Son of Timatollah

Well, here we are on the edge of June 2010.

I take the coming of June to represent the anniversaries of several almost contemporaneous events for me. In this case, the time in question is 1990.

Sometime in the second half of May 1990, I had had enough, and I finally came out as a gay man. Until then, I had proclaimed to a small—very small: onezies and twozies—subset of my friends that I was bisexual. I knew underneath it all that I was gay, but I felt obliged—for me, for them—to proclaim that I was bi, so that my infatuations with my fellow males of the species could be explained as a lark, a fling, an occasional digression, but that when push came to shove, I was one of the boys, looking for a nice girl.

But that was all bunk: I was never looking for nice girl. I understood that etiquette and protocol demanded that I was looking for a nice girl, but I was never, in my heart of hearts, looking for a nice girl. To the several nice girls whose time I wasted: I'm sorry.

I was in grad school at the time, and I was in our offices when a pouty young undergraduate who was working for my academic, not thesis, advisor at the time, went off on some shpiel about Congressman Barney Frank, and how "we" didn't endorse "his kind."

"What kind is that? Because I'm that kind." I went off on this kid about how I was a gay man, and how there was nothing wrong with being a gay man, and how he ought to keep his not-so-subtle insinuations to himself.

It was, as those of you who have been through any kind of "coming out" experience know, cathartic. Some enormous weight that I wouldn't even admit to myself that I had been carrying around was now gone.

Within the day, I had told my academic advisor. Within the week, everyone in our lab/office. Within a month, everyone that I thought was of importance in my life, including my family, via a trip to see my mom in Florida and one of my brothers and his family, who were living near Atlanta at the time.

I can still remember coming out to my mom. The reason I wanted to come out wasn't just so she knew who I was, but so that I could someday be involved with someone, to have a relationship, to connect. I really regret that those of you who object to people being gay can't understand that we have these relationships with others—same, as opposed to different, gender—that are exactly like your intimate relationships. It starts and includes a large sexual component, but it evolves into a knowledge of someone else who is there, who knows you and all your wrongheadedness (and even your better aspects) like no other, and who puts up with you for all your foolishness and your imbecility because maybe, just maybe, you bring something to them that they value. Because maybe, just maybe, someone besides your mamma loves you for just being you. In spite of you. And if you're lucky, your mamma will understand how much you love that one and how much he loves you. (I was lucky.)

In that same late May framework, I also finally went out to a gay bar. The Ramrod in Boston, to be exact. I had been in gay bars previously, but always in a fleeting, I'm not really here, manner. When I finally went to the Ramrod one Thursday night late in May 1990, I meant to be there. And I felt comfortable there. It's cheesy, but I felt quite at home there.

Did I mention I was thirty-three freakin' years old by that time? I know there are those who come out later, but by contemporary standards, that's a very late bloomer.

I also quit smoking cigarettes in the same time frame. I had the notion when I first went out to the gay bars, that if I was ever going to quit smoking, it had to be then or it would be never. I had seriously started smoking—buying packs as opposed to bumming cigarettes—when I was 13, so this year marks the anniversary of as long of a time of not smoking as the duration of time I smoked! Twenty years smoking; twenty years since not smoking.

When I got back. after the big trip to see my mom and my brother. to Cambridgeport, where I was living at the time, I finally started hitting the gym.

Somewhere in there, I also went to my first big Pride event on the Boston Common. I remember running into other grad students there who I had never came out to and who had never come out to me.

There are too many anniversaries to keep track of in all that, so I just adopted 1 June 1990 as when I came out at work and to family, when I started going out to gay bars, when I went to my first Pride event, when I quit smoking, and when I started lifting weights. Just easier, even if it is less precise.

Now it's 20 years later.

If coming out has meant anything detrimental to me, I am not aware of it. Above all else, coming out is an act of integrity, and we, as a culture, as a society, ought to value integrity, maybe above all else. Coming out was made easier by the fact that I had many life experiences behind me by that time, but more difficult that many of those experiences were based on lies or on hiding who I really was from others.

Those who frame the gay issue in a framework that suggests that gay people—non-straight people, to be as inclusive as possible—are as we are to insult that which created us all (that gay people are gay to insult God) are just wrong. I can say that unequivocally. I'm sure those of you who believe something foolish like we hate God or we're evil intrinsic can find some isolated text to justify your position, even as you ignore similar directives regarding mixed fibers and shellfish and the stoning of unfaithful wives and the like. That such is life is frustrating, but not sufficient of a reason for me to give up.

So, happy 20th coming out, quit smoking, started going out, started working out, anniversary to me!

Labels: 1990, 2010, coming out, gay, june

By cultivated nature, I am not one to put things in black and white terms. Perhaps by inclination initially, but also by years of pointed practice, I've developed the habit of looking for commonalities, for points to be shared, for the 99.99% overlap in all our lives rather than the 0.01% differences.

(I know my GOP and righter-wing friends may find that hard to believe, but I also believe in the political utility of demoralizing the opposition—a tactic some of you share—so I'm not beyond portraying your wrongheadedness in extreme terms every so often, even as I try very hard not to forget that we're all in this together, are the same in almost every sense, and ask, almost beg, you to come to your senses and get on the better side of things.)

But on this matter of same-sex relationships, I've about lost my patience with my less than understanding friends who persist in supporting having the state deny my love and me and those like us what are rights given to us by God—yes, by the Creator of this Universe—by the simple fact that we were born into this world, that we are breathing.

That is the right to be considered married by our communities, as represented legitimately and legally in our governments at all levels.

The November 2008 election results in Arizona, California, and Florida hit me like a ton of bricks. I have become so numb since that I could watch what happened in Maine this past November without getting depressed, which is, in its own way, sad.

To have my rights—and this is where I am as sure as I have ever been about anything: these are my rights—voted on by my fellow citizens is insulting and demeaning. It shows a degree of suspicion of gay people as citizens, as humans, that is simply not justified.

The concerns raised by those who oppose recognizing the full human rights of LGBT people are not real.

• Recruiting: The idea that gay people are out there trying to convince children to be gay is a fantasy that opponents of recognizing gay rights whip out all the time, without one iota of evidence for its reality. Currently, there's no settled understanding about why some of us are gay. Clearly we're a small proportion of the populace.
  
  My own thinking is that being gay is an expression of human nature with both genetic and developmental components that manifests itself once societies achieve a certain lack of survival stress (so that whatever genetic factors are involved become expressed). I figure it's likely that nothing anyone does except wiping out the modern world and sending us back to the caves will change some small number of LGBT people showing up in the world on a recurring basis. I'm skeptical that there's any one factor that can be identified to put the kibosh on that nature expressing itself, or that would lead someone who's not gay to become gay.
  
  When it comes to conversion, the fraction of straight people who are actively trying to turn gay people straight is probably larger than the fraction of gay people who are actively trying to turn straight people gay. And it's those same ones who are active in trying to get gay people not to be gay who go around claiming that gay people are trying to recruit straight people.


• The gay predator: Most child molesters are straight, with a family connection to the victim. The ones who are gay are almost always closet cases. Instead of worrying about out gay people preying on your children, you ought to be worried about the insecure ones who pretend to be straight: The preist. The Boy Scout leader. The Sunday School teacher. The Republican state representative, Governor, Congressman, Senator.
  
  If the closet persists, that exploitative element will persist with it, because it's harder to grow emotionally into an adult relationship with another adult when the larger world treats same-sex adult relationships as something to be devalued relative to straight relationships.


• Lack of monogamy: My own thinking is that this has more to do with whether one has an XY chromosome pair or an XX pair (part of that 0.01%), with plenty of statistical variation regardless. Look: Men, by and large, are horndogs, and straight marriage doesn't change that, only its expression. Those straight marriages are not uniform in how that expression is achieved: There are plenty of married men at titty bars whose wives could care less, and I'd be very suspect if you could show that that group is any less good husbands or good fathers in the long run than the group that never looks at another woman besides their wife. The supposed ideal family promoted by the opponents of recognizing gay rights may be achieved by a few, but it is neither as broadly nor deeply a part of the lives of married straight people as those opponents fantasize. It seems pretty obvious that if it were, there wouldn't be so many divorces.
  
  And, yes, gay men, like straight men, are wired such that more and different seems better, and they might just be in a position to realize fantasies based on those ideas more often than straight men can find indulgent female partners to do so. That doesn't mean that the couple is any less committed to each other than it does for the straight couple, whether they are married or not.


• Sleaziness: Again, the idea that all straight people, married or not, are only doing it in the missionary position is just a bunch of bunk. Merle sang that "we don't make a party out of loving," but just about any decent sized city (and lots of smaller ones, too) has commercial outlets to spice up the love life of straight couples, from Victoria's Secret at the mall to any number of coyly-named free-standing outlets like "Indulgences" or "Fantasies" or "The Love Shop."
  
  But if gay people add a little kink to their sex lives, then it's supposedly sleazy. This is a face-value double standard that displays who's got the power in this world: it's okay for straight people, but sleazy when gay people do it.


• It's not really love: This is the one that irritates me the most. To tell me that what I feel for the man I love is not really love is just disconnected from what is.
  
  Do not tell me that it's not love when I lay in bed next to him at night, feel my foot touch his, and feel my entire body just unwind. Do not tell me it's not love when we fall asleep holding hands on the couch. Do not tell me that it's not love when we take care of each other when we are sick, when we do our best to take care of our own and each other's families. Do not tell me that it's not love when we do little things for each other that we never tell each other about. Do not tell me it's not love, when one of my few fears is something happening to take him out of my life.
  
  Do not tell me it's not really love.
  
  Do not tell me what I am feeling.
  
  When I tell you that I love him, do not tell me that I don't feel that way. When your child tells you that she or he loves someone of the same sex, do not tell then that they don't, that it's a phase they'll grow out of, that no child of yours could ever feel that way. Believe this report as surely you believe the sun comes up in the morning, for it is just as real, just as natural, just as much a part of the way this Universe works as your or my breathing is. As your or my kissing the one we love is.
  
  Do not tell me that this is not love.

To those of you who continue to want to prevent our governments from recognizing my rights: I understand that this involves some recalibration on your part. I understand this is not what you've always believed. I understand this way of thinking bumps up against what you believe your faiths require of you. I'd ask that you look at ways people thought about relationships between folks of different colors once, and how somehow their faiths survived the change of thinking about whether that was allowed or not. (Some may never have changed their attitude about mixed-race relationships, and to those I can only extend my deepest sadness.)

Please, give this some reflection and thought.

The love Mack and I have for each other is just as real as what you and the one you love have for each other. Just as real. Just as natural. Just as human. Just as blessed. Just as Divine.

Our expressing that love and having it recognized by our governments takes nothing away from you, does not threaten your children, has no impact on whether they are more or less likely to be gay (even as it changes the likelihood that should your child be gay, she or he may express that openly and be more likely to be happy).

As we move forward, please give our love not begrudged recognition as some kind of exception ("well, you two are okay since you're our friends, but the rest of those faggots better watch out"), but give us, all of us same-sex couples now and to come, your blessing with full and open hearts.

Open your heart and see what is real, not your imaginings, not your fears. See the love.

Love's got everything to do with it: Our love as individuals for each other, and our love for other people, regardless of who they love.

Please help us secure the recognition of our rights. If you can't do that, at least please stop helping those who oppose our securing what is rightfully ours. Those rights are ours: I am sure about that. Are you so sure that they're not?

Labels: gay, gay marriage, gay rights, lgbt, marriage, rights, same-sex marriage

more music charts

Labels: equal rights, gay, gay marriage, marriage, same-sex marriage

We went to the JoinTheImpact demonstration in Orlando yesterday. The Orlando Sentinel said (here) that the crowd was over 1000 people. Some good speakers, particularly Patty Sheehan, out Orlando City Commissioner, and Michael Vance of the Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Community Center of Central Florida.

The full set of my pictures are on Flickr here, but below are a few of my favorites.










Please. Speak out against the hate. Engage your friends, regardless of where you are, of who you are. You don't have to be gay to speak out against hate, and you don't have to be out to speak up for equality.

Labels: gay, gay marriage, gay rights, human rights, jointheimpact, marriage, orlando, rights

If you're in the Daytona Beach area, there's a National Coming Out Day event tonight (Saturday, 11 October 2008) at Embry-Riddle. We have pilots from the National Gay Pilots Association and engineers from Raytheon (one of whom was the NOGLSTP GLBT Engineer of the Year last year) as part of a panel about being out in the workplace.

6:30 p.m. at the College of Aviation Atrium.

Labels: erau, gay, national coming out day, ncod, ngpa, noglstp

Joe. My. God. explains gay pride, here.

Please read it.

Thanks.

Labels: gay, gay pride, joe my god, pride

"The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which 'the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one’s skin or color or race' are minor indeed. Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs."—Hannah Arendt, 1959 (via Sullivan).

p.s. Big congratulations to Mike and Dave (scroll down to the post titled "Front and center?" then work backwards), Mike and Aric, and other folk who now or soon are tying the knot legally!

Labels: california, gay, marriage

There is no persuasive basis for applying to statutes that classify persons on the basis of the suspect classification of sexual orientation a standard less rigorous than that applied to statutes that classify on the basis of the suspect classifications of gender, race, or religion. Because sexual orientation, like gender, race, or religion, is a characteristic that frequently has been the basis for biased and improperly stereotypical treatment and that generally bears no relation to an individual’s ability to perform or contribute to society, it is appropriate for courts to evaluate with great care and with considerable skepticism any statute that embodies such a classification. The strict scrutiny standard therefore is applicable to statutes that impose differential treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.

From yesterday's California Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage.

As the lawyers and legal analysts point out, this moves LGBT discrimination—well, LG discrimination, at least initially—into the realm of strict scrutiny and out of the domain of rational basis. The presumption, at least in California, is that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, is suspect.

Labels: california, gay, marriage

Congratulations to Californians, where today the California Supreme Court ruled today that preventing same-sex marriages was unconstitutional under the California constitution.

Do not be deceived by the religious right or their Republican operatives that this is appointed activist judges infringing on the will of the citizenry by usurping the role of the legislature: (1) It is entirely appropriate for citizens to seek redress through the courts; this is not "appointed activist judges." These judges have been subject to citizen re-approval through the common modified-Missouri-plan; and (2) The legislature of California has twice passed legislation making same-sex marriages legal, but the governator vetoed the laws both times, since the case the decision of which was announced today was already in the courts.

While in many ways I would love to live in California, for the time being I'll continue to work within Florida (a) to ensure that LGBT relationships are not denigrated by the Florida populace through the inane Amendment 2, and (b) to gain legal recognition of the rights that are mine, that are jointly Mack's and mine, by grace of having been born.

Wherever you are, GET WITH THE PROGRAM.

Labels: california, gay, gay marriage

Jackie Walker was a linebacker for UT (that's the University of Tennessee for any Texans that might happen to be reading this) in the early 1970s. The team had only integrated racially in 1967, so he was a pioneer in being among the first black men to play for the Volunteers.

He came out as a gay man while he was a senior and on the team. In 1973. From this article in yesterday's New York Times:

Nobody disputes the accomplishments of Jackie Walker, a local high school football star and pioneering all-American linebacker at Tennessee in 1970 and ’71.

At Fulton High School here, he averaged 23 tackles a game his senior season. He went on to become the first African-American football player in the Southeastern Conference to be named an all-American and the first to captain an SEC team. And almost four decades after his college career ended, and six years after his death, Walker remains in the N.C.A.A. record book for his ability to return interceptions for touchdowns.

Despite Walker’s accomplishments, few know much, if anything, about him. And that, largely, is because of the way he lived his life off the field after his playing days.

Walker was gay, which he made no effort to hide after his senior season at Tennessee. That is why his name has faded from memory, according to his brother, Marshall, and several of his teammates and coaches. When Walker was dying of AIDS in 2002, his brother told him he would change that, pledging to help get him into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame. Walker laughed, convinced that it would never happen.

Now, it appears that Marshall Walker’s promise has paid off. The Hall of Fame is expected to include Jackie Walker when it releases its latest class of inductees Sunday.

One of his former teammates said on learning of his being gay, " 'I was totally shocked,' he said. 'But it didn’t affect the way I admired and respected him. We were confused, but everybody had too much respect for Jackie, for his character as well as for his football play. Jackie was a private person, very humble. Whenever he did speak, his words were sincere, reflecting his character. He was a silent leader. He didn’t say much, but when he did, you listened'."

It says a lot about the man that he came out in 1973 while still in college. He was drafted by the 49ers, but was cut before he had a chance to play pro ball, possibly because he was gay.

The early 70s were heady times. Due to the anti-war activism and youth movements continuing from the late 60s, there was a sense among many that the world could move forward and be a better place, and that people could be who they were without shame. I personally felt that at times, and yet when I had the opportunity to come out when I went off to college—having been pretty much known to be gay, not because of my own coming out while I was in high school, but because I was sexually active and people talk (LOL)—I copped out and helped build my own closet. So learning of this man, I felt proud for him and curious as to how my own life would've progressed if I had had the balls to come out as he did at the time.

(Found via this post at Towleroad.)

Labels: 1970s, 70s, coming out, football, gay, seventies, sports, tennessee

One is a D-Day veteran; one an MD. They've been together almost as long as I've been alive. Story here from the Washington Blade.

So they don't toe some party line: It's their life.

Congratulations to them both.

Labels: 50th, anniversary, couple, fiftieth, gay, lgbt, male

New Hampshire's civil union law, same-sex marriage pseudo-equivalence, kicked in with the start of the new year. Story here, from USA Today.

Of course, thanks to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (signed into law by Bill Clinton), even married same-sex partners are denied over a thousand benefits that different-sexed married partners receive under Federal laws and regulations. Add to that some state-dependent number of benefits, and what do you get: Ugly, face-value discrimination based on an arbitrary life characteristic that has nothing to do with the ability to form what's indistinguishable from many contemporary families except for the same gender of the pair at the family's nucleus. Then throw in these marriage amendments, like the one being proposed for Florida, that not only prohibit gay marriage, but also restrict the ability of states, communities, and businesses to recognize and support domestic partnerships and civil unions

It's time for GLBT folk to stop accepting second-class citizenship. It's time for us and our allies to label accurately what is un-American, anti-freedom behavior on the part of those who support such discrimination. Make a measure in your mind of the similarities between the social qualities our enemies, the terrorists, are trying to achieve and those our Christian fundamentalists strive for, and call it as you see it.

I'm not endorsing the culture war the other side seems to want: I'm for respectful engagement and trying to understand what others claim as their legitimate concerns, for giving the other side the respect it refuses to give us. But I'm for taking the blinders off, losing the shame many of us still buy into, and using language as accurately as possible. By respecting ourselves, by refusing to cower before the views of those who try and actually do oppress us (even as we try to respect them and understand their views), we can put an end to this nonsense and achieve statutory recognition of the rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, including marriage—that are ours by simple virtue of existing.

Labels: doma, gay, marriage

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Labels: amendment, gay, marriage, rights

I try to maintain a certain calmness in spite of the continued existence of hateful people who can't deal with gay people for whatever reason, but these statements by some that suggest that LGBT people don't care about family, are against family, just really piss me off. I don't have a particular quotation to link to: just years of negative comments I've heard here and there.

I think it's understandable that a gay or lesbian or transgendered person who was abandoned by or forced out of their family because of hatefulness, because of an inability to cope with repulsion, or because of misguided religious ideas would turn on their individual family, but I have found, by and large, that LGBT people care as much about their families—the ones we were brought into the world with, the ones we've been brought in to through intimate relationships, and the ones we've made from scratch—as anyone else.

We celebrate our families: our parents, brothers, and sisters; our grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews; our in-laws (of sorts, or "out-laws" as someone once called them). We appreciate their love, and we are happy to return that love. To suggest otherwise, to suggest that LGBT people or the politics of LGBT people, as an ensemble, are somehow anti-family is just facetious.

I know not all LGBT people are as fortunate to have the love and support of their families the way Mack and I have and have had. I'm grateful for our good situation. And I know it's likely that if you don't agree with me on this, little I say can convince you otherwise. I learned a long time ago that bigotry isn't based on rational considerations, and that people practicing bigotry rarely respond to logic. But if you are open minded, pay attention to the degree to which any LGBT person you know interacts with their family. You might be surprised at the extent.

Labels: family, gay, gay rights

I got so caught up in the schadenfreude of a publicly homophobic Republican getting busted for cruising the restroom at a public park the other day, that one might interpret me as supporting police entrapment of gay men cruising public spaces.

Sorry. I'm not for entrapment or police clampdowns on what is pretty much harmless behavior, personally and socially. It's been going on for years, and society hasn't fallen into the pits, regardless of what some on the right would like us to believe. I'm sorrier that Representative what's-his-name (I've already forgotten, and I like the phrasing better, anyway) would publicly condemn gay people while likely being a closet case than I am that he—or George Michael for that matter—was cruising a park.

The police report doesn't exactly bolster my confidence in the process. It's full of nearly-certain BS, like that the cop went into the bathroom to adjust his police radio instead of to bait someone into following him; and that there weren't any paper towels at the main sink so he had to go into the handicap stall to dry his hands; and that the cops were there doing surveillance regarding a burglary instead of because the spot's known for cruising. When the arrest report is full of likely obfuscations, a stronger benefit of the doubt goes to the alleged perp than usual, even when his gay-rights record is as lousy as whozit's.

Labels: allen, case, closet, gay, gay rights, republican

Yet another male Republican creep who can't keep his pants on. Around undercover male police officers. Story here.

State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a local park after offering to perform a sex act on an undercover officer in exchange for $20, police said.

Allen, R-Merritt Island, was booked into the Brevard County jail in Sharpes on a charge of solicitation to commit prostitution, a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in the county jail and a $500 fine.

He was released a few hours later after posting $500 bail, according to a jail spokesman. The legislator, who was first elected in 2000, could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Titusville police were at Veteran's Memorial Park on East Broad Street on a burglary detail when they noticed an unshaven man acting suspicious, going in and out of the restroom three times, said Lt. Todd Hutchinson.

An undercover officer decided to go into one of the bathroom stalls, Hutchinson said. Moments later, Allen knocked on the stall door and offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $20, according to the police spokesman.

The officer identified himself and took Allen into custody. Hutchinson said the officers had no idea the suspect was a state lawmaker.

"After he was arrested, he (Allen) mentioned he was a state legislator," he said.

Allen told a television reporter that what happened was a "misunderstanding." But Hutchinson said the representative did not dispute the undercover officer's version of what happened in the park.

Allen, 48, who chairs the House Committee on Energy, is married and has one child. He also is a former Little League volunteer and has donated time to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida.

Believe me, if this guy's a homo, I'm all for him. Well, except for the part where he votes or leads people to believe he's going to vote for measures that treat homos as second-class citizens.

Labels: allen, case, closet, gay, republican

Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford, at Spinner.com (part of their whole "Rockin' Out" gay/rock thing):

There's no doubt that if you have the opportunity to come out of the closet and declare yourself, it's wonderfully liberating. You're setting yourself free from your own self-imposed prison. Some people never do that. Some people lead double lives. But if you are afforded the opportunity to step forward and say, "This is who I am," it's important. You have to bring some serenity to your own life.

Happy Pride.

Labels: gay, gay pride, judas priest, pride, rob halford

Former Orlando Magic center John Amaechi (Here (.pdf) is what the page looked like as of 6:10 a.m. EST. Hopefully the homophobic baggage has been removed by when you're reading this) is coming out of the closet about being gay in his autobiography. The reactions range from common sense to out-to-lunch:

Charles Barkley: "It shouldn't be a big deal to anybody. I know I've played with gay players and against gay players and it just shouldn't surprise anybody or be any issue."

Grant Hill: "The fact that John has done this, maybe it will give others the comfort or confidence to come out as well, whether they are playing or retired"

LeBron James: "With teammates you have to be trustworthy, and if you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, then you are not trustworthy."

While it looks like this kind of thinking ought to be able to be dealt with logically, I'm not sure it really can. People who are squicked by homos make up all kinds of excuses for their squickedness that have no necessary connection to reality. That being in the closet is a lie, albeit for some what feels a necessary lie, and that lies are closer to untrustworthiness than to trustworthiness may be the nature of reality, but there's little reason to believe that the Jameses of the world can acknowledge that reality. Better to tolerate their verbal stupidity but in a context that says physical violence along the same lines will be crushed harshly.

Harshly.

And "tolerate" doesn't mean ignoring. It means respecting every individual's right to say stupid things, not giving their stupid ideas tacit approval. There are other people who might be listening. The ideas have to be refuted, just don't expect the refutation to take with the one who said the stupid thing in the first place.

Pat Garrity: "I think that's true if you're playing basketball or in an office job. That's just how the world is right now." This might be more disturbing than the explicit homophobia of LeBron James. It's also more accurate. It all comes back to those small number of situations where coming out has actual, real, physical repercussions for the one coming out: Finding out your parents' love or support is conditional, finding out your co-worker or teammate has homocidal tendencies.

In the overwhelming number of cases—overwhelming—coming out is met with support or, at worst, indifference. But since there is that small number of alternative negative casees, we—all of us—let the closet continue to exist. In spite of all the out people, from the woman in the cubicle next to you to congresspersons in the Capitol, too many people keep telling themselves that the lie of the closet is more secure than coming out.

I did it myself for a long time. I was wrong. Lies suck. The closet is an ugly place to be. A life lived in fear is, in fact, a fate worth than death.

(Quotes from the Washington Post; image from OutSports.)

Labels: closet, coming out, gay, homophobia, NBA