and not to be applied to others. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen and a young person reading her comments may take them to heart about themselves and go right back into the closet to pray their gay away a little harder.

I also understand that Cynthia states that for others it simply is not a choice...I don't think anyone is demanding that she change the truth of how she deals with her own sexuality. But we also need to know that the words we use matter. Not only to those who work against us...but to those who one day will be us. I respect Cynthia Nixon a lot...not only for her acting...but also for her activism in New York. She stepped up and put herself on the line to be a face and voice for marriage equality. However, I do wish that she had considered the deep pain so many people have to go through to overcome the notion that we chose to be gay. I do not consider myself a bigot or word nazi for holding that belief...nor do I think less of Cynthia Nixon for hers.

Until next time dear readers......

What Makes A "Better" Parent?

2012-01-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

Whether or not gay men men and women can parent has been a topic of conversation for ages now. I can remember it being debated when I was a teen and had a lesbian cuuple that lived across the street from me raising a boy not much younger than myself. I did not take me long to figure out that their was a disconnect between what I was being taught...and what I could witness in life of the family across the street. And I have heard the worst of arguments over time...that we will raise emotionally damaged and confused kids to allegations that we adopt in order to make kids gay...and so much worse. "kids need a mom and a dad" is the rallying cry of those who appose LGBT adoption and marriage equality and they beat that drum with fervor. They are old arguments that strike a sensitive cord in any of us that thought that being gay meant giving up on the notion of having a family of our own. Yet, as damaging as these arguments are, there are lots of same-sex families out there to prove them wrong. I feel fortunate to have grown up across the street from one that helped me see differently even before I came out to myself.

Now...It seems like we have hit the flip side of the debate. With more gay families out there to point to, a lot more people are familiar with same-sex families with children. The adult children of gay parents can also stand up to defend themselves and their families much like Zach Wahls did for his own family. We have fought and struggled to show the world that a gay family looks and functions just like any other family does...in our triumphs and our shortcomings. And then this article comes along from livescience.com carrying the headline, "Why Gays May Be Better Parents"

Strangely enough...while the article may make points that I absolutely agree with, I still find myself troubled by this article. Lets dig into this this thing and I will explain why...

The author of the article...Stephanie Pappas, uses a handful of scientific studies to advance what are largely four main points....

1) That gay parents often fill a much needed roll in adopting and fostering....

An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the kids placed were older than 6 — typically a very difficult age to adopt out. About 25 percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted across races, which is important given that minority children in the foster system tend to linger. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lesbians had special needs.

2) That children raised with gay parents tend to grow up to be good kids...

Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples — both adopted and biological kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other life-success measures.

3) And that LGBT parents tend to have the built in capacity to teach acceptance of life's diversity...

these kids may have the advantage of open-mindedness, tolerance and role models for equitable relationships, according to some research. Not only that, but gays and lesbians are likely to provide homes for difficult-to-place children in the foster system, studies show.

4) and lastly...that choice and commitment are the key to it all...

Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian parenting. Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. "That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."

If you are heterosexual and feeling a little slighted by this...I understand. While some parts of this article are fact...the way in which those facts are being presented is biased in a way that I feel does a disservice to all parents regardless of gender or sexual orientation. In my opinion, most of the reasons that this author has given as being the qualities of a superior parent are not exclusive to any sexual orientation. The suggestion that anyone is a better parent does help the cause of equality for gay families...it just sets up resentment and furthers division.

When Jay and I began dating we had those talks about our future hopes and dreams that young couples often have. We knew from our first few months together that both of us wanted to be a parent "someday". That "someday" arrived for us a few short years later as we realized that we had met some basic requirements....we were committed to each other and had several years to back that up, we were financially able to support children, and we were able to talk to each other about what our expectations and limitations were with parenting. Once we looked at each other and realized that "someday" was "now" the next hardest thing to do was figure out how to build our family and that process took us a couple of years of oscillating between surrogacy and adoption.

We went into the process with intent and sometimes in the face of an utter void of information to guide us along the path of family building as a gay couple. So, on the surface it is true that gay couples have a step toward being good parents because we have often had to struggle to create them. However....I have known women who have planned their pregnancies and eagerly awaited their child only to suffer heart breaking miscarriages. One such woman that I know personally just became pregnant again and I know that she lives everyday with the anxiety that it could happen again and the hopes and dreams she carries for her child. No one can tell me that she will not cherish her child just as much as I cherish the two I adopted with my husband. Also...I have a cousin who is the Martha Stuart of moms. she never feeds her children sugar, makes all his costumes, and even as a baby made her own pureed baby food. On the occasions when I bring home Taco Bell I think of her and imagine the nutritionally balanced, home cooked meal they must be having and feel like CPS is gonna knock on my door any second for feeding my kids fast food. Choosing to be a parent is not an automatic guarantee of being a good parent...but it does go a long way and it does not matter if you are gay or straight.

The authors second assertion that gay parents will often adopt outside their race or kids with special needs is factually true...I did it. But so have a lot of other really incredible straight parents that we see at our fost/adopt support groups once a month. I do think that LGBT men and women have a unique perspective on life and family that can give us a great deal of empathy towards kids who have been treated poorly by their birth families or passed over by others. Many of us have walked that path ourselves. I remember the first time I saw Daniels profile on paper. The behaviors they ascribed to him and the medical challenges they listed made me hesitate. I wasn't sure I could handle all that or that I would connect with him at all.....and then I met him. He was the cutest little boy with his lost eyes and terrible bowl cut and my heart melted on contact. It didn't take long for me to forget that Daniel was a different race then me or that he had special needs. He was just Daniel and I loved him. I think that is just the nature of human connection when you are open to it and not something that is unique to Jay and myself as a gay couple.

Lastly I think that comparing gay parents to straight parents is bound to have a lot of statistical flaws due to the discrepancy in the size of each population. Perhaps if they evaluated the same number of gay couples to straight couples in similar life circumstances we would find a clearer picture of the differences in each. There are just too many variations and different life experiences to compare the two parenting models with any kind of fairness. Which brings me to my final point.....the only better parents are the ones who work everyday to love and care for their children. It doesn't matter what that looks like.

One of the many points Jay and I try to make on our YouTube channel is that gay families look and function exactly the same as everyone else's...our kids grow up just the same. Making the claim that gay parents are better then straight parents just reverses the discrimination and does nothing to bridge the gap between us. We love each other, we love our children and do the best we can to care and provide for them, and sometimes we make mistakes. That is a story that is common to all families whether single parent, heterosexual, or gay.

I am not a better parent than anyone else. but I am getting better at being a parent with each passing day. We do the best we can to be the best dad's we can be and the kids do the best they can to push us into new territories of parenting(I.E...drive us nuts). I think this is universal to all parents and while I may not be a "better" parent or even a pro...I love being a dad and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

Until next time dear readers......

Invisible connections

2012-01-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

Like many, I have been struggling to understand the death of Trevor Project Intern Eric James Borges. Much has been made of his connections to the Trevor Project and making an "It Gets Better" video a month prior to his suicide as if those things are a barrier to someone making this kind of decision. After all, doesn't working for the Trevor Project bring you into contact with others who could have recognized the path that EricJames was walking?....Being so immersed in saving the lives of others, how was Eric not able to take the message of the organisation he worked for to heart? And the question that sits underneath it all festering like a poison....How effective is the Trevor Project or "It Gets Better" if you can work within them and then still make the decision to kill yourself? Is it all just bullshit? How do you begin to make sense of this?...

I have done a lot of thinking in the last 24 hours and I have to admit that I am no closer to making any sense out of this, but the one thing I think that is missed in our grief over another loss is the message of Eric's life. Eric may have gone but he left behind a gift that I found so heartbreakingly beautiful that I have to share it with all of you. It is that gift that says more about who Eric was and how he saw the world. It is a short film he made called "Invisible Creatures"...take a moment to watch it after the jump...

I watched this movie and cried....It seems that the "invisible" part of this movie was not in the people it captured on film but in the moments of human connection that pass between us in our most intimate and unguarded moments. That spark of electricity that passes unseen between two people in love. The man strokes the womans neck as she leans back against him and both of them glow with the light of a golden sun. I felt the rock of their hips as they danced together and remembered times when I have danced with Jay to music that wasn't there. The feeling of your nose brushing gently passed theirs...and then the smooth skin of their cheek on yours as you lay your head and heart down on their shoulder in love and trust. It looks the same..whether it's a man and a women, two men, or two women.

Whatever Eric may not have been able to see in life....or in himself. One thing Eric knew was what love looked like. It passed like lightning from his eyes to those of his love and became visible in the rays of the setting sun. I think that he meant the "Invisible Creatures" to be these people sharing love in a private moment. He wanted us to see these moments that we normally keep private so that they wouldn't remain invisible anymore. He wanted us to see that love looks the same no matter who may be expressing it. Perhaps when the world can see that. no one else will be tortured for who they love and no one else need take their life because the pain is too great. Like Eric did.

What I wonder is...how does a man with that vision of love not see that his life will not always be pain....that it will not always feel like an open wound that will never heal. After all, it contained enough love for him to capture these amazing moments....

For all the questions that all of us have about why Eric chose not to hang on...his reasons were his own. I can not judge his actions because I will never know who deep his pain ran. Instead of seeing a death that makes no sense, I see a life spent holding out a hand to others...a hand that it seems that Eric could not see also extended to him.

Wherever Eric is right now...I hope that pain is gone. I hope that he is wrapped in the love he tried to show us in his movie. And Secondly, I hope that the message of this film becomes the reason for which we think about him. It is only one small film that tried to make the invisible a little less so....but in those invisible things that pass between us is the stuff of life itself and the meaning for why we are all here. Eric was not as invisible as he may have thought he was...and with him will travel a piece of the spark he tried to show all of us. Erick...you were not invisible. You were just as worthy of the help you gave others everyday and you need to know that through this movie...we see you. Thank you for making something so simple and so beautifull.

And dear readers.....you are not unseen or unimportant either. The love you have to share with someone is just as important and just as needed. We see you too.

You can contact the Trevor Project at:

(866)488-7386

or...

www.thetrevorproject.org/

Until next time dear readers.....

Stolen Childhood

2012-01-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

Welcome back everyone....

I know it's been a long time since I have written anything. But, that does not mean that it has been an uneventful beginning to the year. The kids are still off for Christmas vacation and my husband has taken off some time to help care for Baby Boy and the others...so our house is full and very busy. Additionally, I have not been so happy with the gay related news these days. It seems like it's all completely wrapped up in the Republican primaries and the insane viewpoints of it's candidates. I have to admit that I am sick of hearing about Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachman to the point that I am afraid to even log onto the internet anymore. They are on everywhere, all the dam time...and they seem intent on pushing each other over to prove who is the most "conservative(I.E. against the gays). Case in point...

Via Towleroad and reported by the Miami herald...Rick Santorum wants to be your president...and this is what he thinks of same-sex adoption and children's rights to a safe home:

Citing the work of one anti-poverty expert, Santorum said, "he found that even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids, were still better than no father at all to have in their childrens' lives."
Allowing gays to marry and raise children, Santorum added, amounts to "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have right to. You may rationalize that that isn't true, but in your own life and in your own heart, you know it's true."

Really?...robbed?!...then I have a little story to tell about how Baby Boy came to be in our care this Christmas. Brace yourself and grab a tissue...it's going to be hard to hear...

For those who need to catch up... Baby Boy had been removed from his mother's custody after she was pulled over at 3 a.m. for weaving all over the road and driving under the influence of drugs. Baby Boy was with mom in the car and had two ear infections. He was removed from her care and placed with us on an emergency basis. Flash forward three months and the county has found a local relative willing to take Baby Boy in long term while his mom undergoes drug treatment and the family reunification process. Flash forward another six months and we are getting the call asking us to take Baby Boy back again because of suspected child abuse on the part of this same relative. He was diagnosed as failure to thrive...a fancy term for "he won't eat", scoliosis, possible autism, and even multiple sclerosis. That about catches us up to the present.

This last week Baby Boy has been doing really well. The kid they claimed wouldn't eat?....eats like a horse. mealtime is his favorite part of the day and we joke that he is "little Daniel" because of how much he loves food. He is clear, aware, and responsive even if he isn't using words yet. He can say a lot with grunts and baby talk and he usually does. He laughs easy and loves to play with the other kids. He is a beautiful little boy in every respect and completely different then what he was being cast as on paper.

This week we took him to his first follow up doctors appointment for his arm and they read to me the full report of what happened to him .....When the EMT's had been called it was under the explanation that Baby boy had thrown himself against the wall of his crib and had then gone into a seizure. The EMT's reported bruises on his cheeks and around his ears. His left elbow had been fractured. And there was scrapping in the genital area as well as a small amount of blood. He was taken to the emergency room and from there, flown to Oakland Children's Hospital where x-rays showed that his arm had been broken previously.

Hearing it all rocked me. The relatives explanations for Baby Boys behavior did not match up with his injuries at all and their explanations for his wait loss and emotional withdrawal weren't matching how he was behaving in our home. clearly something awful had happened to him in that home and hearing it play out made me feel sick. I could not believe all that he had gone through in such a short amount of time. It was like being punched in the gut and I just wanted to pick Baby Boy up and hold him.

The doctor claimed that she was shocked to hear it herself as the relatives had always appeared to be very proactive and involved in his care. They had claimed to be giving him three pediasures nutrition drinks a day in addition to his regular food but that he was not eating. Talking to social workers who supervised family visits told a similar tale of a little boy who had withdrawn into himself, had deep circles under his eyes, and would not interact with anyone. This was not the Baby Boy I had known and my heat broke with every sentence. yet this wasn't some stranger that did this to him...This was his family.

So I would like anyone who believes that same-sex parents are more harmful to kids than letting them be with families like these to tell me how they justify that. As Rick Santorum believes that having gay parents robs them of something...what about the time this two year old has lost to fear, neglect, and violence? A piece of his childhood has been stolen from him. He has seen far more than any child should and you can see it in his serious little eyes.

For all he has been through, Baby Boy is doing well, though he has further to go. He eats a lot, he laughs, he plays, and he loves with an open heart. All things that should be a part of a child's life. I think it's amazing that he can do that. I think in part it is because of his age...but I also think he's a pretty strong soul. What he has been through makes him a very serious little boy. he has had to learn to be very cautious and his life has held no gaurantees. but in spite of all that, his heart is intact and when he smiles and giggles its like the sun shining through. For all he has been through...Baby Boy is going to be OK and I don't intend on letting him go again. Mr. Santorum can consider that a theft all he wants...I consider it restoring to Baby Boy what should have been his already...a childhood filled with love, safety, and happy memories. That is what being a family is all about and that...is what I know in my heart is true.

Until next time dear readers.....

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T19:28:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years everyone. I barely got the time to get on here to today to give these wishes. Jay and I have been dashing aroung getting things for Baby Boy, who made his transition back into our home with flying colors. He is doing awesome and it's like he never left. But the hectic tone of this day just underscores what 2011 was for us....so busy. And 2012 does not look to be any less busy. But however full the new year may be I look forward to experiencing it with my family and with all of you. So no matter where you find yourself tonight, may you have a great night and an incredible new year! See you in 2012!

Until next time dear readers....

Foster Diaries: The Return of Baby Boy

2011-12-30T12:11:00.001-08:00

Well dear readers, it seems that life is bringing me full circle again. Many of you may also watch us on YouTube, and if so...you know that there is a new addition coming to our home. Way back in February of this year I blogged about a little boy who was placed with us that I had dubbed "baby boy" since we can not put him in print or video. On the first day he came to be with us he had two ear infections and a whole lot of fear and neglect issues and so he cried every night....for hours. At that time, it made me wonder whether I had the chops to handle being a foster parent. But as time went on, his medical issues cleared up and became the cutest little baby I ever could have imagined. Sadly though, the time came when social services found a family member willing to care for Baby Boy while his mom could go through drug treatment and the family reunification process. We were sad...but we also knew that this would be a part of emergency foster care and we thought it was good that he would be with family......And so Baby Boy left our home to whatever the future would hold for him. All of us shed a few tears as we said our good buys.

Except....that the future that he went to wasn't as bright as we had hoped and it seems that Baby Boy is returning to our home today....

Social services called us just a couple of days ago with Baby Boy in a bay area childrens hospital. The information we got was sketchy and unclear...as it often is when the case if first unfolding and information is being filtered through four or five people who are working in emergency mode. We were told that he had one broken arm and possibly a second...and that he was removed from care because the family member had been making allegations that he was hitting his head against a wall and throwing himself against things. He claimed that Baby Boy had cerebral palsy as a way of explaining why Baby Boy would do this to himself. However, the injuries present did not match the explanation given by family and so Baby Boy was removed from them for suspected abuse and an emergency call was placed to us to see if we could take him back. In the mean time, doctors testing him for Cerebral Palsy, Brittle Bone syndrome, and Autism among a bunch of other things in order to determine whether the claims of Baby Boy's family held any truth.

Now...I had really bonded with Baby Boy. He was never far away from me and as time had gone on in his first placement with us, it was getting harder and harder to let him go. So when we got the call and I heard what his family had been doing to him, I had only one immediate thought and that was that if he came back to our home, it would be to stay...for good. I know, that's getting the cart before the horse and there was so much more to consider...but that was my initial gut reaction to the news. After the shock and anger wore off...other thoughts and feelings began to work their way into the mix....

Like.....It's just past Christmas, and we were breathing a sigh of relief that the holidays had passed and perhaps we could relax. Also, we still have the two children placed with us that came right after Baby Boy left. This was our limit and we didn't want to have five kids to manage. And on top of all this, social workers were telling us that he might have two broken arms AND autism......holy cow....just thinking of it all from that perspective was enough to knock me back in my chair. Can we do this?!.....With two broken arms he will need everything done for him just as if he were a newborn infant. And if I am thinking about possible adoption or guardianship....Is autism something we can take on?.....Are we nuts to be considering this?! And the biggest question...How were Daniel and Selena going to feel about it all?

I admit to feeling a little sick to my stomach remembering every time I handed Baby Boy off to to the family member who did this to him. I went to those visits looking for signs that anything could be amiss and I saw nothing. They had a nice home and three kids of their own that all looked happy and well cared for. There was nothing that would have indicated that this family member was capable of doing something like this to him. And even a veteran social worker who's job it was to investigate the home and determine its suitability saw nothing. And yet...here we are after a few months of what must have been hell for this little boy. I know I am not responsible for what his family did to him...but I wish I could have seen this coming. I want to take him back and never let anyone hurt him that way again. And on top of this...there was also the nagging fact that we had no idea if Baby Boy we still going through reunification with his mom......Crud...this situation just seemed to get more and more complicated the more we thought about it. Here I am thinking adoption thoughts and that may not even be a possibility.

There is so much to be afraid of. So many reasons not to do it. So many boogie men to be afraid of. But when I remember Baby Boy as I knew him this last spring all I could remember was his bright smile and toddler mischievousness. He was this tiny little package of cute with the eyes of a very old soul that had already seen too much. If he has autism...he had it then too. Yet all I could see were his giggles.

So we sat down with Daniel and Selena and told them the situation. They are old enough now to hear it now without sugar coating it and they both had really fond memories of this little boy. I was mostly concerned from Daniel because he has been my only son. I did not know how he would handle having to share that with another. We always joke with Daniel that he is our favorite son...to which he indignantly replies, "But I'm you're only son!" And yet as we explained the situation both kids hardly let us explain it all before they were getting excited at the prospect of having Baby Boy back with us. Selena whooped with glee and Daniel gave his best "I wan't to be a sullen teen but I'm not really yet" seal of approval.

But then there was still me....I has gotten used to the idea of our family being just the four of us. Why did it make me feel sad to consider adding one more person to that mix? I guess I am the one with sibling issues because I guess I was feeling like I was betraying all that I had promised to Daniel and Selena by bringing in a new child to our home and wanting to make him my son. Silly eh?...love doesn't work that way and I still was not even sure if that kind of situation was a real option yet. Baby Boy's mom could still pull through and he would be out of our hands again to another uncertain future.

So many reasons to be afraid. But In the end...none of them were good enough.

And so...after so much deliberating and wondering about unknowns...Jay and I came to the conclusion that all the what ifs were stonewalling what we already knew...and that was that we would take Baby Boy and see what comes. We may well be crazy, but that's never stopped us in the past. Why let it now? And so....the runway lights have been lit for the stork to make his return trip today. Baby Boy will be coming home today. I hope he gets to stay....but that future is still uncertain.

Until next time dear readers........

Happy Holidays From Us!

2011-12-24T11:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays from all of us here at the Leffew home.

It has been one crazy holiday season and I for one am glad that Christmas is finally here so that I can just enjoy the day and forget any preparations that still may need to be done. Our gifts are purchased and wrapped, our dinner is ready to go...and Santa even made an appearance here the day before his big night.

I know that Daniel knows the truth about Santa now...but I hope he never stops believing that magical things can happen. As he gets older, his wish list changes from video games and toys to video games and a leather jacket but I hope he and Selena always remain little kids inside. As a grown up, my Christmas wish list has changed somewhat too. I look around my life and realize that I have so much that I am grateful for, that it shrinks my list down quite a bit. But, a few things I have wished for under the evening stars are a world in which no gay person needs to fear to lose their job, their home, or their life because someone discovers their sexual orientation or gender identity. I saw a lot of violence done to friends this year and it reminds me just how far we have to go make that world more than just a wish. I'm keeping a handful of people in my prayers this year and their safety and happiness is my Christmas wish.

So I do believe in magic. It may not come with sparkles, colorful light shows, or the sound of harps, but I do believe that incredible....even impossible things happen when we hold them in our hearts and make room for them in our lives. That's just me though and I don't ever want to stop believing.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays from Jay, Daniel, Selena, and myself....and no matter where you may find yourself this holiday season, may you be safe and warm as well as surrounded by those you love.

Meeting Randy Roberts Potts...New Friends And Old Scars

2011-12-17T15:50:00.000-08:00

We at gay family values have been fortunate enough to meet lots of other fantastic YouTubers. The great thing about meeting these people in person is that we really get to know them as the regular people. Sean Chapin was the first YouTuber we had ever met and we had so many stars in our eyes. Also, this summer we got to meet the infamous Jim Stone and his husband and had a wonderful time hanging out together as well as eating his husbands fantastic cooking. And each "Big Gay Vacation" has brought us to YouTubers that I now count as good friends. As people often tell us that we have impacted their lives in positive ways...I don't know if you all know how much richness all of you add to ours. It's one of the big pluses of being a part of the YouTube community.

Therefor, it was with great excitement that we looked forward to meeting Randy Roberts Potts. Randy is the grandson of the legendary Evangelist Oral Roberts...a father to three awesome children...and a gay man facing his past with courage and using it to make positive change in the world. I, in particular, had a strong desire to meet Randy because of his grandfather's ministry and its ubiquitous place in my own past. I admit that I was not sure what I was hoping to find in talking to him....healing...revelation...both of those being very religiously loaded terms. But what I did find was worth so much more.

I had come to know about Randy through his "It Gets Better" video in which he wrote a love letter to his uncle Ronnie...who was also gay and who had committed suicide. As he speaks so lovingly to his uncle about how alike he and his uncle were and how much he had wished his uncle could have survived to be able to see Randy now.....all of us were thinking the same thing about Randy. The more his story unfolded, with so much passion and raw honesty, I felt like he was telling a little bit of my story as he was telling his own. I'm sure many of us who grew up in religious homes felt that way. His tears had become our tears in one magical moment of baring his soul to someone who may desperately need to hear it. I needed to hear it too...

I left that video with tears in my own eyes as I also remembered hearing his Grandfathers voice every Sunday morning. Each and every syllable he uttered had become unquestionable cannon in what my family accepted as literal "Gospel truth." I even remember my Grandmother having a tiny replica of the prayer hands that stand at the entrance to Oral Roberts University. That type of belief is not something that stops when you turn off the T.V....it becomes your culture, the boundaries of your universe, and the bedrock of your personality...as it had mine. And as with most of the televised sermons of the day there were a lot of sermons about hell and what it took to be a good Christian. If I had learned two things from these sermons it was.... One...that I was terrified of going to hell and I would do just about anything to make sure that would not happen. And two...that just believing was not always enough. You had to evangelize others, you had to give, you had to witness, and you could never never trust that you were good enough. Next to the good messages of love and forgiveness that my Grandmother taught me sat the messages that I need to be on guard against myself...to be afraid....because complacency was spiritual disaster.

And this is not something I am mean to lay down at Oral's feet. That would be really unfair and my understanding has changed over time. These men were a product of their own training and his message was a part of many similar ones I could have gotten from Billy Graham or a host of others who's voices steered the course of millions of believers. It was the 70's and 80's and it was all religion, big hair, and giant churches. I was also not even in my teens and anything that my family believed in...I took to be an unassailable truth. But the fact that I was meeting this particular mans grandson brought back all those moments into light of day again.

Fast forward twenty years to a young man who is realizing that his feelings for men are NOT going to go away no matter how much praying he did or how much denial he lived in and unassailable truths had to be questioned or I would not survive. Coming out for me meant finding a way to reconcile all I had been taught to believe in with what I was coming to learn was an unchangeable part of myself. I can't say I really found a way because...while I never stopped talking to GOD...I for sure walked away from the church, religion as a whole, and all the notions that came with it. But those same notions had already been laid as the foundation for who I was many years ago. They would never go away without erasing everything I had experienced in my life up to then. And so a small wound exists in the soul that never totally heals. I survived as a gay man and have made my way through life the best I know how...but like many of us....I have a few scars.

And along comes Randy Potts with his past and his heart on his sleeve.....

That video hit me like the meteor that took out the dinosaurs. It cut through to the part of me that is never able to feel secure in the universe I live in. i thought, "You mean Oral Roberts...this man who had been the paragon of virtue...had a gay grandson?!!!!" I literally said, "Holy Sh*t!" It instantly changed how I thought about Oral Roberts and all those sermons I had listened to in front of the living room t.v. with my parents nearly every Sunday morning. Suddenly they weren't so unquestionable...because if this could happen in Orals family...What did it mean? Was that message of condemnation somehow less true for Randy's existance? or...could it have been a part of Gods sense of humor to again grant a gay child to a family that really needed their world view shaken up a bit? It seems to happen with alarming regularity.

And this is the baggage that I brought with me when Randy pulled up to my doorstep with his three children in tow. I knew he was a divorced father of three, an author, and an activist in his own right....but a part of me was looking to talk to him about all of this like he had not heard it a million times before from a million other guys like me. All of us expecting pearls of wisdom from the guy who lived within such a huge part of the religious institution that had rejected so many of us....he not only lived in it...he survived it and came out to tell his story. I wondered how he had made peace with religion, as he had been taught it, and what how that affected how he thought of himself as a gay man. Maybe I would find that piece that would finally close the wound.

.....yeah...fanboy...I know....

And then....as with meeting everyone we look up to...We got to know the real Randy. He is a very caring dad, as well as a very sweet and genuine person. He loves Star Wars(big plus) and he is incredibly easy to talk to, even though he is as shy as I am....and that's saying something. He even helped Jay and I put on our ties for the movie event because neither one of us had ever bothered to learn how. The rest of the night was such a whirlwind I barely remember it but the next day we all got to sleep in, and then have a real human conversation over several( insert jitters here) cups of coffee. We both got the chance to take off the hoopla and expectations about each other and just get to know each other. It was while we were able to relax and have fun that the three of us shot this interview together:

But backing up a bit,....the evening before, when Randy helped both of us get our ties in order(I promise we don't make all our guests do that :p ) and as he was tying mine.....I had a sudden image of him in my head as a little boy in a suit of his own, standing on that great big stage with Oral and his family...and it hit me. Just how much pressure he had gone through to help put forth that image of a perfect family and how much pressure I was putting him under by looking to him to find the answer to why we had to hear all those messages growing up. I wondered how long had he been standing in the shadow of his grandfather so much that the awesome guy that Randy Roberts Potts is was getting lost in the his legacy. Randy was not responsible for what I had taken away from his grandfathers sermons at 10 years old. That rift between what I had been taught to be and what I am is mine to carry and putting it on Randy was a little unfair and too much burden for anyone. And while I don't know what existence will awaits me at the end of my life...the love I have known in my life has taught me more than all the televangelists in the world ever could. Perhaps some scars we are meant to carry and work with over time...perhaps they even help us to be better people.

As Randy says in the interview, for a long time he wouldn't even refer to himself as a Roberts. He had to run through his own fire and learn to find new beacons of light to guide him home just as I had. That does not mean that he had reached his own final destination. His was not a story of coming to ultimate terms with his past...like most of us it's a work in progress and I think he has done an incredible job with accepting himself through all that has happened to him. that is inspiring to me.

The Randy that does not stand in his grandfathers shadow is the sweetest person you will get to meet. He is a great dad to his kids and it was nice to be able to swap stories with another gay dad. Having had kids before he came out...it was nice to highlight that being a gay dad is not any different from being a straight dad....only the circumstances had changed.He is raising three very sweet kids.....and did I mention they all like Star Wars? That's just good parenting there.

Randy also has a lot to give the world in the way of fighting for equality. The "Gay Agenda" project is a great example of this. Setting up a living room in a public space and living in it with our husband/partner for all the world to see takes some serious stones. That's taking what we do here on YouTube to another level and I think it's an awesome way to speak to people who may not ever log onto a site like YouTube. It's not standing there talking at people. It's really letting them into your life in a very practical way where they can see, ask questions if they chose, and hopefully shift what they think it means to "live the gay lifestyle"...whatever that is. As Randy said, maybe a mother will see this and come to the a different understanding of the life her son or daughter could have. How beautiful is that?

Once I took off my illusion of who Randy was, the Randy that stepped out of the shadow of that expectation was ten times more incredible for being real. I think he needs to know that. I felt like I walked away from that time with a new friend as well as a new perspective on myself. I hope that Randy caught on to none of that and instead, I hope he and the kids just had fun....and I hope we all walked away with a new friend.

Everyday we change and grow. It's all just another step on the journey. I know I am still working on making peace with my past even though I am also very glad to be gay, a dad, and a husband. I would not trade any one of those things for easy answers. I wish Randy well on his journey...and I hope his path crosses ours again.

Until next time dear readers.....

Right To Love Advanced Screening...Standing In The Spotlight

2011-12-14T21:37:00.000-08:00

It's finally here!...."The Right To Love: An American Family" is finally finished!

... and after nearly three years I have been able to view it in it's entirety. But I can say that it was worth the wait. We were been very blessed to have the extremely talented folks of Jaye Bird Productions take on this topic as well as and the generous efforts of the folks at Skywalker Sound take the project under their wing and donate their time to give the movie their magic touch. That ALSO meant that I got to geek out...AGAIN, by getting to see the advanced viewing held at Skywalker ranch this last Monday. After nearly three years of donating our footage, interviews with Cassie, Nena, and Christina of Jaybird productions, I couldn't believe the moment had come when I actually got to see it all come together and it was everything I had hoped for and more. It was an emotional,.... sometimes overwhelming thing to be the focus of something like this, so I thought I would take a moment to talk about the experience that is taking our family on a whole new adventure....

For me, the days leading up to the viewing were days filled with nervous speculation about what I was going to see. I knew my father, grandmother, and brother had given interviews that would be included in the movie and that made me nervous about how they would be portrayed. I had envisioned them going on long rants about "the way things are supposed to be" and "how we love him but we don't approve" among other kinds of crazy stuff that would mean that I couldn't share the movie with them if it made them out to be bad guys....and while I have had my disagreements with my family, I love them and don't want them to be perceived that way. So I was already programmed to be nervous about what was coming up.

Then the guest list began to fill up.....friends and those who gave their time and talents to the movie where going to be there, as well as Senator Mark Leno. Adam Bouska of the No H8 Campaign and Perez Hilton had rsvp'd....as well as one of my favorite "It Gets Better" contributors. Randy Roberts Potts. The numbers were shaping up to be around two hundred people, and with every new RSVP my anxiety would climb that much higher. What if the movie was awful? What if my family went on a homophobic tirade? It is all out their in digitally enhanced Skywalker quality for all to see.....just thinking about it all was enough to make me hyperventilate. Oh...and did I mention they wanted me to speak before hand?....Someone get me a brown paper bag please....It's all going black. But then the time came for it all to happen and I no longer had time to fill the room with my anxious thoughts.

The day before, Randy Roberts Potts came to stay with our family and we got some time to get to know him and his awesome children. I had a lot of emotion around meeting Randy because I, like many people, had grown up with his Grandfather, Oral Roberts, every Sunday morning. Those same Sunday morning sermons had gradually built the framework that I had to overcome to survive as a gay man and I wondered over the fact that Oral had a gay grandson. It was just too amazing to me. And then I met Randy and saw what a genuine, real, and sweet guy he was and an awesome dad to his three children. I realized in that moment that everything I was putting on him was not fair. He deserved to be Randy...not the guy who sent to earth to clean up his grandfathers messes....which were actually MY messes to deal with anyway. I hope in the time that Jay and I got to know Randy that we made a good friend.

Then the day came....we all got dressed up in our new outfits and tried to look as if we always dressed that way.....LOL.....yeah right. While we looked good, we also looked like kids who couldn't wait to get out of their Sunday church suits. Except for Selena, who looks good all the time...and... who can look like a diva in a toy tiara and Hello Kitty pajamas. We were ready. It was really time to go do this. No more waiting!....Off we drove to San Rafael and Skywalker Ranch. Being a Star Wars fan...this was really an unexpected dream come true and my inner nerd was going through palpitations.

Once we arrived, we met and mingled. Among the attendees were Sean Chapin, sexuality educator Dr. Doug Kirby from Cassies previous production of "Daddy I Do". A highlight was meeting Senator Mark Leno who was a very nice and very gracious man....especially when we hooked him up with the director of our adoption agency(TLC)...she really wanted to bend his ear on adoption/fostercare questions and I knew their was going to be no stopping her. We also met Trey Lockerbie who wrote and performed our very popular intro song called "Hummingbird". We also met the awesome benefactors to our film...our producers Ford Austin and Marc Wasserman. Jay was in his element....and mingled like the social butterfly he is. I tried to just enjoy the experience(because it was awesome) without passing out. Eventually the time came to take our seats followed by Cassie, Christina, and I saying a few words in introduction to the film and then it was time to dim the lights.....

Don't worry...I won't spoil the movie for ya....needless to say it was quite the ride. From From Day of Decision to our first Youtube video and on to where we are today. Cassie, Christina, and Nena caught it all and turned it into something amazing. It is one thing to live your life...it is another thing to see it presented to you in that way. All those familiar moments take on a new color and emotion as if you are seeing them again for the first time. Pictures that I live with everyday became a part of breath taking moments that made me tear up. Pictures of Daniel and Selena so small set to music and flashing by in the dark made me want to smile, laugh, and cry all at once. I got caught up in in it all, all over again.

Another of my secret concerns about how the movie might be, was that the reason we make our Youtube videos would get lost in focusing so much on just our family. After all, we are only one of thousands of other gay families that live just like we do. And yet, as I watched, I noticed that what they did was to tell our story in such a way that it enhanced what we do and made it crystal clear. You got so swept up in the way they told it the story. The movie WAS about us....but it really served to highlight the battle for marriage equality more for having real people to connect it to. And that is our mission in a nutshell...to put a human face on what for many is just an abstract issue. I laughed...I cried...I jeered at news segments of Maggie Gallagher and Glenn Beck contrasted against the interviews they took of us and our old Youtube footage. Seeing them against each other like that showed how ridiculous the rhetoric can be and how damaging it is to real families. When we laughed or cried, all of us in the audience did it together collectively....those were great moments to be a part of.

And in those moments Jay and I knew that those three ladies really got what it was all about. They understood what we were trying to tell the world and they took our random segments of badly shot video and weaved them together into a story that made you feel and carried you away into the events we all saw unfold over Prop 8. Talking about it on the ride home with Jay we both thought, that anyone who had never seen a single one of our videos before could watch that movie and know everything we were about. That's incredible and a very difficult task to do with three years worth of Youtube videos and total carte blanche. However, that was why we allowed Cassie and her family to have such a free hand in telling the story they wanted to tell in the first place. We knew from their first movie, "Daddy I Do" that they can take a topic that sharply divides people and bring it down to its most human terms. That is a mark of skill not only as documentarians, but also as storytellers. It is something that Cassie and her family are especially masterfull at. And also I give massive Props to the folks at Skywalker Sound who took all that grainy video and turned it into something that looks and sounds nothing short of amazing.....I still don't know how they did it but I am gratefull they took this film under their wing and donated their efforts to the project.

Though I still have a bone to pick with them for including the video of me being the toothfairy for Selena and Daniel. When Selena saw that part her eyes got as big as dinner plates....oh well...I guess I'm out of another closet....

As the credits rolled and the house lights went up I was so emotionally bowled over I didn't even know how to react to what I had seen. Because I was so impressed and awed with what they had done...and yet that was us! People were shaking our hands and telling us how amazing we are and I offered some lame responses. I simply was so stunned by all I had seen....and my dad, grandmother, and brother who I was so worried about, had all given me reasons to go give them huge hugs. I simply did not know how to react. Grateful seemed to be the only correct response...and I truly was.

But... it also touched on another issue that is uncomfortable for me. Whether it's meeting long time Youtube viewers or this crowd of appreciative movie goers....being told that we are amazing or in some way extraordinary does not sit well with me. It goes back to our very first video three years ago. We wanted to show ourselves as just ONE gay family and hopefully inspire the thousands more to do the same. We are just one very visible example of a thousand other homes with same-sex parents or LGBT single parents. It doesn't feel fair to take a bow for something that they do everyday just like we do. We are just a family....their are thousands like us out their doing their thing everyday...our just happens to have two dads. If it ever does become about advancing us as individuals, over fighting for marriage equality, then it will not be worth doing anymore. So when people tell me we are celebrities...I politely disagree. I am not a celebrity. A dad, a gay man, a son, a star wars fan, a gamer, an introvert...there are many titles I wear proudly, "celebrity" isn't one of them.

This night was an amazing experience and one I am still working to understand but I am so grateful to Cassie and Jaybird productions for putting together such an amazing movie. They really cared what we thought about it and I don't think I did a good enough job of telling them how proud I was of them and how happy I was with the film. Our family is honored to be a part of it and I hope it does something good in the world and something wonderfull for Cassie, Christina, and Nena...they deserve it.

But where will this movie go next and when can all of you get the chance to watch it...stay tuned as we will post film festival dates as well as when you will be able to purchase DVD copies of the film. Believe me...as soon as we know.. you will hear it first!

Until next time dear readers......

Love Passes ...While The Court Dawdles On

2011-12-10T11:49:00.001-08:00

It feels so disappointing and wrong to be writing this post on the heels of the last one. The Story of Lillian Shuziko and John Berry had it's share of tragedy...but ended in love and hope for the future. I was glad to post it. Today's story...not so much. However, I am choosing to share it because I do not think there is anything to be gained from not telling it. In fact, I think it would do a disservice to the couple it involves. There has been a slew of Prop 8 related stories this week that...when put together...paint a disturbing picture in my opinion.

This last March, an elderly couple by the names of Derence Kernek and Ed Watson had posted a YouTube video asking the Ninth Circuit court to allow Judge Vaughn Walkers decision on Prop 8 to stand because....after 40 years of being together, Ed Watson's alzheimers was progressing and the couple wanted to marry before his condition worsened. sadly, their plea fell on deaf ears and now, nine months later, Ed Watson has passed away. Meanwhile...also in the news...the Ninth circuit continues it's glacial progress to decide whether or not Prop 8 opponents even have the ability to defend the case before their bench. Also, the issue of releasing the tapes of Judge Walkers initial trial is still being fought over....and Prop 8 proponents are STILL trying to have Judge Walkers decision vacated....again. None of this is moving the Ninth circuit case forward in any way...it's just litigation about the litigation. How silly and absurd this all seems and there just doesn't seem to be any end it sight. meanwhile...couples like Derence and Ed are still caught under the gears of justice as it's broken machine totters on.

Perhaps I'm wrong to be upset by this.....Perhaps it's all a matter of perspective. 40 years ago, When Derence and Ed first got together, there would have been no hope for legal recognition of their relationship at all....not even a civil union. 40 years has seen the world change a great deal in it's opinions of...and protections for LGBT people. But.....does it have to be another 40 before the Ninth circuit does anything definitive?

When will it sink in that this isn't an "issue"?....it's somebodies life. Is our lack of empathy for each other so deep that it is impossible for some to find a common emotional thread with couples like Derence and Ed? It seems like this is just a case like any other on the docket...no different from any other...sandwiched in between jurisdictional hearings and breaking for lunch...nothing more.

I know...the courts are probably still our best bet..and taking it to the ballot again is just as slow and subject to the opinions of a wider public, that equally may not be able to see this in light of real human lives. I should be happy to see anything happening at all. But I think about the narrow window that I had to get married in and the many, many people that did not make it. I sit in a unique position that a lot of fellow LGBT's are not allowed because of the vagueries of law and the opinions others who are not directly effected by it. I think about the insane, insulting, and dehumanizing arguments that have passed back and forth in these hearings and it makes me crazy. And then I hear stories like Ed and Derence's and I just want to cry.

So yes...the world is changing. But, I wish it had changed fast enough for these two gentlemen to say their "I do's". It would have meant so much to them. It would not have changed one wit of their 40 year lives together. It would not have made their love more real...nor changed how they feel about each other. But it would have allowed them to take their place in the world as two people who are an equal part of our common life and culture...in addition to the laws which would have protected both of them and provided for Derence in the event of Ed's passing. What could have...should have...been a celebration of 40 years of life has turned into something else infinitely more sad. What a way to enter Christmas...

But where Lillian and John's story found hope in the fact they got to be together when the world told them it was impossible...so too did Ed and Derence. The courts may not give a dam...nor politicians...but they have 40 years of love and memories that will never be invalidated, vacated, or ever taken away by a vote. Like Lillian and John, they too got to be together for nearly a lifetime and that is the brightest star in the night that can lead us back to hope again. At least.....that is how I chose to see it.

My thoughts, prayers, and condolences are with Derence this holiday and I hope that my readers will take a moment to stop by the video above from the Courage Campaign and leave a note of support for Derence...any warmth and support we can give to each other this holiday season will go a long way.

Happy Holidays...and until next time dear readers.....

The Cost Of Love...

2011-12-05T12:48:00.001-08:00

O.K...I began this post yesterday when it was actually in the paper, but real life kept hauling me away from the computer and preventing me from switching into "blog mode". But here it goes again. While this blog is technically a "gay blog" the story I have chosen to share with all of you is not a "gay" story. Yet I felt it was a story that any LGBT person would resonate with...it is a story about sacrificing for love...and it touched my heart. So without further ado...lets give it one more try:

~~This morning....~~Yesterday I happened upon an article in my local paper that has touched my heart and I feel it is important to share with all of you. During these holidays, we all need to be reminded that love is alive and can beat some pretty incredible odds and I think this one fits the bill. The article from The Press Democrat was about the passing of 87 year old Lillian Shizuko and her remarkable romance and marriage to John Berry. She, a Hawaiian born Japanese girl....Him a white American man...both of them find love together in a pre-World War II World. They were different races and from different cultures in a time that tolerated no blurring of the lines...what could go wrong?

The article as I read it in the paper was a bit more descriptive than the online version that I have linked here. but as the story goes, John and Lillian fell in love which did not sit well with her family who did not like her relationship with John Berry at all. Lillian's parents then took her back to Japan only to have World War II break out not long after. However, John promised to find her and as it turned out, nothing as insignificant as a world at war would stand in his way.

Lillian waited and kept watch, always believing in his return. John ran through blood and fire because he knew that it all brought him one step closer to her. As the article states, John landed in Northern Africa with Patton's forces and fought in Italy and Normandy eventually being wounded in the upper chest. Both john and Lillian were not able to contact each other for the duration of the war...but neither gave up hope.

As the war came to a close,, john was stationed in Japan with the American occupation forces there and it was then that he was reunited with Lillian and shortly after, they were married. The two remained together until Johns Death in 1990 and Lillian's recent passing this last November. Theirs is truly and epic love story of the kind you normally only see on T.V.....how much more amazing to know that this really happened in real life.

I read this story in the most unremarkable of circumstances.......as I was getting the oil changed in my car. As I was waiting, I idly picked up an abandoned copy of the paper with no idea of what I was going to encounter. When I read their story it blew me away for several reasons. First, how remarkable was their love and commitment to each other that not even bitterly warring nations could keep them apart forever? And not only war would have been an obstacle their being together...prejudice and racism was prevelant and made so much worse because of the war. That alone would have made them outsiders to both their cultures for the simple act of loving each other. And yet....looking at their picture, I couldn't help but be struck by how young and beautiful she looked...how handsome he was in his uniform. Both of them seem so innocently happy, the love they felt for each other shines right through their eyes.

If only that were all they suffered however.....Marrying John also cost Lillian her family. Most of her relatives and some of her sibling disowned her for marrying and American man.

As soon as I read that fact I couldn't help but think of how many LGBT people have had the same experience. Fighting against the downward pull of culture and discrimination...oftentimes losing the families that raised us because they couldn't accept doesn't that love care what you look like on the outside or where you come from. That is the cost we have often paid to be true to our hearts and true to love. It was a cost Lillian and John paid in full.

I guess that sometimes I need to be reminded that the struggles that I have come to associate with being gay, bisexual, or transgendered are not exclusive to us. The struggle to acknowledge the truth of who we love is universal and has been tread by many more than just us. It's simply a part of the human condition that we must one day overcome. Whether it's the color of our skin, the traditions of our cultures, our social standing, our religions, our gender...so many things can keep us apart. But love will stubbornly stand it's ground and patiently wait until we find it in ourselves to look beyond all of these things to the truth underneath and follow that wherever it leads....even through a war it seems.

I do not know if John, Lillian, or their family would appreciate their story being paralleled with that of LGBT people....I can't really say what they would have thought about this. This is only my opinion after having been moved and deeply inspired by them and their love story. This has been a cold winter and reading about how their love for one another conquered all, it warmed my heart and gave me hope for the rest of us.

Love does have a cost....Probably man. It may not always be dodging enemy fire to find a long lost love and it may not mean losing our birth families...but it always means being able to acknowledge the truth of it, even when it takes us places we may not have expected to go. The cost is acknowledging the truth where ever it leads...we must follow. I hope Lillian and John have a special place together in heaven right now because I have found them to be two very amazing and inspiring people. I hope you do too.

Until next time dear readers......

Holiday Traditions: Awkward Conversations With Family

2011-11-26T11:16:00.001-08:00

I don't know if anyone has seen the the video floating around from Maggie Gallagher and the National Organisation for Marriage? You know...the one in which she gives tips on how to talk to your loved ones about your opposition to marriage equality over a heaping plate of turkey, cranberry, and mashed potatoes. You know, I can just imagine it now...."The Turkeys just delicious this year Margaret! Did you brine it?...oh and while we are on the subject...I think gay marriage is totally wrong and the work of homosexual activists bent on redefining a sacred institution to destroy the family....please pass the yams John.......John?....Why is your face so red?. Yams please dear.".....Holiday family get togethers can often be the site of family dust ups but anyone who goes to the dinner table with conversational ammo about their views over gay marriage?...talk about an agenda. Who knew this was something people needed pointers on?

However...Maggies psa about holiday insensitivity does bring up a topic that has long been a challenge for me personally....talking to my family about anything gay. Contrary to what I do on the internet...I am not that vocal in person and some of the hardest people I have ever had to talk to are my family. So lets go there....pass the gravy Maggie...

I have had some rough conversations about gay topics with my family... but I can say that I have NEVER brought it up on a holiday. The scariest conversation I have had on a gay topic by far was coming out. Even though I had been raised and spent my whole life with those I was coming out to and thought I knew their beliefs intimately, I still didn't know what to expect. That conversation I did have to prepare myself for because I knew I would have to stand my ground and I truly did not know which way things were going to go. After that, came a long time of tacitly agreeing not to talk about it anymore. I didn't rock their boats and they wouldn't rock mine. That is...until Jay and I started to pass some milestones that most families celebrate...marriage and children.

Most couples find that announcing an engagement or a new addition to the family is met with joy. Mothers and grandmothers get involved in wedding plans and/or begin planning baby showers....everybody hugs and there is a general sense that something really good is happening. For most, these are happy occasions. For gay couples it's not always so....For Jay and Myself, telling our families that we were going to adopt brought no spontaneous woops of joy and definitely no baby showers(darn). It actually took our family some time to get used to the idea and they universally had to express their fears that society might reject or bully our kids because of us. But there again...not the worst or most awkward conversation, but also not what we had hoped for.

The worst came when we could actually marry. That seemed to be one step too far for them. I remember being very excited to tell my family the news and I drove out to see my Father and Grandma at the little antique shop our family runs. No matter how excited I was to tell him before I got there, standing in front of him seemed to sober me up. But I told them and hoped. I hoped for a "congratulations"...a smile...some form of positive response. Instead what I got was silence and an....."Do you expect us to be happy?"......"Um...well yes dad. That's what I was hoping for. That's usually what happens when people announce they are going to get married."

No such luck......He then we on to explain about how for his generation this kinda stuff is just wrong and not to expect any kind of acceptance or happiness over it. Inside, I kicked myself because I felt I should have known. I went home defeated and more disappointed than I wanted to even admit to myself. Now...my dad was in my wedding and he voted against prop 8. But he made it clear to me that he was doing it as a favor to me...not because he believed it was right. He was trying to be their for his son in the only way he could and I recognize that.

Then we got involved in the struggle against Prop 8 and we learned that we could not be silent anymore. But....the courage we learned from speaking out in YouTube did not always extend to family. Talking to them about the Prop 8 vote in order to encourage them to vote against it is were my father had some heated verbal altercations. For a kid who learned never to fight with his parents it was tough....I was so scared to put my views out there at all but I had to...my life and marriage were on the line and for them it was just a moral issue. It was infuriating. In order to talk to my family about anything you have to fist work your way past the FOX news talking points...then you get down to the real reasons for why they believe what they do and it's almost always a "Because that's what the Bible says", or a, "That's the way it's always been." answer. Convincing them that their are other points of view is looked on with suspicion. It's almost as if they feel that I am trying to wrest away from them something precious that defines who they are as good people. And what does that make me then?

And there is why I don't talk to them about gay issues in a nutshell...doing so further defines me as different. And I don't want to feel like an outsider in my own family. And everytime I have to hold my tongue I am paying a price...not only to keep the peace...but to not further highlight how I am different from my father who I see so much of myself in...my Grandmother who is my spiritual rock...my brother who I want to be my friend...and all my uncles and cousins...and my mom who I still can not talk to. That fear of not being different has kept me from doing many things I should have long ago....like the fact that our wedding was the very first time my family had ever seen me hold my husbands hand, share a dance, or a kiss...and while I was doing those things with him, I couldn't stop thinking about that. I had to stop myself from trying to protect their sensibilities and remember that this was our day...and that we may never get to have day like that one again. They were just going to have to live with the shock of seeing their son kiss and dance with another man. How lame I feel that those things are what I was thinking about on my wedding day.

And here we are on the cusp of the release of our documentary movie project The Right To Love: An American Family....a movie in which my family agreed to be interviewed for. And the producers of the movie let me know that my family was very frank in their opinions...as I knew they would be. The movie is almost ready for release and we have to opportunity to invite friends and relatives to Skywalker Ranch to preview it. And I don't even want to tell them about it. I don't even want them to see it until I have had a chance to see it and to know what was said. Why am I doing this?...am I protecting them from looking bad? After all, they are grown ups and able to own their opinions. Yet here it will be...my awkward conversations with my family played out on a giant screen for thousands of strangers to see. And here I am just hoping I will even be invited to the next family holiday. They don't read my blog or watch any of our youtube videos so maybe I'm worrying for nothing.

While it has been a very difficult lesson...I can not keep silent anymore. I don't want to hurt them. And worse, I just want to be a who I always was to them before the wall of "gay" came down between us. But the journey of fighting for gay rights has taught me how to speak up and hopefully how to do that with some respect and dignity for others. I know what I need to say, I know how to say it,...and I know when I need to say it. When It comes to gay issues I can no longer work so hard to protect my families sensibilities in order to fit in. Too much is at stake now and sometimes our boats need to be rocked a little.

So Maggie might be the etiquette maven for how to deliver anti-gay talking points over pumpkin pie but I am not.....and nor do I think many other people are. Talking to our parents about our lives can often be stressful enough that talking about gay issues is just one step beyond possible for many of us, even though we need to have these conversations desperately or we will never learn to see each other eye Sometimes those conversations are had over mashed potatoes and gravy...and sometimes they can be had just by letting them see you dance at your wedding.

Until next time dear readers...........

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

2011-11-24T09:53:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers who have been with us this year. It has been such a crazy busy year! Today I don't have to host or help cook a huge dinner and I find that I don't know what to do with myself now....though it is nice to let someone else do all the hard work...oh well. Even if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, we here at the Leffew home wish you a great day and a happy holiday season. I am truly thankfull for everyone who reads this blog and perhaps takes the time to leave comments. It has been a very chaotic and uncertain year for us and I appreciate everyone for bearing with us through it. You guys are the heart and soul of this blog and I wish I could personally thank each and every one of you.

Anyway...go stuff yourselves, hug your relatives, and take a long nap. You don't have to celebrate Thanksgiving to enjoy those simple joys. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :)

Bryan, Jay and The Kids

Setting Goals For Our Kids...Report card Time

2011-11-19T12:24:00.001-08:00

This week was finally report card time for my son and daughter and anyone who's been through grade school can remember the nail-biting uncertainty everyone feels opening up those tiny manila envelopes. Parents want to know that their children are getting the best education possible and that our kids are giving their best efforts in that regard.....and our kids are going through their own anxieties. I remember that report card time in my family meant stress for me no matter how well I did. My mom wanted all "A's" from me and anything less than that was met with a silence that I knew meant "you can do better". That pressure to perform at the top of my abilities was why, when I hit puberty, the first way I rebelled was through my grades. I just did not want to be a smart kid. Smart kids got beat up and were never popular. At least that's the way I saw it then.

Being a parent now, I thought I knew how to set a more loving and affirming set of expectations for my own children. I would not be the pressuring parent. I would let my kids know that my love for them did not hinge on their performance or their grades. It all seemed so clear and so simple....and then I became a parent and all my preconceived notions were wiped away in the realities of day to day parenting. I have also been challenged me to rethink how I set goals for my kids....so much for clear and simple.

A part of the challenge is that every child is different. Some kids love to learn, and others apply their intelligence to escaping the process by any means necessary. for example, my daughter is one of those kids who loves to learn and show off what she knows. she was so excited to be like her brother and go off to school and so jealous when she was too small to do it. When it was finally her turn, she hit ground both guns blazing and her reports have always come back stellar...so much so that she can be a bit cocky about it sometimes.

My son Daniel, was very different. He has always struggled against his desire to be social. Every....and I mean EVERY teacher conference and report card made it clear that Daniel was more interested in making and keeping friends than anything to do with school work. After a while, I think that got to him and he stopped believing he was capable of doing any better. I remember picking Daniel up from school one day in third grade, a day in which he had a big math test, and he came out to me all excited and pleased with himself.as he said, "Guess what dad?!...I got a C!".......I admit....a little bit of my mom came out and I got the stone face and said, "Excuse me....a what?!" The fact that Daniel was so pleased with himself was overshadowed by why he was pleased. We obviously had a lot of work to do in helping Daniel hold himself to a higher standard....but I didn't know how to do that without making him feel as if his self worth was in question. Because it never should be. It seemed that both of us had a lot to learn.

For most of Third grade, Daniels teacher was frustrated with his in class socializing and his grades were suffering across the board. Daniel was also having trouble doing his homework without being held by the hand throughout the whole process and litterally forced to do it. He was doing his best to avoid it by any means necessary...including tears. Not that it ever worked for him.

It clear to us that Daniel had set a very low bar for himself. It also became a struggle inside myself to help him learn to start giving his best effort without making him feel as if my love for him depended on his grades.Where I always wanted to well to please my parents...Daniel puzzled me by using every ounce of his intelligence to avoid it. I had to drag him through his homework year after year and every teacher conference and report card was singing the same tune..."Daniel has the ability but does not apply himself. His work is careless and he spends far too much time socializing."

We had talk after talk with Daniel about what was expected of him in terms of his behavior and his school work. We explained that we never expected perfect grades, we only expected him to give his best effort...and that we knew this wasn't his best effort. After his joyful proclamation of getting a "C" on a math test we had a long talk that we don't aim for "C"....we may not hit our target, but we aim for "A". Doing your best and falling a little short is way better than doing a mediocre job and succeeding. This was the balance I had to strike within myself between the part of me that wanted to see Daniel succeed and the other part that wanted him to know he would be loved no matter what. And.....We had to be careful never to compare him to his sister...who was daily turning into Ms. Smartypants. It would not have been a fair comparison and would only have created resentment between them. Having these discussions, Daniel would nod his head and agree with everything and commit to trying to do better....and then it would be back to the same old struggle. it was so frustrating and the reason why report card time had become a tense moment for both him and us.

Third grade became fourth and then fifth and nothing changed. It had gotten so frustrating and old for Jay and myself that we imposed a no T.V. and video game summer on Daniel. I know...that's probably banned by the Geneva Convention as cruel and unusual punishment but taking it away for a week or a month wasn't getting us anywhere. In addition, he had to write nearly everyday about a topic we chose. No friends, no entertainment and all work for the summer....it was really no fun for any of us. And then some strange and unexpected magical thing happened.....Sixth grade.

I don't know how...or why.....Perhaps a new maturity kicked in...perhaps the "no fun summer" did it's job. Perhaps the promise of another such summer was the key.... But Daniel totally changed gears. Our first parent-teacher conference of the year we sat down with the intent of giving them the same peremptory speach we have had to give all the past teachers. The one in which we let them know what Daniels tendencies are and that if they had any trouble that we work very closely with his teachers and want to know right away so we can nip it in the bud. Every conference we would steel ourselves for that conversation. So as I finished up my little checkered-history lesson about Daniel to his sixth grade teachers their response was,..."We don't have any troubles with Daniel. I usually only have to remind him once to be quiet and he does it. He's one of my better readers and his writing and math are near the top of the class."

.....I nearly fainted....

...."Oh.....really?.....Awesome." It took some time for the shock to wear off. After spending three grades struggling, I kinda wondered if my son had been body-snatched. I was happy...and very proud of his achievement....and totally nonplussed over what had changed. Somewhere along the way it became important to him to do better. And while I don't know what made the difference, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. We hugged...we slapped high fives...and Daniel glowed.

And here we are on report card day...Daniel got an awesome report, very heavy on the "A's" I am very proud of him. As we have always told him, we don't need him to be a "straight A" student...just to give his best effort and maybe he will discover that there is still more in him that he can give. However, the same struggle still exists in me. Now that he is doing so much better...and we are all patting him on the back....how do we continue to help him understand that we will love him no matter what his grades...AND...that we will still hold him to a higher bar? Today Daniel and Selena are celebrating their achievements....and they have earned them. However, I am still being schooled.

I will keep encouraging them to do their best...and to let them know that they are loved all the time...and no matter what. They seem to know how to do the rest.

Until next time dear readers......

99%

2011-11-12T11:03:00.001-08:00

In my humble north bay town of Santa Rosa a tent city has grown on the lawn of City Hall. They are Occupy Santa Rosa. I never thought that a town like mine would see an Occupy encampment, after all....we are not a center for banking or finance. What is there to "occupy" really by a few square feet of grass on the grounds of a city that it probably of like mind to the protesters. Much has been speculated in our local news as to how long the city will allow them to remain camped out. Everyone talks about what happened in Oakland as if it could happen here. I know that it wont, but everyday I drive by them and wonder that this movement has hit my hometown.

I have been debating writing this post for some time. Partly because it will be unabashedly political, but also because I wanted to wait and see what the Occupy Wall Street movement would become. Lately, it seems it has been in the news for all the wrong reasons and the core ideas that drove so many to protest are becoming lost in divisive and demonizing tactics on both sides of the picket line. I think it's time to weigh in because we as a gay family and a law enforcement family are a part of the 99% too.

It is all of us who do not fit within that top 1% of the wealthiest Americans....ALL of us. Not protesters Vs. police....And thats were I feel the Occupy movement has got off track. The initial days of Occupy Wall Street were very clear in their anger over financial corruption and the governments willingness to bail out corporations, but not the common man. Poor, Working poor, middle-class, upper-middle...whatever name you may give yourself...chances are you have lost a job, a significant portion of your income, your health benefits, savings and retirement funds you relied upon. You may have a home that you still owe more on than its worth...or had to give up and let the bank take it. The same 1% of highest wealth holders in this country can afford to find ways to avoid paying taxes on the actually amounts they earn while those in middle to lower tax brackets shoulder a much higher tax burden. Corporations can now be regarded as people and give as much money as they want to a political campaign. Money and greed are slowly strangling us.

Coming from my parents home which was filled to bursting with the fear mongering of conservative pundits I have come to know for a very long time that Americans are being pitted against Americans. The "Culture war" is as much to preserve the sensibilities of those frightened of gays and the false specter of socialism as it is a handy distraction to keep the bulk of America not paying attention to what is happening to their freedoms and protections. It is funny however, that no one began to occupy anything until it started hitting us in the wallet. Vote that corporations are people?....fine. Can't pay your mortgage because you lost your job?....now we have a problem.

When I think of Occupy Wall Street, to me it seems like the public slowly waking up....it is the dawning of the awareness that we have been divided against each other in order to steal our government right out from under us. Even if the Occupy movement amounts to nothing more than a footnote about protesters camping out on sidewalks, it serves as a sign that the awareness of the nation has shifted....and if the occupy movement stalls out here there awareness it fostered will grow until it becomes something larger next time.

But what are we seeing on the news. The Oakland protests....violence...and characterization of the movement as a bunch of angry neohippy college age kids confronting police. All of this played upon by news outlets and politicians that have a stake in making the Occupy movement look like a bunch of angry reactionaries instead of the everyday people standing on dire financial precipices that most of them really are.

And to all the protestors who see the police as some sort of neffarious arm of oppression...And there have been cases of police abuse. However, there are also many cases of protesters need to remember that most of them are 99% too. In anger over actions of abuse some have come to see the police as the enemy to be resisted when likely many of them would be down there in tents and sleeping bags as well. Just as many police and law enforcement have lost homes, jobs, and health coverage as have anyone else. And not all the protestors who come out for these events have peacefull demonstration in mind. Some come out with the intent to confront. Those kinds of people will be at ANY legitmate protest and they detract from the credibility of those who are really out there to make change because they make it about the spectacle and they make people like my husband out to be the bad guys when he has every right to be right down there with them.

How so?....We own a home we owe more on than it is now considered to be worth. We have tried numerous ways to refinance to alleviate the debt. but there is no program that allows for that given the amount of money that Jay makes...and since the government does not acknowledge our marriage and that Jay is supporting a family of four....that means they attribute all of that income to him. In short, no refinance. Now....we got into this loan knowing what we were doing. We are NOT one of the people that banks lent to with no collateral or ability to adequately repay our home loan. We have been struggling with paying the loan on the inflated price for almost three years now even though the cost of living for our family nearly dropped us into bankruptcy early this year.

Jay's job is constantly under attack. The rash of union busting that has been sweeping the nation has not spared many law enforcement officers. The City of San Francisco is separately trying to figure out how to pay it's bills....and one of the ways it does that is by periodically taking it away from law enforcement officers. Benefits, sick days, and wages are always up for grabs when its time to renegotiate with the city or hold an election. In the last election our family just lost 7% of our income....money we can not afford to lose. What makes this all the more disgusting is that most of the law enforcement and emergency services personnel that the city depends on in the case of an emergency can not even afford to live in the city they service....many commute from as much as an hour away.

All of this is over and above the hoops that gay couples always have to jump through because the federal government does not recognize our relationship. Tax time?.....don't even get me started about that....

Yet, somehow this has turned from a protest over the corruption of our financial and political system into a stand off between protesters and police. That's not were the true conflict lies and so far I have noticed individuals practicing abuse on both sides of the picket line. I think it's time that we stop looking at each other as the enemy and remember what got us here in the first place...letting banks and mega corporations infiltrate our government and steal it right out from under us.

and for goodness sake people. My birthday falls on November 4th which is usually election day. So I am always reminded about what I need to vote on. It is one thing to exercise your right to pull up a patch of sidewalk and refuse to leave. That;s all well and good. But please....PLEASE....if you want to change the world get your ass up off that side sidewalk and vote. That really cheeses off the 1%

Until next time dear readers....

The Trouble With Quibbles or...Why We Put Our Kids On The Net

2011-11-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Welcome back everyone...I know my blogging has been sporadic lately. Daily life seems to be getting in the way putting pen to paper....or at least keystrokes to net. However, that does not mean that our lives have been uneventful. This week we had Halloween, my 39th birthday, and a great right up about "The Right To Love: An American Family" In the Huffington Post. That's all big stuff! Being an amateur blogger I was thrilled to find the movie being covered by such a large and well read publication...and to receive a positive review for the movie was even better. I want to say thank you to Frank Schaeffer, the author of the piece for giving his truthful and candid observations about the movie and also about our family.

I also want to address a "quibble" Mr. Schaeffer had with us as parents exposing our children to protests and the glare of public scrutiny. It's not the first time we have heard that point make and I feel it is important enough point that it requires a response. Our kids are very important to us and our decision to include them in our YouTube work was not simple. It was however, an organic process and not a preplanned set of events.....but I will explain that further in a sec. Read on after the fold.....

Mr. Schaeffers concern as posted in the Huffpo article:

I do have a quibble with The Right to Love or I should say with some of the choices made by the stars. I'm allergic to using one's children as props as some of the Leffew's YouTube material used in the movie smacks of them doing. I base this view on my childhood experiences of being groomed to take up a cause and "volunteered" into my parent's ministry from toddlerhood on.
But that's a detail. And the stakes are very high, so high we're talking about a YouTube ministry to gay young people to help them survive the hate of the "Christian" community. So I think that the YouTube use of the Leffew's children may be okay up to a point. But it seems to me that a line gets crossed in some of the footage showing the kids being taken to noisy protests and by them being included in just about every single YouTube clip. Take it from me; someday these kids will be writing memoirs of their own...

I hear and understand Mr. Schaeffers concerns and how they relate to his own experience of being groomed to the ministry. I would like to make a distinction here however....choice. Daniel and Selena are in our videos because those videos are about our family...all of our family. We do require them to participate in many of them. That is the end of the parental coercion however. Someday may see a day when Jay and I have to step aside from making these videos. We may get tired, DOMA may go down in flames....who knows...but we don't look at what we do as something our kids need to carry on when we can't anymore. Others will have to pick up that slack and that's one of the things we had hoped to inspire with our YouTube work. In no way and at no time are our children required to fight for gay rights when they are old enough to make their own decisions.

Now we hope that from having us as parents Daniel and Selena will have an intimate understanding of what gay people go through. That is a life perspective that I think all children of same-sex parents get as a bonus for having gay parents. We hope that they will grow up with an understanding and a soft spot in their hearts for those who society would set aside as "other" and treat with fear. That said, it will be up to Daniel and Selena to decide who they want to be someday...and that includes cho0sing if they want to fight for something and deciding for themselves just what that might be. it is our jobs as their parents to give them the tools to make those kinds of decisions.

Now.....We HAVE taken them with us as we protested Prop 8 on voting day....We DID take Selena to the San Francisco court house that day now dubbed as "The Day of Decision". We did those things not to put our kids in the line of fire or to advance a "political agenda". We did it because the same law that people were voting on...the same law that the court was deciding on that day, effected our family in a real way. It was not a political action...it was something happening to our family that could have divorced us on the spot. It was real, it was practicle, it was in our face, and we needed to deal with it. Taking our daughter with us that day was deemed low risk by us because of Jay's standing as a law enforcement officer. Gay protests rarely ever get out of hand. But if it had, one flash of a badge and Selena would have been whisked to safety faster than you can imagine. What happened after all those considerations were made was stuff that just happened. Selena was their because we didn't have childcare and we didn't see her as being in any danger. Seeing me upset made her upset and we had to have a talk with her afterword to help her understand what had just happened and that it was ok. We have always tried to be as honest with our kids as possible and we don't believe we can always shelter them from difficult moments...as happened that day. What some may see as my kids being a "prop" was just our life as we lived it....the good and the bad.

An important addition to that is, that the people who were deciding these things....be they voters or judges....needed to see who they were affecting with their actions. That is the entire reason we began YouTube at all. Too often the decisions that affect the lives of gay people are decided upon by men and women for whom the issue is just a concept...be it legal or moral. It does not impact their lives in any way beyond the abstract. They can bounce it around in discussion.....kick it back to lower courts...put it off till next year...then go home to their own families to enjoy without thought the basic freedoms they are making us fight for. People NEED to understand that they are not voting on an issue...they are voting on people...they are voting on families...they were voting on our family. They deserve to see the faces of those who's lives they are affecting...that includes our children. If your going to vote to take away the rights of another person, you dam well better be able to look them in the eyes while you do it.

Putting the few protests we have attended aside for a moment...Our everyday videos are meant to be a snapshot of our family. Our kids SHOULD be in those and neccesarily, they are going to be in a lot of them. That may be what comes across in the movie(I wouldn't know as I haven't been allowed to see it yet). Whether we are celebrating Easter or making dinner, those are our family moments and we just give you a window into that. "Ask A Gay Family" are a little different. Those are viewer questions that all of us may have different opinions on....and sometimes, if the questions asked are not appropriate for the kids to hear, they are not included. Sometimes Jay and I just rant at a camera and the kids are never a part of that stuff. And sometimes, they don't want to do a video at all and they will sit there and silently pout at being made to turn off the t.V. for ten minutes and sit in front of a camera. That's just being a kid....ask any parent who asks their kids to sit still for a family photo. Kids are not going to like everything we ask them to do or else the world would be full of clean rooms and finished homework.

Also....We are not perfect parents. If Daniel and Selena want to write about us someday...so be it. We are doing the best we can to be the best dads we can be. We want YouTube and this movie project to impact them the least that it possibly can in a negative sense. But even trying to be the best parents we can be still means that mistakes will be made. No family escapes that. When Ronnie Reagan wrote a book about his father, my own mother used to joke that my brother and I would someday write a book about her. It was just a joke then...but here I am today spilling my guts on the internet in blog and video form for all the world to see. Daniels and Selena's memories are their own...I can't take that away from them. I can only hope that they will remember YouTube and/or this movie project as some grand adventure that happened to them when they were kids. I know it has introduced them to friends they would otherwise not have had and taken them to places we may not have gone to. I hope it makes them richer human beings for having those experience......but if not...that is for them to decide. We continue to do the best we can day by day with a life that is not black and white.

This response is not directed at Mr. Schaeffer and I hope he does not take it that way. We get the comment that our kids are "props" from time to time....and even insinuations that they are not even really our kids and sometimes that we are all actors. After a while certain topics can push a button in me and talking about the kids is a big shiny red one. Mr. Schaeffer's experience with his family is understandably different from what Daniel and Selena may be experiencing and I understand that his concern comes from his experience. As the years go by, I hope that Daniel and Selena will feel open enough to talk about what all this has meant to them. Every year our YouTube audience is seeing them grow up(They get bigger by the minute) and it wont be long before they are able to express themselves in ways that will be wholly their own. Then they will have their own stories to tell and it will be our turn to listen. Won't that be an amazing video to watch?...

Until next time dear readers......

Protect The Children

2011-10-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

Isn't that how the mantra goes when the tide turns to recognizing equality for the LGBT community? No matter what the issue at hand might be, instead of making their stand on religious grounds, those who oppose acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual,and transgendered people twist the conversation around to one of protecting children. What really cheeses me off however, is that they are not really for protecting children at all. Few, if any, of the people who have criticized Jay and myself for raising children will ever open their home to a child in need of a family. Many would rather a child age out of the foster system never knowing a family, than see them raised by a loving same-sex family.

But the reality is that we DO have families and those children can be equally as harmed by the lack of legal recognition and protections as their parents are. A recent video from the Family Equality Council highlights this issue and shows how bans on same-sex marriage and attacks on gay rights can have a serious impact on the most vulnerable people of all....kids like mine. Check out the video after the jump and ask yourself who is really being protected by anti-gay laws?... because it's not children. I can guarantee you that.

When it comes to family building for LGBT people, the state you live in matters. The U.S. has a very complicated patch work of laws surrounding who is and is not recognized as a legal parent. For instance, many states will allow for single parent adoption but not adoption by a same-sex couple. That often puts one parent completely out in the cold when it comes to making decisions for their children or providing for them in an emergency. As the video states, if a child is hospitalized and the available parent is not the one that legally recognized on paper, they can denied he ability to make critical medical decisions for their kids. Other issues faced by the lack of legal recognition are access to health insurance, survivor benefits, and custody determinations. Can you imagine the helplessness and horror any parent would feel if this was happening to them? Wanting to provide for you children or even be with them in a time of crisis and not being allowed to? It's too much for me to even contemplate.

From my own experience....I feel very fortunate to live in California, where Both my husband and myself are recognized as legal adoptive parents to our children. There have been many issues where Jay's health insurance has been essential. It has helped Daniel when he broke his arm and had to go to the emergency room and when Selena got a frightening fever of 103 degrees. They have both had the benifit of regular check ups, vaccinations, and dental care that can be such a difficult things to obtain without decent health insurance. Another thing I am thankful for is that health professional acknowledges us both as parents, able to seek treatment and make decisions on their behalf of Daniel and Selena. That is such a huge thing because I can't even get other things common to Jay and myself, like our cable company or credit cards to speak to me because Jay's name may be the one on the account. It's little things like that sock you in the gut and remind you that not everyone recognizes our relationship together. Even though we are legally married in the state of California, to some we are still cohabitating strangers. If that issue extended to the medical care of my kids I would be pulling my hair out. For many gay families in states across the U.S. this is a reality of life that must be dealt with and a tangible demonstration of how DOMA treats LGBT Americans and their children differently.

So I think it's about time that those who oppose marriage equality and gay adoption drop the pretense that they are doing so to protect children. Their version of protection is only from what they regard as a moral harm. They do not say one word about the more immediate topics like the massive amounts of kids in this country that need a home right now....or the kids who are harmed because of the laws they push against same-sex families...or the homeless kids living on the streets that were kicked out of their homes for being gay. Their only version on "protection" is preventing kids from ever having to be exposed to the fact that gay people exist. And if they happen to be your parents?...too bad for you.

So when they bring up gays indoctrinating kids in schools....perhaps we can remember that there are already gay kids in our schools that need our help dealing with bullying, loneliness, and isolation. When they haul out the mantra that kids need a mother and father...lets remember the thousands of kids in the foster system they are making no effort to take care of...as well as the 2 million kids currently being cared for by gay and lesbian parents like myself all across the United States.

These are the faces that America needs to see...real gay people, couples, and families. They need to understand what it is they vote on when anti-gay groups haul out the hysteria machine and begin making us into threatening monsters out to destroy family and country. We have families...we are family...we might even be your family. Isn't that worthy of protection?

Until next time dear readers....

Cold and Flu Season Strikes Again

2011-10-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

*Bleh*....it's that time of year when the colds and flu's start to circulate and I am feeling like my head is stuffed full of cotton....and you don't even want to know what my nose is up to. I have tried to write at least ten times today but I can't seem to muster the focus to put together coherent sentences. (yes...I know, never stopped my before right?)

It always begins with the schools....first one classmate is gone, then another is out for a week, then they start dropping like flies...each of them spreading around something I know is gonna come home soon. Selena gives me the breakdown on who was out and for how long because she totally keeps tabs on her classmates that way. I know who got the broken arm and who barfed and had to go home because she will totally tell me everything in stomach churning detail. I often wonder why kids who are sick still end up at school but I guess when both parents work that kinda thing is just going to happen. So when a handfull of kids went absent last week I knew it was coming. And no amount of vitamin C will stop it's reign of terror.

First it was our oldest Foster boy(I call him crash) with the upset stomach that knocked him out for a night then quickly cleared up. Then it was Daniel with the same issue and now its sore throats and runny noses for everybody!...Yay!!!!!....ugh. One by one the seasonal bugs are taking us out as they do each year flu shot or no flu shot. Now all the kids are better and off at school collecting the next round of bugs that they will circulate amongst the rest of us. I

When kids get sick they get to curl up in front of the T.V. and snuggle in a warm blanket. I totally miss those days. My kids love being home, but they hate being made to sit still...even in front of the tv. One afternoon of that and they are chomping at the bit to go back to school. I was soooo not like that at there age. Any chance to stay out of school I milked for all it was worth. But today, when dad gets sick...he has to empty the dishwasher, answer emails, mind the concrete guys working in the back, and make sure everything keeps functioning. Taking time out for a nap can often be out of the question. It's just a part of the job...but I really could use a warm, soft blanket and some chicken soup right now.

Ah well. enough complaining...expecially since I know that this is only round one. check out this fridays A Gay Collab video and you will totally hear the sick in my voice...it sounds like puberty all over again. In the mean time I will go back to

Homosexuality In Highschool...And the Uncertain Path to Self-Acceptance

2011-10-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

(UPDATE)...during the writing of this post the owner of the video took it down. Not surprising considering he was just a regular person posting a video that they liked. I'm sure they didn't expect all the attention they got. The video itself was made by Pastor Bobby Blakey of Compass Bible Church. If I find another source for the video I will update this post again. In the mean time I hope that there will be something positive to still be gained from this post as is.
(UPDATE 2)...mirrored version of the video re-added thanks to an anonymous benefactor. Thanks!

Sometimes I run across an article or a video that can push all my angry buttons. It's not an easy thing to do since I don't tend to be a person given to anger over all...but it happens. One of the sure ways to do this is to take advantage of a persons weakness's to keep them down. Especially, when I have some personal experience. Today, Towleroad posted a video attributed to WhiteThroneFilms about the moral danger of "Homosexuality In Highschool". In the video they showcase two young men convinced that their inborn sexuality is a sin to be repented of...and since they did it at the ripe old age of seventeen...so can other teens. What bothers me so much about this is that these are the same kids who daily email my husband and I everyday scared, on the edge, and lacking anyone to tell them they are ok just as they are. What bothers me is the hard road they will have to walk before they can acknowledge to themselves who they are, all done in the sake of wanting to be loved. And finally....it bothers me so much because, at the same age, I was them. I could not help but have an emotional reaction to what I saw. Check out the video after the break and maybe you will understand why this hits my emotional buttons.....

"High school.....After nearly a decade of working with students, there is clearly one issue that defines this generation.....homosexuality"

My rebuttal.....Bullshit.

First off...way to reduce an entire population of kids to the orientation of less than 10% of them...never mind the wrongness of the notion of reducing anyone down to their sexual orientation as their only important defining feature.

Secondly...I understand that this gentleman may have been in this particular form of "ministry" for nearly a decade but this same tired argument was used on me over twenty years ago and had doubtless been used on many before me. The notion that homosexuality is somehow a uniquely important danger to this generation is utterly false and born out of a mindlessly repeated playbook full of handy catchphrases that any kid born into an evangelical family knows like the back of their hand. In my day they were applied to my generation.

When I was 16-17 I was a part of a youth group at my Baptist church. One day, at one of the meetings the youth pastor...who I had an unconscious crush on....Pastor Jerry, gave a speech about homosexuality in which all the same talking points were given. There was also the addition of the handy hardware lesson where they take two male plugs and ram them together as if to show that two men are not designed to be sexually compatible. In the crowd of young men and women present was a boy older than me who liked "The Cure" and had one of those shaved on the side, long on top haircuts that kids into new wave music had then(yes I am dating myself). Now....I had never known this boy to be anything but a good guy, kind, and sincere in his faith...he just looked different from the rest of the crowd. There was nothing else to suggest to me that he was gay. Yet this conversation seemed utterly geared to him. In retrospect, perhaps he was having attractions that he was troubled by and talked about them with Jerry....and it is equally likely that one of the other kids had expressed "concern" about his music choices. Either way it was clear that the conversation had was using him as an example to all of us. There was discussion about The Cures lead singer, Robert Smith, ans his open admission about being bisexual(it was a big deal then...really). Then, followed a lengthy discussion about how homosexuality was a culterally accepted fad we had to stand strong against in order to be true to GOD....just like our anonymous video pastor does above. And in the end that young man who had been singled out vowed to give up listening to The Cure and recommit himself to his faith. I wish I knew where he was today. I would like to know if he actually was gay. It would be one of lifes little ironies if he was not.

the notion that the majority of high schoolers think that "If you don't accept homosexuality, you're not "in with whats happening today..." Again....bullshit. I suppose all those gay teens that have been in the news lately for committing suicide did so because all their classmates accepted them too much then? Jamie Rodemeyer took his life becuase his classmates all loved him so much? Constance Mcmillan was humiliated after being sent to a fake prom becuase she was just so "in"? Larry King was shot by a fellow classmate because he was accepted? It's bullshit and bullshit born our of ignorance....sometimes willfull ignorance of the part of those who are too frightened by the notion of a homosexual to walk a mile in their shoes. AND....while attitudes are changing fastest among young people, what is happening has little to do with accepting a form of behavior than it does with accepting a human being who they just see as their friend.

All the arguments above...along with comments made by my parents at the time...were instrumental in why I fought my own orientation tooth and nail until I was emotionally unable to fight any longer. It was "temptation" and I had to fight it. If I didn't fight it, GOD didn't love me....I was not only a sinner, I was in rebellion. So I fought into my twenties...shoving any attraction I had down into the deepest recesses of my soul. At times, they would leak out...like when the latest copy of a certain male underwear catalogue would come in the mail and I would resist even looking at the cover as if it could dam me just by being in the same room with it. But eventually I would break and it would mysteriously disappear for awhile. And when I was done, it was time for repentence...time to punish myself and swear it would never happen again...all the while believeing that I was nothing but a phoney and hate myself for not being strong enough or faithful enough. I would never say to myself that I was gay...no matter how much I may have acted on it in my fantasy world. As long as I could call it something else I could keep it from being true.

Obviously that strategy failed. But the night that Pastor Jerry was calling out the young man who visibly stood out to task because of his music choices and dressing habits....he was also speaking to me too. I wouldn't admit to myself that it was true and even spoke out at the meeting against "the gay agenda" and other bullshit I had no experience or business talking about. But I was very vulnerable because I wanted to be good...I wanted to be accepted...I wanted to do the right thing. So when I began to admit to myself that I was gay, Pastor Jerry's words from that night came back to haunt me. I knew that what I was meant I should be ashamed, that I could not be a christian if I followed this path...even though the same church also teaches that once you accept Christ, NOTHING can take that away.

It was years of fighting myself and being ashamed before I got up the courage to look for myself at what was so wrong with being gay. I needed to know why it was bad because I was having no success making it go away no matter how hard or sincerely I prayed. In the end I left the church precisely because I could not reconcile the faith I was raised in with my new awareness of myself. It took many years of exploration and finding out what gay was and was not and undoing all the misinformation and lies that I had been fed to me by people who didn't know any better themselves. Now...I did come back to my faith much later on in life...but not to a church and I chose to out of gratitude for an amazing life that I could be nothing but gratefull for. I would never have gotten to that place had I not stepped away long enough to separate myself from B.S. like this video teaches. Had I not, I might have ended up in a broken marriage or an eventual suicide...or both. Thats what self hate and shame can drive us to and when I hear stories about gay teens who commit suicide I know that it could dam well have been my fate too had things been just the tiniest bit different.

So yeah...it pushes my buttons when I hear these same arguments still being made to kids as if the world has not changed at all. Tyler and Patrick are a snapshot of me at the same age....right down to the way they speak. Tyler says that his friends were pushing him to think he was gay...perhaps they were just more able to accept him than he was himself. I've been there.

What I want to say to our video pastor is: "Stop doing this to these kids! They hear your message and only judge themselves. Learn what it means to be gay before you utter one word against it. All you are doing is repeating ignorance. You may be doing it from your own ignorance with no intention to hurt anyone...you may be doing it for faith....You might be doing it to hide from your own homosexuality...but in the end, everything you are telling these kids is only driving them away from love and into the hands of despair. If GOD is love and he loves everyone, please explain to me why the love between two men or two women is less than? It's still just love...there are no subjective values to love. I KNOW that I have felt true, honest, selfless love for my husband...no one can take that truth away. So again, explain to me....If GOD is love, how is this love different? And if it isn't different than perhaps we are not understanding those bible versus we are so fond of cherry picking to condemn people we don't understand....especially when that someone we condemn is ourselves.

Tyler and Patrick are gay. Their decision to deny that will not change it and that means it may be years of struggle and emotional struggle for them...if they survive. Where is the love in that? As they walk the path of trying to be who they think they need to be in order to be loved and accepted, I wonder if they will still see my footprints on the road or if time will have washed them away. If they are gone see them boys...follow your hearts...they will lead you home.

Until next time dear readers.

Right To Love....Just Don't Pray

2011-10-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

Many of my readers may already be aware that our family has been the focus of a documentary about Prop 8 and our YouTube activism called Right To Love: An American Family. The movie has been in production for quite a while and I am happy to report that it is nearing completion and should be ready very soon. In preparation for release...Jayebird productions put together a new teaser trailer which I have posted above.

Now the reason I bring this up today is not really to bump the trailer but more to discuss an issue that has frustrated both my husband and myself. We have been sending this trailer out to any gay blogs we can think of in the hopes of highlighting the project, but they have been kicking it back because there is a scene with us saying grace around the dinner table. Now....blogs can pick and choose what they want to promote, and probably get inundated with a ton of requests from people asking them to promote their personal projects, I won't fault anyone for trying for controling their own content. The part that gets me, is that one blog admitted that it was the prayer specifically that made them uncomfortable. That is incredibly frustrating to me and my husband who see walls of posts on the blogs about celebrities coming out and how to check out hot guys on google maps....but no one wants to touch a project that could help change the way people see gay families because they are uncomfortable with it's rather tame and low key religious element.

My question to my readers is....Are we wrong to be frustrated by this? It seems that we focus alot of sex, celebritities, tragedies, and hate mongers...that stuff brings the readers and lights up the comment boards....but when it comes to more positive projects, no one has any interest. Take a look at the trailer and decide for yourself. What is in there that is so provocative?....or is showing our everyday life in film format just not as provocative Zachary Quinto coming out? You decide and let me know what you think...

Until next time dear readers....

Fear and The Power of Coming Out

2011-10-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked National Coming Day and if you listened very carefully, you may heard the sound of thousands of closet doors being ripped off their hinges....no really....it's true. Every moment, that goes by another lgbt person is summoning the courage to tell someone the truth about themselves. They may tell a parent, a spouse, a friend,.....they may only be able to speak the words to total strangers through YouTube. It may happen through faltering words, through tears, or by courageous proclamation....by phone call or by letter...but its happening everyday all over the world....right now.

National Coming Out Day is set aside to talk about the process of coming out......Why we do it, what the benefits are and what the risks are, all in an effort to foster awareness. That awareness is sorely needed by many, both in the LGBT community and also for the world at large. When we have a clearer idea of what coming out is and what it means to people on both sides of the process perhaps we can handle that moment with a little more understanding, confidence, compassion, and grace. It can be scary and awkward to come out to someone....but it can also be one of the most powerful ways that we can change our lives and the world around us into a better place to be. Secrecy breeds fear...and even though the official day has passed, lets blow some more closet doors off their hings shall we?

Fear keeps is the single most powerful force keeping us in the closet.....Fear that our parents will not accept us. Fear that they may kick us out and/or disown us. Fear that we have hurt a spouse or our kids because we couldn't deal with this years ago. Fear that our friends will all turn their backs on us. Fear of a life we have populated with our negative stereotypes of what it means to be gay. Fear that we will never be able to make our dreams come true or that we will be hated and shunned because we love someone of the same gender or feel like a different sex on the inside than what others see on the outside. The list is huge and they can keep us stuck in the dark....frozen up and unable to see a way out for a very long time.

From my own experience, the hardest person to come out to was myself. For a very long time I just refused to put the label "GAY" on what I was feeling. It was so much easier to blame it on external forces than to own it myself. So I stuffed all those feelings down inside over and over and over again. Occasionally allowing myself a fantasy or two and then feeling utterly ashamed over it.....I would then force it all down inside again and try my damnedest to date girls and be who I thought I was supposed to be. But you can only do that to yourself for so long,. Eventually, you will reach a point at which it is intolerable and impossible to hide it from yourself any longer. They will allow you to push them aside for a while but there will come a day when they will not move out of the way and they will DEMAND to be looked at. It was when this happened to me that I decided that what I was feeling might just be a part of myself...I was gay and I was going to have to deal with this somehow because it wasn't going to go away. But saying those words to yourself can be the single hardest coming out of all.

Yet, facing it still doesn't mean accepting it. We can be a hundred times more hateful to ourselves then any homophobic stranger could be. When you finally get to that point of saying..."I'm gay" or "I'm trans"...then your mind fills up with all the fears and judgments you have been taught over time. Wading through that stuff is tough....and some handle it with strength...others may take years to work it out. No one ever tells you that being gay only affects who you love...Not who you are as a person or what you can make of your life. I guess so many many of us assume that being straight comes with a script for life that we assume that we should follow the one that society spins for the gay and trans people too....fortunately for all, no one needs to follow a script. Your life, your sexuality and your identity are colored by who you are...not the other way around. Wan't to get married and have kids....you can do that. Wan't to stay single and party it up till your liver gives out?....you can do that too. But it will be up to you to build that life and your responsibility to see it through.....and yes, sometimes you will have to fight for it. This is true whether you are gay, straight, bisexual, or trans. All those fears you have inside of you should not stand in way. Most of them are false and the few of them that may be real you will deal with when they happen. You have everything you need inside you to meet those challenges.

Great...now you have come out to yourself.....first hurdle crossed. What about the rest of the world?

Now it gets to the scary part. How do I tell my parents?....my friends?.....my wife? Relax....don't rush,....take it slow. Telling the people we love the most can be the single most frightening part of come out. If the people we love can't accept us what do we do? This is why I will forever consider coming out as a major act of love and trust in the person we are coming out to.....Because we are standing there with our hearts in our hands and just asking to be loved.

And slow down....so many people feel like they have to start coming out to everyone they know NOW. No.... you don't. Never feel pressured to come out before you are ready. I get emails from teens all the time that ask how to tell their parents...or even if they should. There fears are well grounded. Some of us spend months building up our courage only to have our parents say, "Thats' great dear...pass the peas." while others of us get disowned and kicked out into the street. Coming out has risks. It is not going to be as bad as you fear but you can not guarantee which way it will go. You have to trust your gut and make sure you protect yourself. Have a safety net in place to catch you if it all falls apart. Have place to go if you get kicked out, have a job or way to support yourself.....give yourself some measure of protection if you feel there is a significant change of being hurt. Most of the time however, the worst that is hurt is our emotions.

If our families and friends can't accept as.....we do what we have always done as a community...build our own families again from the ground up with people who know us as we are. When fathers and mothers fail and friends vanish, You will meet new friends and people who will love you exactly as you are. And over time you wounds will heal. Sometimes, all our families need is a little time to work through their feelings and prejudices before they can be the parents or friends we knew was always in them. And if you are lucky enough to have parents who hug you and tell you it's alright....hug them back because they are very special people and to be treasured.

Every day that goes by you will get stronger and you will realize that being gay is only one part of you....and you will wonder why it's all such a big deal that everyone should fight it so hard. Life won't be butterflies and rainbow unicorns but it will be yours. If you have the courage to live it out loud, Not only will you benefit...but you will also give something back to the world if you will let them see you.

and let them see you....All the people in the church pews....all the people who vote from fear.....all the people who may not know one single gay person....all the people who though their own ignorance and fears repeat the words that made you so afraid to admit who you were...even to yourself. When our coworkers, neighbors, and the average person can look into our lives and see that they are just like theirs......the less they are able to believe that we are evil or sick people who don't deserve to treated with dignity or respect. They more they can see us as human....the less they will repeat the same words of fear and hate that you heard and that became your reasons to fear being known for all that you are. Maybe some other person will be lucky enough to never have to hear that they are a sinner... a faggot....or a menace to the good of society because the people who would have told them now know it's not true. And they know that because someone who is out.showed them by living life the best they can......maybe that will be you..

But changing the world may be too big to think about when all your thinking about is how do I get through today. Be kind to yourself and never beat yourself up for what you haven't yet found the courage to do. Coming out can change our lives....in wonderful ways...and .sometimes painful ones....but many of us survived it. We may have our scars, but we also have a lot more memories, loves, and adventures that we would never have given up for the safety of the closet. Coming out may change the world....but more importantly it can change you too......when you are physically safe enough and ready to leave that closet behind for good.

Those of us who have done it hold out our hands to you and tell you that you can make it.....might today be your day to blow the hinges off your own closet doors?

Until next time dear readers.....

Mommy Bloggers Strike Again

2011-10-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Life can give us a million and one reasons to lose hope. The news is full of examples of horrible things happening everyday. Some of this weeks examples include, the gay couple assaulted at a church, one of the assaulters being the father of one of the victims and the pastor of the church....Or the reports of Jurors in the Brandon McInerney trial who believe that Brandon got a raw deal and that Larry King was the "real bully" because he made "unwanted sexual advances toward Brandon McInerny( /facepalm)....Or the ever increasing climate of persecution for Gays in African countries like Uganda....Or the continued prosecution and separation of gay bi-national couples that daily splits up people who love each other. The list of horrible happenings grows by the day. However, as I have written this blog over time I have come to the conclusion that it's not the terrible happings that are remarkable....It is those moments of triumph, love, and acceptance that give us hope and keep us going. And just when you need that hope the most....a mommy blogger steps in to save the day....

Writing for her blog "....And This Is My Blog" under the psuedonym "Amelia", this mommy blogger posted a story about her 6 year old son "Bug's" crush on Blaine from Glee and what she describes as her "I knew my son may be gay moment":

My oldest son is six years old and in love for the first time.  He is in love with Blaine from Glee.

For those who don’t know Blaine is a boy…a gay boy, the boyfriend of one of the main characters, Kurt.
This isn’t a ‘he thinks Blaine is really cool’ kind of love.  It is a mooning at a picture of Blaine’s face for a half hour followed by a wistful “He’s so pretty” kind of love.
He loves the episode where two boys kiss.  My son will call people in from other parts of the house to make sure they don’t miss his ‘favorite part.’  He’s been known to rewind it and watch it over again…and force other to, as well, if he doesn’t think people have been paying enough attention.

O.K. I have a HUGE problem with this......I want to marry Blain someday!..... I mean, who wouldn't? Darren Criss is seriously dreamy. *sigh* I'm sure my actuall husband won't mind....right?....oh well.

Bugs mom then describes a later incident in the car. As most parents know can tell you,the car has some sort of magical power to get kids to willingly divulge information that you could not pull out of them under glaring lights interogation tactics banned by the Geneva Convention. Amelia describes her and Bug's conversation about Blain and Kurt being boyfriends and how some boys prefer to kiss other boys over girls. Amelia answered all of her sons questions with honesty...and then he says to her, "Mommy, They are just like me." Now....many mom's might have had to fight the urge to veer off the road moment. Thats a big bombshell to drop when your six. Her response?....

“That’s great, baby. You know I love you no matter what?”
“I know…” I could hear him rolling his eyes at me.

I read this and saw a wonderfull moment of understanding between a mother and a son...and so did many others. That is why her simple family blog has garnered nearly 45,000 reblogg, tweets, and the attention of the Huffington Post. And of course....fundies heads are exploding. Just as in the case of Nerdy Applebottom and Princess boy when ever we have a discussion about children and developing sexuality there are those who will accuse the parent of attempting to steer their childrens sexuality or prejudge it before all the evidence is in. And then it gets worse from the people who cannot distinguish that the gay person being described is a 6 year old child and launch into their worst hellfire and brimstone rant.

But lets be clear. This boy is six. As a parent of a six year old child I KNOW that kids are thinking about boyfriend and girlfriends and pretending to marry the kids who chase them around the playground. My own daughter has a not-so-secret crush on a boy in her first grade class. It happens. And while those who have a problem with it are quick to point out that any childs sexuality is not fleshed out by this age....It is true...BUT.....so too are the voluminous stories of gay men and women who knew what they were at a very young age before they knew what it meant and were still gay despite all the dolls pushed into little girls hands and trucks given to little boys. As I read her account, all I could see was a mother accepting her son with enough love to make us all a little jealous.

Bug's Mom and Dad both accept their son and admit that if he is not gay that they now have the best blackmail material in the world for when he is a teen. that is epic in my book. What could have...and does...completely derail some families has become a shining moment of love and acceptance that at the very least can be an opportunity for parental humor. The story of Bug and his family made me think that maybe one more gay kid will make it and maybe thrive in ways that gay adults today can not imagine. That by itself is enough to be that ray of light for me but Amelia recently wrote a HuffPo article in which she discussed a vital insight that I wish everyone would grasp and it all began with....."it got me thinking...."

....and after awhile I started to feel like I knew this big secret that shouldn't be a secret at all: Every gay adult used to be a gay kid. It's not as if all children start off as straight until some time later when someone flips the gay switch. We are who we are from the very moment we are born.The horrible and hate filled words of the Michele Bachmann's of the world take on a whole new level of disgusting when picturing them being screamed at a group of kindergartners and first graders. They are unnatural. They are sinners. They are going to hell. They are dirty, wrong and sick.

These people would tell my innocent little boy (who currently wants to be a fireman-ninja when he grows up) he is the biggest threat the American family... because he wants to kiss boys and not girls.

If only more people got to this kind of thinking....this is a realization I wish everyone could come to. Then maybe there would be no more exgay camps, no more NOM's, and a few less kids committing suicide....wouldn't that be something? Maybe having a child who is very possibly gay was what it took for Amelia to make those connections and realize the magnitude of the message that gay kids are dealing with everyday. Yet, not every parent comes to that understanding just by having a gay child, and Amelia found that out too, as hundreds of gay teens are pouring out gratitude to her and telling their own stories of loneliness and isolation. Jay and I get the same emails every day.

Amelia, her husband, and bug give me hope that the world is in fact changing in tiny degrees....one soul at a time. Maybe the world that Bug and my kids will grow up into will be a place were they don't have to be afraid to be exactly who they are....whatever that may turn out to be. I think of Bug, and my own son and daughter and wonder what they will make out of the world that is given to them. Like Amelia admits, none of us are perfect parents, but we do our best to not screw it up to much and to help our kids grow into strong, confident, and loving adults. It is exciting to see who they will become.

And to those who see this as a threat to the family, brainwashing, or a social experiment...I would ask them how many of their kids may be suffering in silence right now. Wishing they could say something to their parents they are afraid will end their love for them forever. How many of them growing up looking and acting just like they think they should and will one day survive to stand as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered person....and survivor. As Amelia realized, we didn't turn on a switch or wake up with a desire to be rebellious....we just needed to be who we are and to survive in spite of the very heavy "brainwashing" already taking place. In short, we come from you and always will.

The only thing that gets chosen is whether you wrap your arms around your kids and love them or send them the message that they are not acceptable and need to change. History is full of too many sad tales from choice number two. Thank you Amelia for being a light in the dark today.

Until next time dear readers....

Democrats Finally Stepping Into The Marriage Equality Fray?

2011-10-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

This morning I came across a very interesting article via Pam's House Blend and originally from the Washington Blade that has been making it's way around the blogosphere....In it, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is quoted as saying that if she were asked to, she would consider spending money to fight the current round of same-sex marriage bans in Minnesota and North Carolina. The implication being that Democrats are taking a stand in those states on an issue they have avoided till now.....and if they will do there, they may continue to support marriage equality in future state fights as well. And by "she" we are talking about the Democratic parties money. Furthermore, she goes on to mention that individual state chapters of the Democratic Party were gearing up to battle these amendments. To which I can not help but think....oh, really?

In her own words:

“I know that the party in each of those states will be combatting them,” Wasserman Schultz said. “And if they ask for our assistance, like any other state party request, we’ll certainly consider it.”

While this is good news....reading this has brought up some old frustrations for me a few things for me. Like....why now? Where was this support for California...or Maine when we all but begged for it? There was NO ONE from the democratic party then speaking out...or even acknowledging those ballet measures. "It's up to the states" was their mantra. In addition I have to ask a question I didn't expect to ever have to formulate in my life....what will this do to growing Republican support?

Before I begin, I need to say that ANY help we can get in stopping the onslaught of constitutional marriage bans in states that are getting nervous about the long term viability of DOMA is welcome. Individual states are rushing to get their own mini DOMA's on the books before the federal version could possibly be overturned just to make sure that no gays can smash cake in each others faces or register at Crate and Barrel. That the democrats want to devote attention to this is wonderful...that means boots on the ground and media resources that would otherwise have to be raised by local marriage advocate groups. It also means that a wider audience hears the message and lends it a certain amount of political gravitas it might not otherwise have had on the chewing gum budgets we have had so far.

That "they will consider it" is a bit puzzling,....since, why would you donate your time and effort to fight these amendments if you weren't planning on devoting the money necessary to do so. Also, her intimations that the Democratic Party, on the national level, would begin getting involved just begs the question.....whats changed? No one from the Democratic Party said a thing to help fight Prop 8...or Question 1 in Maine....yet, now that a few states have marriage equality, others are moving toward it, and the courts seem poised to take on DOMA...we seem to have crossed some magic line where it's no longer such a huge risk to support the gay community. Is this trend toward increasing support for equality on LGBT issues the reason why not just democrats are hopping on board....but also republicans?

Marriage equality passed in the state of New York for many reasons...but one remarkable reason was the support of so many conservative and republican politico's. Very conservative business and state leaders shocked the hell out of everyone and lent their money and considerable influence to what was a very contentious battle. At the time, I wondered whether this had been a sign that things were beginning to shift within conservative circles. After all, this is the very dame political party that has spent decades defining itself against us. For their to be any measure of support let alone the lobbying we saw take place in New York was amazing and a very hopeful sign......And then the 2012 Republican nominee hopefuls began opening their mouths and all those hopes were dashed.....alas.

But if there was some element within the conservative movement that simply did not care to fight marriage equality anymore...might the Democrats taking a direct hand in state referendums and amendments push those conservatives right back into the mind set of stonewall resistance to anything gay simply because it is now linked more directly with their opposition? Where they might not have cared before could become an issue to fight again simply because the democrats have now taken a stand.....late though it is

Personally, I think that there are enough rabidly anti-gay voices in the republican party that have the national ear that looking for support anywhere conservative is not likely to yield results. The mode du jour is to be the MOST ideologically pure conservative out there and that means promising to roll back any progress the gay community has made since Stonewall. What ever happened in New York does not seem to extend to the republican party at the National Level....and since theirs no love lost there, what ever help democrats can bring to the fight is more than welcome...and perhaps I need to let my grudges about the past go and move with the "evolving" circumstances we seem to find ourselves in.

Is this the beginning of a game changer?....more grand standing on the part of the democrats unwilling to take much risk on our behalf?...or simply more outgrowth of the trend to see gay rights issues as necessary and long overdue?

Since this was heralded this morning as "Big News"....let me know what you think.

Until next time dear readers....

When Your Child Comes Out

2011-10-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a class put on by our adoption agency on building a healthy identity. It's subject matter was to discuss the ways in which we traditionally define masculine and feminine and what do you do when a child you may be fostering...or in the process of adopting...does not fall within those lines. We talked a great deal about coming out as gay or transgendered and the difficulties that come with first admitting to yourself that you may be gay, bi, trans, or unable to apply any label to ourselves that feels right at all. And once that self discovery is made, how incredibly hard it can be to tell a parent. hell...some of us know about ourselves early on and we still can't tell our folks until we are in our twenties, thirties, or older.

The instructor who gave the class offered it from the perspective of a mother with a transgendered child. And yet...even with that knowledge I walked into that room expecting to have to fill in some blanks for people....and it was me that got schooled instead. We watched a short movie about gender issues and when it was over, the time came for questions and discussion. "Here we go", I thought. And then....one by one the other foster and adoptive parents began raising hands to tell their own stories and offer their own remarks. Nearly to a person, the entire room echoed with accounts of acceptance.....and it blew me away.

why should it surprise me so much? Well...When I came out to my parents it ended up being a mixed bag of acceptance and rejection and everyday I talk with young gay people who's stories are not always happy endings. I had expected a lot more questions and some resistance...it was a little bit of a happy shock to find so much love in the room.

but as these things do....it got my wheels spinning and I thought maybe there are some parents out there who might benifit a little from the things we discussed and who might have questions of their own. Understanding some of what motivates your child to stand before you and say, "I'm gay." with fear and hope in their eyes may...at the very least help help both parent and child navigate these uncharted waters with more grace.....at most it can save a life. So what is going on in our kids heads? Do they understand the full impact of what this decision will mean for them?....and how the hell do I respond to this? I love my kid...but....how do I deal with this?

I think that is a great place to start. Unless your one of those parents who claim they always knew and were just waiting for the day you would come bursting out of the closet...most parents are caught off guard when their child comes out to them and their first focus of attention is on their own emotions. No matter whether you ultimately come to a place of acceptance their WILL be feelings that will come with hearing those words from your child. Why is she telling me this? Can she possibly really have any idea that she is attracted to girls? How can my baby boy who I held in my own hands from the day I brought him home in the hospital...whom I have always seen as perfect the way he is....be standing in front of telling me that he has always felt like a woman inside? How is this possible?!.....and how can he be sure? He couldn't decide what to eat for breakfast yesterday and I'm supposed to believe he is sure about this! If she thinks she's a boy then does that mean that she's gay not too? If my son is gay, what will this world do to him? I don't want him to face that. Is this the influence of something else?....like T.V. or the internet?

Is she sure?.....how does he know this? has he tried it....oh hell, what if he has.....is he o.k.?....is it my fault?....why couldn't he tell me sooner?

These are a few of the emotional reactions any reasonable parent has when their child confronts them. None of them are wrong and you may not be able to help having them....emotions just come and we are left to deal with them. But you need to know a couple of things.......1) you child just battled to accept themselves before they ever gathered the courage to tell you and.....2) They are NOT 100% sure you are going to still love them after you know.

We all pick up messages as we live our lives. Our kids are no different. And you can not grow up in America without getting the clear idea that being gay is a terrible negative to be avoided at all costs. I don't care how many gay affirming characters they may see on t.v., those messages have to fight against all the times they hear(or may be called) faggot at school. They have been paying attention at church and have know what being gay is looked at as a grievous sin in the eyes of the church. They were listening when you said in a moment of ignorance that you would not want any of your kids to be gay.....I know I was listening when my father said that to me before he knew.

They have struggled with these messages already. The have fought with themselves already. They may have driven it deep and pretended it wasn't there. Some may be able to understand and accept their difference from a young age...but many of us fight it tooth and nail. We have refused to accept it and struggle to look and act just like we think we are supposed to until something inside us breaks down and we can't hide from it any longer. By the time we have come to you we know the cost and we are already paying it within ourselves....and likely at school too. Standing in front of you to say those words probably took weeks of building up the courage...and months or years of building up the courage to admit it to ourselves.

And once those words "Mom, I'm gay" have left their mouths the silence that follows will be filled with the memory of every time you tucked them in, every time you bandaged a scraped knee, every hug, and every "I love you". Their whole heart is standing their before you and wondering if you meant it. "will you STILL love me?" You have been their protector for as long as they can remember. You are their ultimate source of love and security in the world. They are risking all of that to tell you. that is why I will always consider it not only an act of honesty...but an act of trust and love.

And you may not be the first one they have told....Thats just a fact. A close friend will probably be the first to know. They may even have told a sibling and possibly reached out online for help in order to find understanding and strength. It can hurt not being the first person they go to for help, but you have to understand how much they might fear what your reaction could be. All the others they have been coming outs not only help build a base of support for them but are also kind of like practice runs for "the big one"...you.

As a kid, you fantasize how your parents are going to react in certain situations based off the nearest comparable event from the past. They will think, "Mom got really pissed when my sister (fill in offense here)...she's really gonna flip out if I talk to her about this. And dad always said how much he hates gay people...he's gonna kick me out for sure. If he doesn't kill me first." What they can't know is how you will really react. My own father condemned gays his whole life and made them the butt of every awful, soul killing joke. I thought coming out to him would be the end of our relationship. Yet, he cried in his beer ....sulked for a couple of years....and then mostly got over it. My mom I expected to be easier. She ended up being the one who said that she was sad that I was going to hell and our relationship was never the same again. Kids sometimes prepare for the worst because we simple do not know whats going to happen. It can take months...sometimes years to build up enough courage to face such a risk....and the world is littered with the unhappy endings of kids living on the streets because their parents kicked them out.

So when you are doing your level best to struggle with your own emotions and asking yourself an endless parade of questions....remember the struggle it took to bring them to you and how much is on the line for them. This is a matter of survival for them and the only "choice" involved, is in their decision to tell you.

and their is something I wan't to make clear to the parent's whose kids have come out to them as transgendered. Their struggles for self acceptance and their risk in telling you is the same but acknowledging that the gender that you feel like inside does not match the one they see outside does not make them gay. The gender that you identify as is a separate thing from which gender you are attracted to and that is a critical point to make when you are trying to wrap your mind around this. But no matter what you may see on the outside....the core person you have always known is still there and will ALWAYS be there. They are still the child you raised, no matter what may happen on the outside....never forget that.

And finally, your child may face challenges because of who they are. Your instinct to protect them from it is a mark of being a loving parent. However, this is one thing you can not protect them from by attempting to isolate them from it. It's their life and their challenge. It is a feature of being gay/bisexual, or trans in the world we live in. Hopefully, evey generation that goes by knows less of this but for now...it just is. They know it and have probably already been dealing with it in school. The only way to really protect them from it is to walk down the path with them.

Now that they are out to you....nothing will change...nor should it. Your son may still be the sullen, silent teenager he was before.....and he still may not be able to dress himself worth a bean. Your daughter will still love everything she did before....sports, animals, and her friends.....and be the sweet child you have always known If, one day a son is standing in her place, what you have known about them all along hasn't changed...only the outside did. None of us change because we come out to you but now you know more about us than you did before is all....and yes....it's OK to cry. We did a lot of that too

Have your feelings, your reactions, and your questions. That's natural. but make sure your child KNOWS you love them....even if it's hard for you to fully accept right now. It's the one thing they need to know more than anything. They are trying to show you who that are....and to meet silence or rejection wont feel like just rejecting the gay parts of them, it's rejecting their whole being.

At least once a week I get an email from a young person who feels like they can NEVER tell their family. It's sad that so many kids feel that way. So many kids go homeless when their parents kick them out, so many commit suicide. So many children and parents never talk to each other again because their is too much hurt and shame between them....and it never has to be that way. Hold your kids and hug them hard. Make sure they KNOW how much you love them...because we all need to hear it.

Until next time dear readers.....

NOM, The AFA, and Anti-Gay Orgs...Do We Still Care?

2011-09-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

This post is to settle somewhat of an argument between my husband and I who have a difference of opinion on whether or not it does any good to write about the doings of antigay groups like The National Organization for Marriage or characters like Tony Perkins and The American Family Association.....correction, what he actually said was that no one cares enough about them to read what they are up to.

Every day that goes by see's these groups, and the individuals that speak for them, slide into increasing disfavor. With DADT repealed, the potential likelihood of the return of marriage equality to California via the courts, and polls that are NOT in their favor, antigay groups are having to take a different stance in the public eye...the one of the victim. If they can't win the game of spinning public opinion into fearing that gays will destroy the nation by wanting to be a part of its institurions than they will fall back on creating the fear that gays want to attack and harm them and anyone who believes similarly.

An example of this fallback strategy is NOM's creation of a subgroup who's task it is to advocate for anyone who feels they have been targeted for violence or harrasement due to their belief that marriage is just for straight people and not for gays. NOM's newly created Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance( not to be confused the the rebel alliance) was so laughable...and it's charter do beyond the pale that I felt practically compelled to take it apart piece by piece. But...I was discouraged to do so on the basis that no one gives a rats behind about them. Which makes me ask the question...Is it true? Have they slid so far as to have faded into irrelevancy?....because personally, I think that's a mistake.

The fact of the matter is that even though Tony Perkins and the AFA are a designated hate group. Yet they are still being called on to testify in congress as experts. The congressional hearings over DADT is the last example I have heard of but that is still pretty recent. The groups public face, Tony Perkins, is still invited to CNN to speak as if he is qualified to speak about the military and gays even though his only qualifications are a tour of duty and a sack full of bias. This man, and the organisation he represents is still hurting us and has an ear in Washington.

And NOM, while down...is far from out. The tide may be turning against them in some respects but there are many more states that they can...and do...find traction in. I would also place dollars to donuts that a NOM member will be called on to testify in Washington if/when DOMA sees more congressional hearings. Also, without the incredibly dedicated work of Jeremy Hooper of Good As You, NOM would not nearly have so many black eyes to their reputation. Because of his Jeremy's work NOM has lost any claim they have to being just a rational, middle-of-the-road group concerned about marriage. They have let that mask slip because the facts are out. They have strong religious funding and their entire reason for being is religious in nature. That's who they are and who they have always been. However, many people don't see that which still gives this group the air of false neutrality that empowers their fear based message.

My personal opinion is that NOM creating a suborg based around victimization is an admission that things aren't going as well as they would like. However, putting Maggie Gallagher as the head of it is a red flag for me. She has been at the forefront of nearly every ballot measure and served as the most visible spokesperson for NOM's carefully crafted image of non-animus "rationality"...an image we all knew was a lie. Maggie knows how build a climate of fear around a subject and religious/political persecution seems to be the card they want to play next. The question is "Why?". I can't help but ask if the move has a signifcance we need to pay attention to before it bites us in the soft parts.

Which brings us full circle......The days when NOM was standing in our backyard and people actually believed their fabricated fear tactics has waned to some degree. Nom and the AFA have repeated their lies and distortions too many times for them to work on a large scale anymore...but there are many that still believe them. If marriage equality was coming up for a vote in your state, how would you feel to see Maggie Gallagher on stage spinning the same lies to a crowd of nodding heads? In a debate about bullying programs... we can still see Tony Perkins on TV scaring up folks with the spector of the "gay agenda" and finding credibility on CNN. And I'm to believe that they are too discredited to care what they do anymore?

If we had all been a little more aware of NOM's strategies before Prop 8 might we be having a totally different conversation right now? It may not be gripping news... nor pull at the heart strings as dearly but we have seen the consequences that happen when we stop talking about it....when we stop at least paying attention.

So I put the question before you...the reading audience. Do the activities of NOM, Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Tony Perkins, the AFA, Focus On The Family, and various anti-gay pundits interest you enough to read about it? Is giving them blog time also giving them them too much attention and thus power? Do we care anymore what they do?.......Tell me what you think.

Until next time dear readers.....

Where Do We Stand?....Tragedy and Triumph

2011-09-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday saw the end of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and one more victory was won in the long march towards equality. Celebrations are being held all over the nation and in the news. Everyone is overjoyed to see this bit of institutionalized hatred bit the dust. I know it meant a great deal to my husband, who served a tour of duty under DADT during the original "Desert Storm" operation in Iraq. Jay came to accept himself as a gay man during his time in the Army and it has always been his regret that he served in the closet and ultimately left the Army because he knew their would be no place for him in it as an openly gay man. He was particularly jazzed then to be able to make his own celebration video marking the end of DADT.

And then reality punched us in the face again....another teen had killed himself due to bullying...

our email inbox carried the sad news that another teen had committed suicide due to being bullied over being gay. 14 year old Jamey Rodermeyer of Buffalo New York, committed suicide a bare four months after he had filmed his own "It Gets Better" video. Jamey was a avid Lady Gaga fan and an active Youtuber...yet again, it seemed that we had lost one of our own. And...how I wish Jamey's bullying had ended with his death. It seems that in ANY news outlet, blog, or Youtube channel that covers his story people think its OK to offer their personal judgments of Jamey's decision to kill himself. Many have assaulted him in death by calling this emotionally beaten child a coward who took the easy way out of his problems. His personal YouTube channel has been the sight of many of the most hateful and vile comments imaginable and it utterly sickens me. Can the world really be so cruel?...oh yes, it appears that it can. This young man's spirit was literally broken by the same judgment that people feel so justified in unloading on him in the wake of his death......It makes me furious and he doesn't deserve it....no one deserves it.

To celebrate the end of one form of discrimination only to have to mourn the loss of another teen to another form of discrimination left me with the feeling of the enormity of our journey. For every brick we take out of the wall of hatred and discrimination there are still more...and the foundation for that hatred remains. In the wake of the end of DADT the nameless soldier became no longer nameless as he came out to his father and found acceptance.....and then Jamey Rodermeyer was driven to death by an utter lack of acceptance. He was told every day that he was "disgusting" and a "pervert" and I can imagine what else. Just where the hell are we in this world anyway? Do we measure our progress as a people by how many laws we overturn?...or by how many lives we are losing? I can not help but feel that any victories we have won should be celebrated in the memories of those who aren't there to share them with us.

DADT is just one battle down...there are so many more to go...

Now maybe we can put the lie to the Michelle Bachmans and Rick Santorums of the world who want to wipe out bullying programs as just another example of the "gay agenda". Maybe we can breath one small sigh of relief before we realize that our Trans brothers/sisters/friends...still face the same hurdles we just jumped through. Maybe we can take a moment to breath until we have to go to the ballot again to fight for marriage somewhere in the next state to take it to a vote. Perhaps we can breath until we have to hold that breath again to wait for yet another court verdict.

I am happy that DADT is gone because it will make such a difference in the lives of the gay men and women who choose to serve in the military. Losing that awful law did nothing but make someones life better for no longer having to hide. So I celebrate it's end with gusto..but, at the end of the day I can't help but think about how much farther we have to go....and how we can stop our own losses....

Until next time dear readers....

When Does It Get Better For LGBT Seniors?

2011-09-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

"It Gets Better"....those are the words we tell every LGBT teen who is suffering alone and trying to come to grips with themselves and their place in a world that can be very hostile to anyone who is different. We tell them..."One day you will no longer be in high school. You will be far away from those who would hurt you for who you are...and there is nothing wrong with who you are. One day you will be out of your parents home and you will be able to make your life what YOU want to it to be."

That is the core of the "It Gets Better" project to me. Not that your life will be all butterflies, bunny rabbits, and magic rainbow unicorns the rest of your days...but that you will be in control of what happens to you and that can make all the difference in the world. You can seek out other gay people and find community, someone to love, and if you are so inclined and laws allow...make a family. The world will still kick us in the teeth(as it does everyone) and it may not always feel better....sometimes it still sucks...but the difference is that you are in control and can make of those circumstances what you will with a great deal more freedom.

But what happens when we are older? Does it get better still matter when you are 50?....60?....70? I ran into a handful of articles this week that detail some disturbing(though not surprising) facts about gay seniors that have caused me to stop and think about the sentiment behind what we tell LGBT youth about survival and how it applies to growing older gay.

From an article in The Guardian UK Come the results of a survey commissioned by the campaigning group Stonewall which ouline some rather hard to face facts about the current state of growing older gay in the UK health system. While the survey is UK based....in my opinion, any comparable study undertaken in the U.S. would only echo the results that Stonewall found. Results like....

*--Gay and Bisexual men are three times for likely to be alone than heterosexual men.(40% of gay/bi men are single vs. 15% of heterosexual men.)

*--41% of of LGBT's over 55 live alone vs. 21% of heterosexual people.

*--15% of LGBT people over 70 work vs. 6% of heterosexuals.

*--Over a quarter of gay and bisexual men, and over half of gay/bisexual women have children versus nine out of ten heterosexual men and women.

*--Less than a quarter of LGBT's see their biological families at least once a week versus more than half of heterosexual seniors

*--72% of LGBT's surveyed worried about requiring care as they get older versus 62% of heterosexual people

There is also the rather dubious comment made within the article about LGBT's "fears being compounded by our lifestyles" in which the study claims that gay seniors drink, abuse drugs, and have higher instances of mental illness than our straight peers. But.....what the study does not mention when giving these factors, is the all important WHY those things may be true. In my opinion making generic statements like these, without explanations feeds into the hands of hate groups who ever try to paint a picture of a "gay lifestyle" that is inherently destructive. Leaving out the major societal discrimination and condemnation that drove so many of these problems does a disservice and paints a biased picture. Would their be such a high instance of mental health issues is LGBT's didn't have to overcome massive amounts of self hate taught to them by family and society at large? And for whole generations of us, gay bars were not only places to meet friends and love interests...but were also part community center as well. Just saying that our "lifestyles" in some way negatively impact our prospects for healthy and fulfilling lives when we get older is ingnoring the history creates this situation and that is driving the need for this dam survey in the first place! In my opinion it is irresponsible to make blanket statements or post data like that without putting it in its historical/generational context.....and dammit, it drives me nuts...

Following up on the heals of all this comes a second article from the East Bay Express detailing LGBT treatment in elder care facilities. Many gay men and women who survived the days of police raids and electroshock therapy to see the days of "gay liberation" now find themselves living in circumstances that are forcing them back into the closet again. Three major factors are at work here...1)the attitudes and opinions of other retiree's....2) discriminatory and sometimes hostile treatment by care workers and....3)a system that is totally unprepared for the needs of LGBT people and has no idea how many of us their even are. One such instance of what can befall a gay couple in elder care was detailed in the article:

In one instance about a year and a half ago, Barr said a senior who frequents the Rainbow Community Center's senior lunches had to move his partner of nearly forty years into a small board and care — typically, this kind of facility is family-run and more affordable. His partner had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. One day as he was hugging and kissing his partner, a staff person walked into the room.
"The staff decided that the healthy partner was molesting the other partner and reported him to the state," said Barr, noting that management went so far as to try to have the healthy partner's benefits taken away. Barr said the healthy partner managed to stop the complaint.
"If this had been a heterosexual couple, a wife hugging her husband, they wouldn't have set off alarm bells," said Barr.

I would like to add that...nor would they have been segregated from the rest of the population as may happen to a transgendered senior....or nor would their assets or homes be unwillingly stripped from them because the state may not recognize their relationship with their partner.

And studies like these only reflect those who will identify as gay, bisexual, or transgendered. There are so many more who come from the generation when you just don't talk about it...much like Clay Greene, who was involuntarily removed from the home he shared with his longtime partner, Harold Scull. The couple also had all their shared belongings sold at auction by the state after allegations of domestic abuse when Howard Scull fell from a front porch and required medical care. Greene was reluctant to admit that he and Scull were anything more than friends even though they had lived together for decades, had wills and power-of-attorneys naming each other as benificiaries should something happen. In the face of losing all he owned Clay Greene still did not want the stigma that came with identifying himself as gay. That was the way it was in his day and that's the power that keeps so many older LGBT's in the closet and thus....not included in studies like the one undertaken by Stonewall.

Put together, I would say all of this paints a rather bleak picture of growing older gay....but can we take these facts as any kind of and adequate reflection of the total reality? Or is this more a snapshot of the possibilities of what it means to grow older gay at this point in time?....living alone and suffering in silence with nothing but a pocket full of memories and living among other seniors who still think they are evil and a threat to the nation?

If we can council a teen on the edge of suicide to hold on because "it gets better"...what do you say to someone who may have lost their life long partner and who may have been estranged from their family because they couldn't accept them as a gay person? How would you even begin? I understand that a part of this situation is generational....but so too is what was/is happening with LGBT teens and if we can reach forward to the next generation, why can we not also reach back? For a teen it's all about holding on until the day when they can see that they are just like everyone else in the world and then make out of their life what they chose....how is that message different for an individual who may lived and loved and oftentimes been the people who blazed the trail that allows us to say "it gets better". Our lives are what they are in part because of their lives...and because they survive and lived on through some harrowing events as well as all the condemnation society could muster. they showed us by example what it live through it...and we did.

I think sometimes we can't just council someone that it's going to be ok. Sometimes we need to make it better. Helping to fight for legal protections (including marriage equality, HIV medication provisions, Workplace protections for retirement funds) will help those in need of care in the future....That is a beginning. Creating LGBT friendly retirement communities like the one nearing completion in my home town is also one option. Also...Because of increasing visibility of LGBT's the world is slowly changing for us. Succesive generations deal with being gay better(hopefully) and the stigma is slowly becoming less. Perhaps there will be a day when LGBT seniors won't be ostracised from their biological families...and perhaps too it will not be such a big deal for other heterosexual retirees to share a home with a gay person.....but again, thats the future. We need to be there for those who are suffering now. One day it will be you and me and we have to ask ourselves how we would want to be treated if it was us in that bed..alone and not able to tell a soul who we are.

And yes I know...this all sounds so gloom and doom. Not all gay men or women grow old alone or without the support of family. Nor is poor treatment by elder care facilities a situation unique to gay seniors...not by a longshot. However, there IS a gap that needs to be filled and a hand that needs to be extended to make it better for those who can no longer do so for themselves. We as a community can come together and show amazing strength at times of adversity and we have cared for each other in times when no one else would. If we can hold out that promise to our young...why can we not also give it to those who once held it out to us? Perhaps it's time we let them know that they are not alone...

Check out Sage at their website www.sageusa.org and consider reaching out to an LGBT senior near you. Don't wait for it to get better....make it better...

Until next time dear readers....

Fantastic Irish PSA For Marriage Equality

2011-09-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Check out this short Marriage Equality ad from Ireland. It is truly moving and makes me wonder why we don't make videos like these here. When marriage measures came up for votes here in California and Maine we saw only bland tv spots that seemed more intent of promoting a dumbed down and diluted image that they fult would be safe for feignt hearted American viewers rather than showing the simple everyday faces of gay people and their families as this clip has done in such a moving say. This spot is only a minute long and yet, you are heartbroken by the end of it....I think the people who make these should come over here and make a few for us. Check it out:

Perry V. Schwarzenneger: Upcoming Live Broadcast of Ca Supreme Court

2011-09-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

Today the California Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the next round of testimony in the ongoing battle over Proposition 8. Today's hearing will held to answer the question of whether or not Protectmarriage.com and backers of Prop. 8 have the legal standing to defend the law in court if authorized state representatives decline to do so. For those who may recall, this question was previously put before the Ninth Circuit Federal Court who found that they simply didn't have enough precedent to answer the question on their own and thus sent the matter back to the State Supreme Court to verify before the federal trial could continue.....and so here we are today.

Todays session will be held at 10:00 a.m. pst on the California Channel and will also be broadcast on their website at :

www.calchannel.com

If I find an embeddable broadcast, I will be sure to attach it to this post at the day progresses. Stay Tuned!

"Gay Panic" In The Larry King Trial...and The Value of A Life.

2011-09-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Dear readers...I am at a loss.

Perhaps a few of you may have read about the recent announcement that the trial for the murder of middle schooler Larry King by fellow middle schooler Brandon McInerney has ended in a mistrial and a hung jury. Go to any gay blog covering the story and you will read many rage-filled responses. Some including a call to violent protest. Given the fact that Brandon McInerney told a fellow student he was going to murder Larry King the day before he brought the gun to school and actually committed the crime...because the murder was witnessed by an entire classroom full of students...AND...because McInerney's motive for shooting King was due to Kings sexuality and his reported "advances" on McInerney...there really should have been little doubt that this case was motivated by hate. Yet that seemed to be a hard fact for the jury to accept....so they didn't.

No one doubted that McInerney did it, they only questioned why. McInerney's defense did their level best to paint a picture of Larry King and a gender confused young man with no sense of reasonable boundaries and Brandon McInerney as a victim of an abusive upbringing. The character assassination committed against Larry King was rather extreme and anyone watching it couldn't help but get the picture that they were trying to show that somehow, King deserved what happened to him because he was just too gay and that his actions toward Brandon McInerney incited his classmate to murder. The unspoken statement here being that this was somehow an understandable, if extreme, response on McInerney's part. This reasoning seemed to find traction in the jury who unanimously voted to strike down the hate crimes charge. To the other charges of murder and manslaughter...5 jurors advocated for a straight up murder charge and 7 argued for first degree murder but they could not come to an agreement on whether or not the murder was an action committed in the heat of passion......really?....One result of the declaration of mistrial is that McInerney may be able to plea deal for a lesser sentence..or the less likely option of being retried as an adult.

The response to the announcement of the mistrial has been one of deep rage and can be summed up as, "Why is the life of a gay person worth less than that of his killer?" The extension of that question being, "Is this how much MY life is worth to a jury of my peers?"...and it is to that question that I would like to speak....

In any account, there are facts...and then the way we interpret those facts. In the case of Kings murder much was made of how Larry wore jewelry and makeup. How he would sometimes refer to himself in a feminine sense and did not hide that from anyone. His teachers claim that he had an outspoken awareness of himself as gay or possibly trans. It was also a fact that Larry was also bullied for not hiding who he was....one of those bullies being Brandon McInerney. It is also reported that King may have had a crush on McInerney, making statements to him that he loved him and asking him to be his valentine in front of his entire class. These actions, more than any other, are given as the reason why Brandon McInerney took a gun from his home....told a fellow classmate he was going to shoot King the following day...and then followed through on that threat.

McInerney's defense didn't even attempt to argue whether or not he did it. Instead, they sought to plant the seed that he was an emotionally damaged individual who was so embarrassed by what King did to him that he was driven to murder. And they did their damnedest to make King look like he was partly to blame by being so attention seeking and sexually confused. They intimated that King somehow invited what happened to him by being so forward in his crush on McInerney. But if that were true....then can any woman who receives unwanted attention from a man simply shoot him and make the same claim?...I bet not. So why would King somehow be to blame?

It has been my contention with men who are so dam afraid to be hit on by a gay person that they should wake the hell up and realize that women live with that reality everyday. They often say, "If a gay guy hits on me I would kick his ass!" It's a weak argument by people who have never had to be exposed to that kind of treatment the same way the average woman has. My opinion is that it's good for these guys to learn how it feels sometimes. Maybe they would have a bit for empathy for others.

Being hit on is not...and will NEVER require someone to follow through on some kind of sex act. I don't care how forward a person(of any sexuality) is in their interest you, it is NEVER o.k. to hurt someone over it...and if the person doing it is gay, that does put them in a special class or make them some form of sexual predator. A simple "no thanks" will usually do and move on. They only time you have a right to use violence to "defend" yourself is if that person lays hands on you and I would bet the percentage of gay people who can't take "no" for an answer is probably infinitesimally smaller than the percentage of straight men who push their advances on women to the point of sexual assault every day. Beating another man for merely being interested in you does not prove your manhood and being embarrassed by the attention is no excuse either....though that seems to be the common wisdom operative in the defense and mistrial of Brandon McInerney.

I simply do not care how gay Larry King may have behaved. Unless he was cornering Brandon McInerney and forcing him onto unwanted sexual situations there is no level of "gay behavior" that would EVER warrant killing him and it blows me away that some of the jurors did respond to the argument that Brandon McInerney had some emotionally justifiable cause for doing so.

I have struggled with this trial deeply. That fact that this event took place between to teenagers barely older than my son is hard to fathom. I understand that the jury has some sympathy for the fact that Brandon McInerney was 14 when he committed this crime, because how you do you sentence a 14 year old boy to a life in prison? But then, What of Larry Kings life?....he was15 and his life was taken from him against his will. I keep asking myself what I would do if it was my son. What if he had been the one to be killed....would I be able to look on Brandon McInerney as just another child then? Or...what if my son had been the one to pull the trigger? How would I feel then? Being that my own son is just three years younger than these boys were when this occurred...it is a horrifying thing to contemplate and understand how difficult this must have been for the jury to come to grips with.

And I need to be clear that I am not coming here to condemn Brandon McInerney...nor to defend him. He committed a murder that was witnessed by his entire class and he did it because he was embarrassed by the things that Larry King said to him. Those things happened and now they have to be dealt with. In the end those matters will have to be decided by cooler heads than mine. I DO come to condemn the idea that somehow Larry King was to blame for his own death...that is beyond disgusting to suggest and it has made alot of people very angry that this idea may be affecting the jury's decision. It is to this incredible anger which has surfaced in the wake of this trail that I wish to speak to. In comment boards in gay blogs across the internet "gay lives don't count" can be heard to echo again and again...and the anger is so think you can cut it with a knife. The notion that Larry Kings life is being held to be of lesser value than that of his killer is an emotional cord that has been deeply struck. If it can happen to Larry King...will it happen to me? Are all of our lives as gay, bisexual, or Trans people looked on as deserving of this type of treatment for living as exactly who we are with no apologies? If I am beaten in the street, will it be looked on as my fault because someone knew I was gay?

I read time and time again about some individual who exits a gay bar only to be beaten within an inch of his life and authorities refuse to prosecute the action as a hate crime....or a lesbian couple who's home is burned down by a neighbor who spray paints "sodomites" on their garage and even then, authorities hesitate to admit that the crime was motivated by the sexuality of the victims. It doesn't take a great leap of logic to realize that the law is not always going to protect us or that the scales of justice are deeply imbalanced. They are imbalanced for a great many people.

And are there people out there who feel that a gay life is not worthy of any regard at all let alone legal protection?....oh hell yes. Just listen to Tony Perkins of Maggie Gallagher speak for five minutes and that will be crystal clear to just about anybody. Also....as a gay man, I understand that there are those out there in the world who would happily put a gun to my head and still others who would applaud them for doing it. But just because they hold my life in such low regard does not mean that I have to believe that as well. Just as Larry King did not do anything so horrible that it would justify his own murder...nor should we ever accept that our lives have a lesser value even though others may think so. Sometimes we have to stand up and call that stuff out for the B.S. that it is. The fact that there are people out there who do not consider us as individuals worthy of equal protection under the law...or even basic human dignity...should be a given by now. It's what we do with that fact that counts. We are here and we do have a voice.

Everyday the world changes and with it, people change. For all the those who may secretly harbor the belief that being gay is a defect...or worse...their are many more who have come to see gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans people as people who are worthy of the same respect and dignity as anyone else. In our anger and dismay about the events of Larry Kings murder it is important to remember this when it seems like the world is too full of injustice and hatred.

Those who hate us can devalue our loves, and our relationships. They can paint us as predators with sinister agendas...but that will not for one second be true. Larry King did not deserve to be shot because he asked the wrong boy to be his valentine. His death was not his own fault. But if justice fails Larry King...as it often does...it will not change that simple fact...nor the fact that all of our lives matter or that all of us deserve to live without fear, harassment, or violence. It is the core of all we struggle for whether it is marriage equality, military service, workplace protections, or immigration policies. Our lives count and we will not be invisible anymore. We will not accept that our deaths are somehow our own doing because we dared to live in the open. and we will continue to live as fearlessly and out as Larry King did.

Until next time dear readers....

Will We See A New HRC?

2011-08-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

This morning, one of my favorite blogs, Pam's House Blend, broke the story that Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign will be resigning from his post as director of the organization. This would be the first in a series of executive staff shakeups that could change the face of the HRC as we know it. This actually comes as quite a shock to this humble blogger who has made his fair share of grumbles about the HRC and Solmonese's over-capitulation to the White House on gay issues. Time and again they have been completely unwilling to apply even the tiniest bit of pressure to affect change in an administration that on the one hand claimed to support us while the other hand was busy enforcing anti-gay policies with gusto.

Solmonese's defense was that having a place at the negotiation table was more effective than chaining yourself to the white house fence ala Get Equal style. And yet what we saw in return for our donated dollars was HRC staff attending high profile cocktail parties at the White House where they would walk away with a fist full of promises that never came true....and the guys who chained themselves to the fences and rattled politicians cages on the news seemed to be the ones actually getting the job done. It made the HRC look weak and Solmonese like an ineffective elitist more content with rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful than actually lobbying for LGBT rights. It is little wonder that HRC's reputation has taken so many fatal hits and if Solmonese's reported resignation will be able to bring it back from the brink.

Whatever your feelings about the HRC. This recent development seems to beg the question, "Will the HRC change?" Lets explore that possibility...

Dissatisfaction with the HRC has been brewing for some time and the reason why it has been dubbed "Gay INC." is more due to it's monolithic disconnect with the average gay, bisexual, or trans person for whom they are meant to represent. It seemed they were becoming too big and too well connected to care for the people who were sending them their hard earned dollars in exchange for a voice in the oval office. For my memory, whenever the fight for Don't Ask Don't Tell or the state by state marriage equality fights were at their worst...such as in the recent loss for marriage equality in Maine...Just like our Presidents support, the HRC was no where to be found. They expressed no support for the state fights unless and until they were called out for not doing so and even then their response was minimal. So when New York failed to pass marriage the first time around, and Maine's bid for marriage failed, the DADT repeal was hanging by the thread of infinite and objectionable "studies", and the white House was defending DOMA with very discriminatory language, people began wondering just what the hell the HRC was doing and why we were all giving them money. Their was also the huge backlash when they decided to put a gift shop in Harvey Milk's old camera shop in the Castro. AND....when things did go well for the DADT repeal and the HRC stepped up to take credit for it...no one was having it. The HRC has a serious p.r. problem on it's hands.

To which Gay people of color and the Trans community are completely unsurprised amd will echo a chorus of "I told you so's". Both have long ago given up on the HRC as an organization that represents them. The lack of racially diverse members in their leadership has been pointed to as one reason why HRC seems tone-deaf to these communities. And the Trans community has felt thrown under the bus on multiple occasions...not the least of which was when the HRC was quite o.k. stripping transgender inclusive language from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Many lawmakers balk when the bill includes Trans people, often siting the infamous "bathroom argument" as a reason why trans people should not be considered for workplace protections and instead of going to bat for the Trans community, the HRC has o.k.'d removing trans inclusive language from the bill as an effort to encourage it to pass...an effort that has so far yielded no fruit and turned the HRC sour for many Trans people.

Now, with Solmonese stepping down, the big question of whether or not a senior staff shake-up will change the way the HRC does business is on everyone's minds. The fact that Solmonese is leaving before his contract expires in March seems an indication that their may have been internal pressure to do so. As an organization that has taken so many p.r. hits of late, nothing short of a complete restructuring is likely to yield a change in the way HRC is perceived by those who have come to distrust them. Will a new executive matter if the org itself has not learned it's lesson?

Will we be able to depend on the HRC to bring funds, volunteers, and media resources to bear when Maine puts marriage back in the ballot in 2012 instead of wining and dining White House politico's? The next time I have to demonstrate for marriage here in California will I rub elbows with an HRC employee/volunteer? The next time they want to removed Transgender inclusive language from ENDA because people use fear to mischaracterize transgendered people, will the HRC step up and defend them who have long fought beside us? In short...will they leave the Ivory tower of Washington and reconnect with the very people on whom their survival as an organisation depends?

I think we all hope so. Creating a face that is acceptable enough to earn a seat at the table does not necessarily earn the respect of those seated there. Nor does it help lawmakers grapple with truth of the LGBT community...even when those truth's are inconvenient and/or complex.

If Solmonese's early departure signals an awareness on the part of the HRC that their current strategies are ineffective, then perhaps their is hope. I also hope they take the hint and include more faces of color and Trans people in leadership roles because it has a great deal of fence mending to do and acknowledging the parts of our community it previously ignored as a liability to success would go a long way to reestablishing some credibility, and most importantly...unity. the fight for marriage equality, the fight to repeal DOMA, the fight to secure workplace protections for all, the fight for Trans rights, and the fight for critical funding for HIV prevention and care are really one fight. That is the fight to be treated as a human being worthy of dignity and equal treatment under the law....as a full American. It is the struggle to make that more perfect union that President Obama referred to in his address most recently, a reality.

And yet we also need to keep our defiance. It has it's place. Having a place at the table and coming to that place with respect for the process is vital...on that, Joe was correct. However, what do you do when that doesn't work? That seems to be the question that the HRC could not credibly solve that led others to believe that they did not want to solve it. There really were no consequences if Obama or the White House reneged on their support, delayed, or just plain lied. In that, the Get Equal protesters who chained themselves to the White House fence taught us all a lesson and possibly saved the day during the DADT repeal. that lesson was our anger and defiance has a vital role to play and sacrificing it for the sake of acceptability only hurts us. But we also have the responsibility to use that anger wisely in order for it to retain it's impact.

the degree to which the HRC and its new director can acknowledge and integrate these realities within itself will determine their effectiveness as a lobbying org and our willingness to put our trust behind them again. That trust translates into donated dollars and in turn, the long term survivability of the organisation. It's a lot of change to hope for and a great deal to read into the resignation of one man. And it needs to be acknowledged that it has never been the fault of one man. What has happened with the HRC is systemic and developed over time. However, I hope that the HRC can become something great and live up to the promise it sells daily in gift shops around the nation in the form of that little blue equals symbol. It is not a symbol of what we want or even what we are fighting for...it's a statement of what we are...and we've come to say it out loud.

Until next time dear readers...

Letters Of Hope

2011-08-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

In the course of our YouTube work, My husband and I receive many letters from LGBT people who desperately need to tell their stories to someone. Sometimes it's a Thanks for helping them to see that loving someone of the same gender and building a family is possible...sometimes its a cry for help. Very often it is both of these things, and they almost always move me to tears. It does not matter if they come from a teen in Alabama or a women in Saudi Arabia, their messages are often one and the same. Reading these emails has helped me place my own life in perspective as well as helped me understand what life is like for many LGBT people around the world...it can be an emotional ride. I have heard stories of desperation and fear as well as stories of great triumph. In the hopes of fostering understanding and making the world a better place for all of us I would like to share a few of those stories.

In beginning this blog series I intend to share these stories with you in the hopes that you too, will look outside the borders of your life with compassion and understand why the fight doesn't end with marriage rights or DOMA repeals....it's about making the world a safer place for all of us. If you take nothing else away from these blog posts....I hope its that.

And please understand.....Most of the messages I have received are from closeted individuals and those for whom anonymity is paramount. For that reason I share the story but have removed details that could identify the writer. The safety of those who write us is as important to us as it is to them. With that in mind, grab your box of tissues and please read on...

When I read this in my inbox the other day, my heart instantly broke. This young man reached out to thank us for what we had shown him...yet what I walked away with has effected me deeply. The fact that the world is not safe for many of us and that we can not love openly in many countries is no secret...but unfortunately, that is not the end of the crimes that are commited against the souls of LGBT people...some hurts are far worse then what can be done to the body...

Hey guys , I can't believe I am actually writing you this e-mail and I don't know if you are ever going to read it . I wanted to thank you for sharing those beautiful moments with all of us . I am a 17 year-old teenager, and I am from a country where gay people go to jail .

Bryan , that video you made with the letter to all gay teens out there made me cry over and over again . I have known I was different as far as I can remember and let's say that I wasn't the only one who noticed it . I still remember how I was screaming in pain when i was maybe 4 years old because I fell in my room while I was dancing in secret and remember how my dad told me that it should be a lesson for me to not act " girly " again . I remember how the kids in the yard started calling me all the names you could think of just because I liked to sing . I remember my first panic attack and how I felt I was going to die when my classmate called me a " faggot " and my favorite teacher heard it . I remember that look she gave me , a look full of pity .

Yeah , one more thing , I have a brother who dates a ton of girls and who is a million times more athletic than me and who because of that was my father's favorite . I prayed gods night after night . I wanted to be anything but gay . And then I decided to change . I gave up myself for this new person I created . A new me who liked sports , loved playing football and went to stadium for every game . I dated girls , made out with them , and even went further . I started acting all man including the insensitive , i believe vulgar jokes . For a time there I had everyone fooled ; I even fooled myself and thought that somehow I was "cured " till i met him .

He was the sweetest , most beautiful guy in the world . The minute I saw him , I felt it . I couldn't take my eyes off of him . That day I added him on facebook and we talked for the whole night and then we talked the night after and then the night after ... I fell in love with him , the way he smiled , the way he talked , his voice .. everything about him but I couldn't tell him . I was so afraid of loosing him . And one day , he came to me crying his eyes out , he told me that he was going to tell me something even though he knows he is going to loose me forever , he said he never felt anything like it and that he doesn't know what to do .. he told me that he loved me . Today , we have been together for almost two years .

He made me accept my differences . Telling my father that I hated football is the closest thing to a coming out I am ever gonna have , I can still hear him saying " What do you mean you hate football , but you have never missed a game with your brother and I " , but for the first time I actually acted like a man , a real one , and I told him that I hated that fucking (sorry for the word) stupid game and that he'd better sign me up for theater classes :p . He did and am taking theater classes and singing classes now . I am getting to be me .

I am a Muslim Arab and so is my boyfriend . That pretty much say it all . In my country , you go to jail if you are gay . Only 3 people know about our relationship...

...I don't have a lot of hopes nor dreams . my boyfriend and I have talked about the future , and as much as we want us to have a family together , we can't live without our families neither . My boyfriend and I have been each other's first kiss , first time and first love . I love him more than anything in the world and I never want to leave him ever , but he is turning -- and I know that in a few years I would have to give him up for a wife . He jokes about it saying that I will be his best man , but I don't really want to be his best man , I just want to be his man .

We have gone through a lot , and had to deal with everything by ourselves . I don't know what is there for us tomorrow and I don't really believe it's getting any better . But thanks to you guys , I know this for sure : Even if I don't marry the love of my life and we both end up with wives we'll never love as much , I am going to make this my personal fight and defend gay rights as an "outsider" because someday , I want an Arab Muslim gay teen to dare and dream of a better tomorrow , of a better life , a life that he will choose .

Thanks again guys for everything and please keep posting stuff as it allows me to dream , even just for a while . I am asking you to not share any of what I wrote because it can seriously get me in trouble , I only wanted to write this for the two of you . I know it is one LONG e-mail and i don't know if you are gonna read it .
Feel free to write back , I know it would make my day .

Love , Just a guy .

Oh yes, I read them...and there are no words....just no words to describe the feelings this letter brings...only tears...

That this man would reach out to me to say thank you to us knowing that he must give up the one he loves soon leaves me speechless. That he finds hope in the mere possibility of love with a man...even though he only got to enjoy it for awhile is a sadness beyond my ability to communicate. To have that happiness and love, even for a little while, is a wonderful thing. But to have to give up the one you love to fulfill duty is a tragedy beyond human reckoning. I know that this young man will do what he must because anything else places his life at risk but my westerners mind screams out "BUT YOU LOVE HIM!!!!"..DO NOT GIVE THAT UP!!! .and what of the women that they will marry...who will love them? Run away!...get out to someplace safe and give yourself half a chance at real happiness! But I also understand why he would not.

I know that this is not about love...it is about survival. For many gay lesbian and trans people around the world love is a luxury who's price could be your life. And who among us would give up our country or our families for an uncertain future. It's no easy decision to make. Also, the next question is where to run to? Who in the world is willing to stand up and be that safe haven for LGBT people? This is why so many people opt to stay in the places that treat them as if they are not even human and do what they must to be safe.

My heart breaks for this young man and his boyfriend as well as the women they will one day marry. I am happy that he knows that he could be happy with a future husband...that it is a possibility somewhere in the world...but I want with all my heart that it would be reality for him to. The reality is that they world is not safe for him..as it is not for many of us still...but it's why we keep working to make full legal equality a reality here. And when we are done here...we help those who look to us and dream. I pray that those dreams become reality and that they will be alive to see it happen. .....That is one of my dreams....Let's make it happen people....

Until next time dear readers....

Getting Schooled Again...

2011-08-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

While the nation considers the impact of the credit downgrade, the worst of the worst of the GOP battle it out to see who can be the most rabidly homophobic nominee for president, and the internet squabbles over petitions demanding that Bert and Ernie get married....for the rest of us, real life marches on. So it is that our summer is coming to a close, My son turns eleven, and that means....it's back to school again.

In the next four days we will be getting our back to school haircuts, as well as shopping for mountains of school supplies and new clothes....enough for four children. With all that gear, it will be time to get back into our disciplined schooltime routines by Wednesday, the first day of school. The kids are not the only ones who are excited and bummed out all at the same time. the end of summer means letting go of all the fun things we did and the luxury of sleeping in(which I will miss most) and video games on weekdays. However, with a new school year also comes the anticipation of seeing old friends, learning new things, and making the parents proud/sad at how fast our kids are growing up. This year, should prove to be a big one...

This Year Selena is going into first grade. Every year that she advances I am left flabbergasted, because it seems like such a short time ago that I was taking Daniel to first grade and Selena was just a baby. Now that baby is standing in her brothers shoes and it makes me proud and breaks my heart all at once. She has always been excited for school and hated to watch her brother go off to school while she had to stay home. she loved preschool and she would always talk with wonder about that far away day when she would go to "big girl school"...aka kindergarten. Now kindergarten has come and gone and so has the baby my daughter used to be...ah crap...don't cry daddy Bryan....little girls have to grow up someday and Selena doesn't want to just grow up, she wants to be on the accelerated track. This year she will add, subtract, learn money, tell time, and learn to read lots of words I half suspect she already knows...ensuring that I can never spell out words I don't want her to hear when talking to Jay. By this age, Daniel was already fantasy-marrying girls from his class as well as random desert items. I don't expect Selena to be any different....Oh, and did I mention how she squeeled with delight over the new Justin Bieber backpack we let her buy this year?...Brace yourself Dad, it only picks up speed from here....*sigh*

Daniel is entering sixth grade and that is a SCARY grade for me because I clearly remember myself in that grade. I know there will be crushes and heartbreaks, as well as peer pressure up the wazoo, and I hope....a commitment from Daniel to do better scholastically.

Daniel is a class clown and cares ten times more what's going on with his neighbor than what's on the paper in front of him. If Daniel thinks no one is watching, he will stop doing what he knows he should because he doesn't think it will be noticed later down the line. This tendency made last year and this summer a living hell for him because he spent most of it on restriction. This year I am bringing down the hammer before he has the chance to think no ones paying attention to him....because this year everyone will be. I am putting him on academic contract with the school and any thing fun he wants to do will have to be earned first. Welcome to daddy bootcamp...

But with Dad riding him like a hound from hell, I also know that this year marks his transition from kid to tween. Emotional and social issues are going to be huge. One of the mile stones of all sixth graders who want to grow up one day to be an awkward teen is...sixth grade camp. Oh the joys and horrors of sixth grade camp. I remember it well...in my nightmares. Swimming in snow melt waters so cold I was sure my guy parts would never come out again. campfire skits that were sheer hell for my social-phobic shy self and the traditional closing dance between the boys and girls that induced straight up panic. But as scared as I was of girls at the time...others were definitely not, and kids were often sneaking away from hikes to experiment with stuff I could only imagine at the time. And now my son will have that experience too....oh hell.

Daniel is not nearly so afraid of girls as I was, though he still pales at the thought of actually kissing a girl. That's a bridge I know he will cross sooner than I would like...but tough shit dad, its coming anyway, and sixth grade camp could just be the place to meet that milestone. Also, the thought of Daniel in a cabin with several other boys just like him is enough to make the blood drain from my face(insert scream here). I'm sure there will be more contraband materials floating around that cabin than the average state prison. Yet...As his father, I can see him standing at the edge of childhood and about to fall headlong into being a teen. and all I can do is go along for the ride.

And then there is the dreaded homework.....

I don't think any of us loved homework when we were kids....and I still hate it now. I know that when I graduated high school I celebrated the death of such an evil institution. And now that I have three school-age children, it's all back again like the villain from a horror movie that never dies. The schools give so much more homework than they used to! My son struggles with it from the time he comes home, till I am putting dinner on the table. A part of that struggle is his reluctance to just settle in and do it so he can get on with his life..but an additional component is the constant research and/or craft projects they keep sending home from each and every subject. It's kind of ridiculous and every grade it gets worse. Between Daniel, Selena, and who ever else we may be fostering at the time....I feel like I am doing homework too. I get sincerely tired of trying to drag three tired kids through their homework after a long day at school. It sucks for them and for me and sometimes we both meltdown. This year I vow to find a better way.

So here we go...launching another school year that will likely fly by, and with it, leave my children changed both inside and out. Sometimes it is all I can do just to keep up with it and roll with the changes as they happen. I can't freeze time...nor would I want to. Because, as much as I want to hold on to their younger selves, I am also proud of their achievements and excited to see the people they are becoming day by day. And even though it is our kids who are going to school, it seems that we as parents have to roll with the punches and grow at a furious pace too, which always leads me to wonder...just who's being schooled here?

Until next time dear readers....

OCD Diaries: "Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself"

2011-08-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

Its been some time since I first posted about having OCD. It was a very hard post to write and after I was done, I was content just to let it go for awhile. I had cracked the lid off a part of myself that I usually keep under tight lock and key in the hopes that I could find advice, support, and perhaps help someone else who might have been silently suffering as well...I found all of those things and more.

Since that first post, life has marched on...and it didn't give a dam about OCD. I finished one session of my OCD support group and elected to return for another session that has only recently begun. My summer...while insanely fun...was also insanely busy. My kids activities kept me busy as well as hosting several YouTube friends during our "Big Gay Vacation" and more. This was not a summer of rest and that means I did not take a lot of time to face down my OCD and do the hard work it requires. Oftentimes I let my anxious thoughts and compulsions have their way rather than continue my exposure work or practicing my mindfulness meditations. The end result is a further boatload of guilt, but also a resolve to work harder when the next OCD group began....I was really gonna kick OCD's ass this time...I meant it. But then, another major realization happened that reminded me that this is always going to be hard work.

What happened? Read on to find out...

I try not to hide my behaviors from my husband anymore. On the one hand, this is a good thing because he can ground me when I am going to a really anxious mental place. On the other hand, it makes him think that my symptoms are getting worse when they are not. The reality is that I am just not hiding it anymore and now he more clearly sees what I have been doing silently in my head all along. He watches me wrestle with my anxiety and the intrusive thoughts and to him, it looks like a struggle...which I guess it is really. He constantly reminds me to "stop beating myself up." or, "Stop resisting the anxious thoughts.". To which my response is, "Dude! If you only knew how this feels you would fight too!" I always assumed that his comments...even though they were motivated by love and concern...were driven by a complete lack of understanding and a helplessness. He wants to fix it..and can't.

And so... I have continued to fight. I pray away my anxious thoughts only to have them immediately return and demand that I pray again because...this time is different(yeah...right). I resist for a while until the anxiety gets to be too much to handle and I give in again....and again...and again...until I can't stand the thought of saying the words anymore and feel more ashamed of myself than ever because I fell for it all. I try pushing thoughts out of my mind only to fail, time and time again. It feels like trying to hold back a tidal wave with only your bare hands....and I am exhausted from trying.

So...yes...I fight my thoughts. I do anything I can to deny them. Because I truly feel I can not accept them without owning them. I felt I was justified in my struggle because that's what it takes to be a good person when objectionable thoughts would pop in unbidden. However, my failure to find relief from the anxiety they produce...or make any change in my circumstance by struggling with them, has caused me to doubt if what I am doing is really the right way to deal with this. Same actions...same results.

And so I began to consider the possibility that maybe I do need to find a way to accept these thoughts as "just thoughts"....something that up till now I have found impossible to do. "thoughts are things" has been an idea repeated by so many traditional religions and new age spiritual practices that considering that my OCD thoughts could really be "just thoughts" seems impossible.

And I've come to discover it's all about the fear...

Traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy(CBT) that uses an Exposure and Response Prevention(ERP) component...like we use in my OCD group...uses a technique of gradually exposing yourself to something that you fear with the aim of desensitizing you to it. This is the part of the program that I am procrastinating on because...well it can be dam scary. I spend most of my day trying to keep my mental bogeymen OUT and now your telling me I have to let them in?!...Oh hells no...

On the recommendation of my husband I began to look around for inspiration on how to accept my fears and intrusive thoughts it spawns. This led me to a therapy practice known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy(ACT). One of the tenets of this type of therapy has it's roots in Buddhism and states that struggling against our thoughts is futile and the cause of most of our pain...anxiety is a part of the human condition and we will NEVER rid ourselves of it. Instead, The more we attempt to avoid it...the worse it gets. And I could see that taking place in my life. An uncertain dread began to settle over me as I began to grapple with the notion that perhaps resistance really is futile.

This also put me in mind of a lucid dreaming blog post written by Erin Pavlina appropriately titled... "Embracing Your Fear". According to her own account, Erin has been lucid dreaming for years and it has been mind expanding and great fun. That is, until she watched "Nightmare On Elm Street". That movie scared her bad enough that Freddie Kruger began to appear in her dreams and kill her on a nightly basis. For someone who is consciously aware in their dreams, this is the emotional equivalent of this event happening in real life....every day. She details her attempts to escape Freddie, from trying to fly away from him, dream up an angel to fight him, and even imagining a "Freddie proof house" that she locked herself inside. And yet...no matter what she did or how far she flew, whenever she turned around, Freddie was already there. Finally, one day she was more mad than frightened and turned to face him. She wrote of their conversation together...

Me: This is ridiculous! Why won’t you leave me alone?
Freddy: I can’t.
Me: Why?
Freddie: Because you keep bringing me here.
Me: Me? I don’t even want you here. How could I be the one bringing you here?
Freddie: Because what you’ve failed to understand this entire time is that I am not a dream
manifestation of Freddie Krueger. I am, to put it simply, your fear.

Oh. Hmm… Er. Not what I expected.

Me: So, then, you’re not trying to kill me?
Freddie: No, not at all.
Me: Then why do you keep slicing me up with your claws?
Freddie: Because you keep letting fear win. It’s your dream. I only respond to how you treat me. If you run, I have to chase you.

Oh. Hmm. Interesting. Now we were getting somewhere.

Me: Well you don’t seem so scary now.
Freddie: Thanks. I appreciate that.
Me: So all this time I just had to stop running from you and you would stop chasing me?
Freddie: Exactly.
Me: Wow, I feel so relieved, and also kind of stupid.
Freddie: (laughing) Yeah.

Erin goes on to describe how this confrontation affected her night time experiences...

I know it sounds kind of crazy but I stopped feeling afraid of him entirely as I realized he was just a manifestation of my fear. He was a part of me. And being afraid of a part of myself seemed kind of dumb. I laughed too.
And then … we embraced. I hugged my fear, I embraced it, I welcomed it. I acknowledged it with love, and it stopped being so scary.
We had a nice chat with tea and cookies after that. He took off his clawed glove and his burns started fading away. He seemed like just a regular guy doing a job.
But it doesn’t end there. Every time I was having a scary dream, Freddie would appear behind me and protect me! He started doing battle in my place. If I was about to be attacked by a vampire or a demon, Freddie would kick its butt!

So a pattern had become crystal clear to me. My "Bad thoughts" are my Freddie Kruger, the more I try to push away, pray away, or deny them...the more I will turn around to find them still there. This is an "Oh shit" moment because I am having to come to terms with the fact that the only way to "out" is "through". The real struggle has never really been with OCD...or brain chemicals...it's with fear.

To use one of my obsessions as an example, OCD logic goes like this....If I allow one of these intrusive, and unasked for thoughts of blasphemy to enter my mind and be recognized...if I allow myself to really think it...then I am guilty of it. Even though I did not ask for it....AND....if I am not appropriately horrified by the thought....(OCD says) perhaps I wanted it...perhaps it was me that initiated the thought after all...and if so, it is proof that I really am a despicable person.

For me, the next instantaneous response is fear, then questioning and rumination about having the thought.... whether it was a sin or not. The inability to answer that question 100%(there is always a "what if") would prompt a response for me to atone for the thought anyway, even though I did not want or initiate it. There is a few seconds of relief and then the cycle repeats. I run...it chases.

To allow that thought to "just be a thought"...for me to allow it to enter and really look it in the eyes as a manifestation of my fear and not a thing to be judged runs counter to the judgement thoughts that OCD is already running, saying that Just HAVING the thought is sin enough....and so, I have hit a wall again. Can I do this and live with the uncertainty that maybe the thought IS wrong? Is it OK to think bad thoughts deliberately if the aim is to make them go away? And..... I know that the core message behind this scenario is that maybe I am bad and unworthy. There are any number of ways a person can come to this, from family members to church's who don't understand what their shaming messages can do to people. And parents....please don't let your children read Revelations unattended....the thought of the world ending IS the same to a child as contemplating their own death and that can be very terrifying. Tack on being gay and/or having normal human sexual feelings and it's a ready made Molotov cocktail of shame just waiting to explode.

So.... my work continues. Maybe this time around I can read a little less and do a little more actual work. I want to challenge myself more...and maybe learn to see behind the terrifying appearance of this fear, to the human need it masks. Perhaps I can find relief by running toward fear instead of away from it. OCD may always be with me...but fear does not need to be my enemy.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. You must truly be strong of heart...and I appreciate that. All of us have our challenges in life but hopefully we can learn that we do not walk alone.

Until next time dear readers....

The Case Of The Lesbian Juror

2011-08-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

Oh court drama's...I love to hate them. I never was one to have patience for Matlock or Law and Order type T.V. shows. It's doubly frustrating then, to have to wait on the courts to decide on our civil rights. It is an exercise in patience to watch them debate the merits of our lives in terms of ice cold facts and legal precedence...and then put off a decision till next year because they can't answer a procedural question. Yet, as the race for the Republican nomination is illustrating, there is no quarter given us from elected officials...our fates, it seems, depend on the courts.

Currently, there are several legal challenges to DOMA painstakingly climbing the legal ladder to the Supreme Court. If any of them make it that far, we will then be at the mercy of the residing justices. A great deal of speculation has been made concerning their individual opinions based off their personal views and the niggling detail of whether gays are considered a "suspect class". That simple designation would elevate issues like DOMA or an inclusive ENDA from the realm of partisan political whims to legally acknowledged civil rights necessities So far...efforts to add sexual and gender identity to the other protected classes of gender, race, and religion have failed.

And then came "The case of the lesbian juror"....An odd name to be sure and the case itself seems to leave more questions than answers. however, if the story is worth it's salt, it could have extremely far reaching implications on our designation as a "suspect class" and lend tremendous gravitas to our strivings for full legal equality. Who is this mystery juror and how could her story impact the greater struggle for gay rights?...Read on to find out...

There has been some discussion this weekend about an L.A. Times article about an out-of-left-field court case that could give a potentially huge boost to gay rights. The case...which began with the dismissing of a lesbian juror from an assault case in which, Daniel Osazuwa, a gay Nigerian man was charged with assaulting a prison guard.The story of the dismissed jurist, who's name is not given, has completely eclipsed the case for which she was dismissed, as the prosecution claims to have removed her after she volunteered that she could be biased on the basis that she had Nigerian friends. Osazuwa's Defense claims otherwise however, and contends that the juror was removed on the basis that both the juror and their client were gay. Osazuwa's lawyers are appealing the case to The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that the legal council should be barred from dismissing potential jurors on the basis of sexual orientation.

A couple of glaring questions stand out however. First, Why is the name of the mystery juror not given? Presumably it would not alter Osazuwa's case any being that she has been removed from the trial. Second, how in the heck was her sexual orientation discovered? The only possible reason this would have happened is if she volunteered the information herself...possibly if she was asked if she shared any traits with the defendant that could lead her to hold a bias. But if that's the case...how did Osazuwa's sexual orientation come up? Perhaps a clue comes from the article itself (emphasis mine):

Osazuwa's defense during the trial was that he was just giving a guard a hug, a salutary gesture in his African homeland, and that the homophobic guard overreacted, lunging away and falling to the floor with Osazuwa on top of him.

Whether or not this statement is true is not important to the effect this defense could have on gay rights. whether or not this was a "hug" or an attack is a matter for the judge and jury to decide. The implications for gay rights if the defenses tactic of using this juror to advance their appeal is the real concern...And I have a few questions...

Typically, in the scant few jury trials I have been considered for, little to none of the details of the case are given to the jurors before they are selected. Yet perhaps they were asked in the selection process if they would have any problems hearing a case that involved homosexual persons and under those circumstances our mystery juror volunteered her sexual identity of her own accord. However it happened, the utter lack of specific information given makes the mystery juror look more like a fictitious invention than a real person.

But...If it's true...

Than there is a chance...as the times article details...that a positive ruling could add weight to the argument that sexual identity would become an officially recognized "suspect class". That would add incredible weight to all our efforts for legal equality, from the fight for marriage equality...especially in repealing DOMA...to providing for workplace protections, fair and equal immigration practices, and a host of other legal protections that currently depend on the whims of individual politicians acceptance of LGBT people and the bones they wish to throw us....(*cough*...Obama...*cough*)

The lack of the designation of being a suspect class has held up so much legislation and been the source of many unfavorable legal rulings. As long as people are able to justify to themselves that homosexuality is a set of behaviors that one chooses...and not an immutable, inborn characteristic, then they are free to continue to kick our legislation down the field for any reason that suites them...or...at worst, paint us as an attack on the American way of life. You and I may not give a dam what others think of us, but when it comes to securing legal protections that simple term "suspect class" means that it doesn't mean jack what Michelle Bachman or Mitt Romny thinks about same-sex marriage or how many documents they sign for NOM. The have to honor the law and flush their rough drafts for federal constitutional marriage bans down the toilet.

So...as we are already looking to the courts to fulfill the American promise detailed in our constitution, might it be the case of the mystery lesbian juror that ultimately serves as the key to victory and fell the giant of institutionalized homophobia? If so, it would truly come from an unexpected source and effect everything we are fighting for. However, until we hear more...I will keep holding my breath for the California Supreme Court ruling regarding standing in the Prop 8 Trial...then it's either celebrate the return of marriage equality to California, or head back into the Ninth circuit again for another round of waiting. .....If only there was a case that would solve everything...

Until next time dear readers....

Be FAIR....

2011-07-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

Why is it that some individuals think that pretending gays are invisible actually makes us not exist? That seems to be the functional logic behind those who are opposing the California's Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act...the bill that would mandate California schools include the teaching of LGBT history in the state curriculum. The bill, which was recently signed into law by the governor, has conservatives all up in arms and many threatening to remove their kids from schools rather than allow them to be exposed to the notion that gay people exist....may have been pivotal historical figures...and may even have included figures that they have looked up to. *gasp*....say it's not so!

They have gotten so worked up about the notion of including LGBT people in history classes that they have launched a referendum drive in order to scare the voters of California into voting to repeal the law. Even as we speak, volunteers stand outside my local target collecting signatures and registering people to vote.

This bill is contentious precisely because it touches that nerve that NOM worked so well during the Prop 8 campaign. The one that says gays are all out to recruit children in the schools into future homosexuals. That nerve is sensitive to any mention of the words "gay" and "schools" used in the same sentence. Additionally, others have brought up the question, "What does the sexuality of historical figures have to do with their impact on history?" It's a FAIR question and it deserves a FAIR response...so with your indulgence...lets go there....

As many of my readers know, I have attempted to blog about LGBT history before. It's not an easy task because the sources for that history range from the dubious(Wikipedia)...to the overly studious and collegiate. Additionally, so much of LGBT history is buried in a historical closet wherein various people from surviving family members, religious figures, and homophobic academicians all have had a stake in erasing an LGBT past. Not to mention the facts that many people of past era's did not conceive of a sexual identity in the same manner that we do today...and even if they did, they kept if very veiled for fear of discovery. Put it all together and it makes for a historical narrative that is extraordinarily hard to put together and often contains great gaps with more questions than answers. The very fact that so many people have been unwilling to discuss the issue of a comprehensive gay historical narrative points to it's dire need alone in my opinion. Understanding our past helps all of us to see that we are not alone...not aberrations of humanity...but instead, an integral part of the greater human experience.

But while this might be my opinion, many may ask why this needs to be taught in grade school? Isn't that playing identity politics?...and isn't it playing on the fears of conservatives who feel like talking about gay people at all leads to more kids becoming gay? Why is this a battle that's important to fight?

I think the answer to this comes in the title of the act itself..."fair". I do not mean "fair" in the sense that everyone else got a place in the history book...now where mine. That is small minded identity politics to be sure. I take "fair" to mean how we have grown as a culture to take an honest look at the whole of our past in order to inform our future choices and our sense of who we are now. We know longer shy away from the contributions of Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and women because there are so many people who are integral to the development of our nation. Telling their stories makes a more complete picture of history as it was really lived...which is the point of history really, even when they history involves tragic and shameful moments people would rather not address. In discussing Asian American contributions to California we can not ignore the role of the Chinese in building the railroads...or that they were often conscripted and worked under horrible conditions. In discussing WW2 we must not only mention Pearl Harbor...but also the internment camps that many Japanese Americans were forcibly removed to as well as the dropping of the atom bomb on Nagasaki. We have hopefully grown to face our past without flinching away from the parts we don't like. That should include not only our low points but the contributions of those that society marginalized, and yes...that includes LGBT's. When we talk about Jewish prisoners being released from German Prison camps, why can't we talk about the gays that were left in them for years afterward? Or...Eleanor Roosevelt, she was a wife, mother, Stateswoman, and...lesbian? Perhaps so. Is that Identity politics?...or telling the whole story?

What bearing does the fact that Alexander the Great may have been gay have on the fact that he was an incredible warrior, strategist, and ruler who left a mark on whole continents that lasted for generations and changed the course of whole cultures? What does King James sexuality have on his rule...or on the bible he later commissioned? What about Michelangelo? Well....while sexuality may nor may not have had a direct impact on the events that made these people notable it would have had it's hand in shaping who they were as human beings...just as each our own traits makes us who we are and effects what we do. Being gay may not be the totality of who I am but it does affect my actions whether I accept it or deny it. The same holds true for gender, ethnicity, religion, and so much more that we do include in the teaching of history. All of these elements may not account for the "what" of history but it dam sure helps explain the "why".

Additionally LGBT history is not only for the LGBT kids who would surely benefit from knowing they are a part of a larger past....it's the story of everyone and that is why even those who are not gay should care. To have a good idea of our past, and to learn it's lessons, as well as communicate those lessons to future generations, we must face it without judgement...which brings me to my next point....

Teaching kids about gay history will not make them gay...though I understand that there are parents out their who do believe that as if it were a fact. Not talking about gay people does not make them go away....and if you child is gay, they are going to be gay no matter what. Teaching about gay people will not alter the number of kids that come out except that it may increase the likelihood that all students will learn to see LGBT people as a normal part of society and that could give strength and confidence to those kids who need it most. Perhaps that's the real danger for conservatives who are worried about this...seeing us as normal. It makes it much harder to hold onto your religiously based notions of gay equals=bad when gay people stop being an invisible threat and become a people with faces, names, and now...a history.

We are not an invisible people. We have fought and died in all major wars. We have been beaten, lobotomized, jailed, executed, and forcibly separated from those we love. We have died by the thousands at the hands of disease. We have helped build nations and been blamed for their collapse. We invented technologies and created great works of beauty...and we have also committed terrible crimes. Our story is a human one, and it deserves to be told. We will not be forgotten.

In closing...I think it does matter that we see ourselves reflected in the story of our past, because that story is the story of us all. To pull one thread out of the tapestry of history is to ruin the entire piece. Yet, for all the drama and hoopla we create over the issue, most school kids will probably still not hear a word that is said in class about LGBT historical figures, much less connect it with themselves. In all likelihood the greatest danger to any kid hearing about a gay person from history will be drowning in his own drool as he snoozes away in history class. This is the way of the world. While you can write it in the books and teach it in the class...it is up to us what we make of our history. But even if you erase us from every history book and prevent our names from being spoken ever again, it will not stop us from being your children...or teaching them. It will not stop us from standing right next to you every day....

Until next time dear readers....

Its only words...

2011-07-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

When you hear the terms "No homo" and "That's so gay", whats your emotional response? If your of a certain age, these terms are relatively new and maybe they don't resonate with you so much. At least, not to the same degree as words like fag or queer can. Words have such a curious power to illicit an emotional response from us but they only carry the meaning that we give them...or do they?

This weekend my husband Jay made a video about what he perceives to be homophobic actions on the part of a huge YouTube channel, The ShayCarls. Among the points brought up in that video were their use of the "terms "no homo" and "that's gay". Now...it is not my intention to make this post about the video or the ShayCarls. What I want to address were how many people vehemently defended their use of "no homo" and "that's gay". I was absolutely blown away by the amount of people...gay people even...who said they could care less about it....even from a guy who says he didn't want his kid to "turn out gay".

I do not like the phrase "that's gay"...at all. However, I was on the fence about "no homo" because it just sounds so stupid and makes the speaker look like an idiot. For that reason I tend to ignore stuff like this because it just showcases that persons lack of understanding about others. That is until Jay brought up some very good points that have forced me to reevaluate these seemingly casual words....

When someone says "that's so gay", we know that it means that they didn't like whatever it was they are are talking about and that the subtext to that is that being gay is also bad. That's a pretty cut and dry scenario. Yet with "no homo", it's almost so goofy as to be beneath comment..at least in my opinion. The men that are so afraid of being perceived as gay that they have to use a disclaimer to justify their actions clearly have some insecurity issues. The intention is to distance yourself from suspicions of homosexuality. However, any guy who comments on another guys hair or body and then quickly throws out "no homo!" isn't dispelling any suspicions. The fact that you needed to say it just makes it all the more suspicious in my book. In the end it's another way of saying that gay=bad.

But its all sticks and stones right? I mean who cares if someone uses those words...especially a channel who's sole focus is humor and entertainment like the ShayCarls? I can't tell you how man people commented...often in blazing capitol letters....CAN'T YOU TAKE A JOKE?!!!! Why yes, we can, but thats not the point here. What if we took the homo out of "no homo" for a second and plugged in another minority group? I wonder if people would be so ready to dismiss it then. If someone runs around saying "no Jew!" or "no Asian!" I bet everyones undies would be in such a twist about it that the outrage would make the evening news. Yet, when the subject of the joke is gay we are all just supposed to laugh it off as innocent fun. I think that it's because its still ok for people to make fun of gays in a way that it stopped being ok to make fun of other minorities a long time ago.

Humor points out the silly and absurd in all of us. You should be able to make fun of yourself and laugh at even the most serious things in life or else we would all break under the strain. Being able to laugh at it all makes it bearable. But humor crosses a line when it starts to paint others as "less than". Just ask Tracy Morgan who is still trying desperately to save his career after he did a stand up bit in which he claimed that if his son was gay he would stab him....plenty of audience members laughed at that too and more then a few people stood up to defend Tracy on the basis that it was all a joke.

So can I take a joke?...you bet. But when that joke sounds startling like all the times you were called a fag in the hallway at school or under much worse circumstances...and when those who really do hate you use those jokes as licence for their hatred and violence, you realize that humor can have unintended consequences and that our words do matter.

In addition to those are the young people who make the claim that they are a new generation and they don't care about phrases like that..."they just don't matter to us" was the gist. Fine then....I guess we really didn't need to make all those "It Gets Better Videos" for the teens who were hanging themselves for being called fags then right? They obviously didn't care about it either right? The argument that these are common phrases that don't mean anything just cheeses me off. The whole "it doesn't affect us" line is complete B.S. and here's why....

Not everyone who realises they are gay handles it the same way. This is because peoples emotional make-up is unique to each individual. Some people can realize they are gay and shrug off their friends "that's gay! or "your such a fag!" comments...others take them to heart and end up sending me messages on YouTube and
Gmail on the edge of suicide. I was just the same as many of those kids. Every time you hear someone get called a fag, you would silently vow to yourself that they would never say that about you...you would never give them a reason to just out of self preservation. This is because you believed in your heart that "gay" was a bad thing and could get you very hurt if people knew about you. "That's so gay" and "no homo" send the exact same message as "fag" and "queer", just in a more subtle way. I have enough emails from kids on the edge of suicide to know that its not one comment that drives us to hate ourselves...it is the aggregate of every time we have to hear it from our friends, family, and society at large that leads people to hate themselves to the point of taking their own lives.

To be fair...hearing someone say "fag!" is not the same as someone using "that's gay" or "no homo". The intention of the person using it can be very different. But when you know that its being used to look down on someone...even subtly...what's the difference? And how do we chose to respond to it? When you hear someone say the "F" word you can either put your head down and pretend you didn't hear it or you can stand up and give it back tenfold. Is it possible that giving certain people a pass on using denigrating gay jokes is a little bit like putting our heads down and pretending we didn't hear it. It's not important right?

In the end they are only words...they only have the meaning that we give them. But words are also tools that communicate more than what they may seem on the surface. They have effects that sometimes we don't intend. But I turn it over to you now readers....let me know what you think? Is it homophobic to use those words, ignorant,...or both? Or as some claim, does it really all not matter? Is it generational...or is that the B.S. it sounds like? I think you know my opinion, now I would like to hear yours.

Until next time dear readers....

The Case Of The Terrible Tattlers

2011-07-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

Its was a hot, gritty summer....The kind of summer where the sun strikes shadows so deep you can swim in them and the heat drives people to do crazy things. The kinda things that always lead to trouble. And when when that trouble hits the fan who do you think they call? That's right...me...The Dad Detective....

It was on one of these hot summer days, when I was in my office...just trying to keep my cool in an overheated world when she walked in. She was my Daughter Selena, and while she may have only been three feet tall.... she had a laundry list of grievances and a chip on her shoulder a mile high. "Dad! Charlie is doing back flips off the couch and now he's stealing my spot!" "Really?", I said, "If he's jumping off the couch, how come I didn't hear anything?" "Because it happened earlier when you were gone and Daddy Jay put him down for nap...but now he's taking my spot!!!!", she cried...clearly on the verge of tears. But I cut her off at the pass..."Save the water works for Daddy Jay sister...this dads seen it too many times. If Charlie committed the crime and already did the time, why are you coming to me?" "Because he took my spot and won't give it back!"...she choked out through the tears. "Well Toots.....I'm not sure what you need me for" I replied, "Your six now and that means you know how to use your words to solve these kinds of problems." "Did you ask him for your spot back?", I asked. She appeared to think about this for a moment and then weakly replied, "No...but...it's my spot....*sniff*" I headed her off again,...."I know, I know...its your spot. I get it. But I also know that you are a big girl and when Charlie and Marlene aren't necessarily doing what you want them to do, you come running to me instead of trying to work it out yourself first. Now you go back in there and sort this thing out with your words." To this she stomped out of the room with defeated air of one who feels there is no justice in the world. But off she went anyway.

"Case closed", I said to myself..... Or so I thought....

Cue mood music:

I wish I had a nickle for every time some half pint brought me half a story but expected a full measure of justice...I'd have a whole lot of nickles. That's just not the way the Dad Detective works. But that never stops them from bringing me everything from stolen spots on the couch to accusations of breathing without a license. I've heard alot over the years but no matter how many times I have to step in and find the culprit...no matter how many times I try to teach them how to solve their own problems...they always come running for me to sort it out. It's enough to drive a dad to drink....root beer....a cold frosty root beer. What did you think I drank?

Cases of Tattling have been on the rise in this town and I'm not sure if that's because my daughter is getting older and her sense of what is her territory, and her sense of fairness and justice, is becoming more refined...or its that we now have four children battling for time and attention. And to be honest, Charlie and Marlene are no stranger to crime and punishment. They spend more time in solitary(time out) than the Bird Man of Alcatraz. As time goes by, they are learning to adapt to a home that has actual rules that you have to actually follow and adults that expect you to listen them as they listen to you....but it was a new concept for themwhe they first got here.

The troubling part is that now my daughter is bringing her behavior down to meet theirs. Partially because she likes tagging along with live in friends...and sometimes its to defend what she regards as "hers"(I.E. her room, stuff, her dads, anything she picks up ever or once may have owned in a former life. You know...everything). And how I wish it was only her riding the Tattle train, but no...its all four of them usually in cohoots to frame each other in some random and usually trivial crime. When its all he said, she said how is a dad detective to solve the crime? And better yet...how to help them understand when THEY need to solve it and when its time to come to me? That's the lesson that I can't seem to get through to them in their struggle to use me to get back at each other. Yet, at the same time I don't want to make tattling illegal because sometimes the kids ARE doing things that I need to know about and stop right away. This is my dilemma...the true mystery if you will.

And so...time goes by as does in the city. With our spot stealing caper solved for the moment I thought I could settle down and get some work done. The ambient noises of children playing and the occasional indignant whine of someone who didn't like the way the game was going for them filtered down the hallway...the background chorus for the tapping of my keys. When all of the sudden I hear a loud "thud!" from the next room and a cry pierces through the home(and my eardrums). I quickly grab my badge and head to the scene of the crime...Usually, there will be a victim holding some injured part of their body and crying while trying to blame another through their wails of pain...the accused, denying vehemently that they had anything to do with it and attempting to turn blame back around on someone else, and two others trying to shout out what they thought they saw. All four are suspects. This time Selena was holding her mouth and trying to point the finger at two year old "Marlene", who was holding her head and pointing back at Selena. Meanwhile her brother "Charlie" was also trying to give his own simulcast of events( at the top of his lungs). It was a tattle circus and they almost had me on the ropes. After carefully listening to their accounts of the event, I determined that they were all playing way rougher then they should have been. So we bandaged the boo-boo's and helped them acknowledge that when everyone is jumping around in a small place..people get hurt. That little life lesson lasted them a few minutes until the next tattle opportunity arose which was only minutes later.

Fill up that root beer Sam...and make it a double...

Maybe one day The kids will learn that I WANT to know when someone is willfully hurting others or breaking important rules of the house...but that I don't need to hear it when someone took a toy before it was their turn. I leave that question up to you....the parents of the world...to help me figure out so that we can have a few less mysteries to solve and gain some personal skills. How have you dealt with the subject of tattling...or did you? Do kids stop this behavior on their own one day? or will I have to be dad detective for life, constantly intervening in their conflicts? I need your help to get a clue.

Until then, I continue to walk these crime ridden streets as...The Dad Detective.

(All events depicted are true....mostly. Only the names have been changed to protect the marginally innocent.)

Until next time dear readers....

Big Gay Vacation 2011 Roundup

2011-07-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome back everyone...another "Big Gay Vacation" has come and gone and now its time for me to get back to the real world. I am truly sad it is over because I have had to say goodbye to ten people that I grew very close to over the course of our time together. Along with our family, we were joined by...Gary and his boyfriend Clyde, Sameer and Reid, Scott, Stephen, Jerome, Ryan, Quincey, and our good friend Wolfy. Our time may have been short, but...we made the very best of the time we had.

The river home we rented for the princely sum of $6000 for the week consisted of a two bedroom main home, a detached one bedroom granny unit, and a two bedroom duplex. The grounds had a hot tub (That we made very good use of), a volley ball court, as well as a fantastic wooded property that felt like you were in your own secluded estate. There were mature trees loaded with summer plums and in the evening the setting sun turned all the leaves golden as the swayed in a gentle summer breeze. Additionally it came with easy access to the river for swimming, canoeing, and Kayaking...all things we did a great deal of in our time at the river.

I am not trying to function as free advertising for the property, but to describe a place that will forever live in my memories as a sanctuary from the world. Even though the property may have idyllic and serene...we were often anything but. Allow me to tell you a few of my fonder memories from the "big Gay Vacation house"....

One of our day trips to San Francisco:

Rainbow Cattle Company and the Legacy of Sleazy Steve:
One of the things my husband Jay and I rarely get to do is go out and have a drink in a gay friendly establishment. The nearest one to us happens to be the Rainbow Cattle Company just a hop skip and jump from our vacation house. We had a babysitter for the evening. so we were determined to haul our little crew out to the local watering hole for a drink. Additionally, our friend Gary had recently come out and had never been to a gay bar before....so we HAD to go. No really..it was compulsory.

It was a pretty busy night at the bar which had its usual mix of long time residents and seasonal visitors...most of the leather/bearish variety.Our little crew walked in like Dorothy in OZ...thunderstruck and a little sheepish. However, as couple of drinks and some loud dance music began to take the edge off our nervousness with each other and it wasn't long before our friends Ryan and Scott we doing their own "A to B" dance and trying to get us all to join in. It was in the process of resisting being assimilated into their little alphabet shuffle that they spied a shirtless, muscled, and beautifully hair man circling the bar and soaking up all the attention he could get. By the way he was wandering from group to group we had determined that A) he was blitzed...and B) he enjoyed being ogled and pawed by random strangers. This led to him being dubbed "Sleazy Steve" by one of our vacation mates. Well...one of our vacationers, Ryan, asked him what his name was....and was gob smacked when he answered "Steve". Thus began the legend of Sleazy Steve. Which...yes I know is an awful name to call someone...and is likely wasn't his real name either. But it floored poor Ryan and Scott who could not get over it for the rest of the night While they "A to B'd" their way to dance floor infamy.

And if only that were all of Steves legacy that evening...Our friend Stephan was being rather shy that night and hanging back from the action( being the smarter one) and my husband Jay to buy Steve a drink if he would give our friend Stephen a kiss. Now...our friend Stephen is a cutie and I don't think Big Steve needed any encouragement that evening. Nonetheless, he grabbed poor Stephen and and layed a kiss on him that turned him eight shades of red as well as resulted in a face full of Steve slobber. It was quite the going home gift. this night was a lot of fun..even for the wallflowers among us and marked the first that we had all begun to gel as friends.

Hot Tub Conversations and Sasquatch Pictures:

I mentioned that the house we stayed at had a hot tub as well as private river access for swimming and boating. Since Jay and I often took our guests trekking across beaches, parks, cities, and forests, by the time we were all done for the day we all needed a good hot soak in the hot tub. We spent many and evening after the kids went to bed, perched on the edge of the tub talking the evening away and most of our best and deepest conversations happened here. Sadly, one of the rules of the home was that no one could be in the tub after ten due to the neighbors and noise. No one wanted to leave the tub at ten but you learned quick that the neighbors meant business.

It was on one of our first nights there when we were all talking and having a good time When ten o'clock rolled around and no one was ready to give up. So everyone headed down to the river with a box of "meadow cookies"(don't ask...and don't EVER eat them). My husband being the trouble maker he can sometimes be got the wild hair to go skinny dipping and faster than you could see was in the water sans suit. Then, the others one by one followed his example and jumped in the cold night river without so much as a stitch to keep them from hypothermia. All that is accept for yours truly and Stephen who was watching the proceedings with growing horror. Yes they were drinking...yes they were in the river...and the possibility of hypothermia crossed my mind. And SOMEBODY has to be the guy to haul their butts out of the river if it all goes wrong. But then....

They started calling teasing the two of us and..yes...I should have ignored them. But what can I say, one dumb act deserved another...so I gathered up all their clothes and towels while they attempted to throw mud balls at Stephen and me and we hauled their things up to the main house and dropped them right by the door under a very bright light....and then I waited. Of course they did not take my bait right away. They had their "Stand By Me" bonding moment and sang Kum By Ya while slowly realizing that they were going to have to get out of the river at SOME point....hehehe.

When they finally did summon the courage to slink back up towards the house, I tried to sneak around them to get a cell phone picture...because you need insurance against retaliation when you steal someones clothes while they skinny dip. It was dastardly, but necessary. and totally stupid because I ended up sliding down a blackberry brush covered hillside and scraping myself up pretty good...but I got the shot. That night I slept with one eye open and waited for the revenge I was sure was going to come. Thankfully it did not. In the morning I checked my phone only to find a blurry snapshot that was all black background and white blurs...like the many photos of Bigfoot you see online where you can't actually see anything. It was a blessing in disguise for us all and allowed us to laugh at everything that happened during our one night of absolute stupidity and total fun.

The Precious and Mount Gay(aka Big Gay Rock):
All of us spent alot of time swimming in the river expect for those of us who feared getting some sort of brain eating parasite from the water. We swam/canoed out to a giant rock that became known as Mount Gay and it became kind of a rite of passage to get to it because it was quite a challenging swim. It was scary to jump off the rock into the river but we all managed to do it at least once.

While no one was hurt jumping off the rock, the river did almost claim my wedding ring. As I was swimming it just slipped off and I froze in place knowing that if I moved I would never find the spot where it fell again. It took four people, two scuba masks, a Pyrex dish, and a waterproof flashlight. I have to say that I owe a Wookiee life debt to Scott Rosenquist and Ryan Lill for finding it by literally holding each other under water so they could crawl along the river bottom until they found it. Thanks guys!

Strangers to Friends:
I know that it may sound like we did alot of dumb things on this trip I have to say that nothing bad or truly risky ever happened. In fact, every moment helped bring us that much closer together. When the twelve of us first got to the house no one really knew how to talk to each other. And when you know someone from online, meeting them in person can be a whole different experience. We had an awkward first couple of days. Jay and I took everyone to the ocean, wine tasting, Fort Ross, and Armstrong Woods, Chinatown and all over the North Bay, we never knew if anyone was quite having fun or not. It was these moments and filming a special surprise music video(details later) that helped us get over our fears of each other and turn a group of twelve random strangers into good friends.

It is why I write this with a heavy heart. It was truly hard to say goodbye to everyone. I wished we all could have stayed there forever in that special stolen moment of time. I have determined that I will not say goodbye only "until later".

If you were patient enough to read all the way to the end of this post than I truly thank you for indulging me in reliving the adventures...and scandals...of this years Big Gay Vacation....Maybe next year we'll see you there?

Until next time dear readers...

Blog Update

2011-07-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is just a note to everyone who may be wondering whats happening and why there haven't been new posts in almost a week. Yikes! I feel like such a bad, bad blogger! Well....It's summer and its time for our annual Big Gay Camping Trip. This year we are headed out to the Russian River to hang out with a few friends and enjoy some of Northern California's many attractions...not to mention being lazy at the river :) Who would guess that preparing to be lazy all week would be so much work! I have spent most of this week in preparation, which has left little room for blogging.

We will be back up and running by Saturday the 16th and hopefully I will have lots of stories to tell you all. I hope everyone enjoys their summer. Its getting very very hot here and escaping into the redwoods will be a welcome relief. Talk to you all again soon!
Bryan