My Coming-Out Story, Part Five

Note: If you have not already done so, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of my coming-out story so this part will make sense a bit more.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Five: Not Exactly as Planned (Conclusion)

I had a plan. Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but it certainly seemed workable.I had a plan. Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but it certainly seemed workable. I was returning to the city of my childhood--Los Angeles, California. My cousin was to be married, and I was the piano player for the wedding. So, my parents (who had recently moved to Kentucky) and I would have the opportunity on the Monday after the wedding to sit down and talk. I knew they wouldn't be happy about my coming out, and I was prepared for the questions and emotion that would come, or so I thought. At the very least, I anticipated that we would have a profitable discussion, where I could explain to them that I wasn't going to start dressing in drag and having public sex, but rather I was just going to be honest about who I am.

We all gathered in southern California around mid-week. Friday night was the wedding rehearsal and Saturday the wedding. My parents and brother joined me on Thursday for a day at Universal Studios, and we had a great time together. According to my plan, we would have the wedding events on Friday and Saturday, a nice day to relax on Sunday, then on Monday I would have "the talk" with my parents. Then, even if it was difficult, I would fly back to Illinois on Tuesday morning, and life would be good.

But it was not to be so. Friday evening, we had the wedding rehearsal and dinner. Our entire extended family on my dad's side gathered in the church building to walk through the events of the next day. I sat up on the stage playing the romantic piano melodies I had prepared, trying not to be too obvious as I looked at the hot friend of the groom who was in the wedding party. Eventually, they came to the point where they were going to discuss the vows and charge to the couple, and all the other non-musical items of the service. So, I decided to step off the stage for a bit and sit next to my mother, who was just watching off to the side.

As we sat there and chatted a bit, my mom asked how things were going at church. Now, if you have read the previous sections of this story, you know that church is a big deal to my family. My parents' primary reason for moving to the place they now live was the church they attend. And they had visited my church in Illinois on a couple occasions and loved it. However, they had no idea that I had been kicked out of the church for being gay and that the pastor had treated me shamefully. So, it was not an unusual question for my mom to ask, but it certainly was undesirable timing.

I tried to delay the answer at first, telling her that that was something I was planning to talk to my dad and her about after the wedding events were completed, and that it was a discussion that would take too long to begin right then. Rather than calming her, though, she became concerned and started pressing me further. So I said that I would explain everything on Monday, but I wasn't planning to attend that church any longer, and I planned to move to Chicago the next month. But I said I didn't think that my cousin's wedding rehearsal was the best time to discuss this.

Now, what happened next is the strongest example I have ever seen of a mother's intuition. Keep in mind that my parents, to this point, did not know of my strong attraction to guys. Even when I was forced to return from Europe (see part 3 of this story), they thought it was because I had violated the missionary agency's pornography policy. But sitting there in that church, my mother turned to me and said, "Are you gay?"

If there is one thing I cannot do well, and which I hate to do in the first place, it is to lie to my mother. When I was in elementary school, I lied to my mother once and said I ate the apple she gave me at lunch when I had actually thrown it away. It bothered me so much that I couldn't sleep that night, and I woke her up in the middle of the night to confess and apologize. I have said many times that, if it were not for her opposition to my sexual orientation, I would have the perfect mother.

So, I said, "Yes, I am gay."

Oops.

I knew that coming out would likely be an emotional experience. I anticipated my parents being upset, but I envisioned it happening in a hotel room where we would have privacy and a discussion about it. I planned on both parents being there, because they do a good job of keeping each other calm in strained situations. But I never planned for this.

For a moment, my mother went silent. Her jaw was very tight, a look I had seen before when she was very upset. Her eyes started to appear moist. Then, attracting a lot of attention from our entire family standing around the church sanctuary, she stood up quickly and left the room. Hoping to calm her down, I followed her outside and tried to talk to her.

What happened next was a couple hours of pure emotion coming from my mother. She was crying almost the whole time, trying to convince me I wasn't gay, that I shouldn't move to Chicago, that I was going to ruin my life. She was so upset that, within a few minutes of each other, she made both of the following statements:

• "You will die of AIDS before you are 30."
• "You will grow up to be a lonely old man."

The two of us missed the remainder of the wedding rehearsal and the entire dinner. And even worse, we were in the corridor between the church building and the dining hall where the dinner was held, so all of our family members walked past us seeing my mother crying and our intense discussion.

The following couple months were pretty rough between me and my parents. I moved to Chicgao in October, by which time I was often not answering their calls because I couldn't handle the crying (of both parents) and pressure all the time. Finally, in the early part of November, my mom asked me if I was going to be with them for Thanksgiving. I told her that, if the trip was just going to be four days of them trying to convince me not to be gay, I could not handle that. A couple days later, my dad called, and I saw the first very small step my parents took toward calming down. My dad told me that he knew they had made it very clear what they thought about my sexuality, and their opinion had not changed. However, he said that, more importantly, I am their son whom they love, and they would not bring up the subject again.

Thanksgiving was very tense and uncomfortable, but they kept their word. Then Christmas was slightly better, and each visit afterward has improved. Three years later, I have seen my parents make amazing steps that I never would have imagined. They still hold to their belief that gay sex is sinful, but they are much less dogmatic about so many other things. They no longer believe I "chose" to be gay or that I am gay because they were bad parents. They realize that I'm not out on the weekends participating in S&M drag gangbang orgies. They don't make my "sin" to be somehow a big sin worse than all others. They have met a number of my gay friends and are thoughtful in their comments about issues that we discuss. And they have kept their word and have not gotten on my case about it ever since.

After moving to Chicago, I did not attend church for nearly a year, but then I found a church that seemed to have a good balance. As time has progressed, I have found it to be a very welcoming church and actually look forward to services there. I know I'm in the minority when it comes to gay guys and religion, and I must say I find it very hard to be critical of gay guys who want nothing to do with religion, because it seems most religions don't want anything to do with us. But for myself, I have found it to be a source of encouragement and stability, and hopefully people can see in me someone who is working on a balance in faith and sexuality, someone who takes my faith seriously but doesn't take myself too seriously. And most of all, that I will be a person of faith but never of judgment. I think that church should be a place where people go because we realize we are not perfect, not because we think we are. My attending church is a statement that I know I have things to improve on, not a statement that others are worse than me. Perhaps if more church people understood that, we would have less antipathy between the gay and religious communities.

As for me, I'm probably still a little messed up in the head. My friends could vouch for that. But coming out was the first of many important steps that I have taken to be real and who I need to be. It's still a process, for sure, but I am at a point where I can honestly say I hold no anger toward those who have wronged me in the past, nor do their opinions and judgments hold me back from being myself. Hopefully, I will continue to live in a way that will show the critics that stereotypes are distortions of reality, and a gay man can indeed be someone who is kind, self-disciplined, and someone worth calling a friend.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Four

Note: If you have not already done so, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of my coming-out story so this part will make sense a bit more.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Four: Personal Exposure

When I returned to the States from my abbreviated time in Europe (see earlier posts for context), I bounced around aimlessly for a bit before finally landing in northwestern Illinois in May 2003. It was that month when I would finally begin to make choices that would help me to move in a new direction away from the cycle of frustration I had been in for so many years. I would indeed begin a new life. But, as with any new life, there is inevitably some birthing pain.

When I moved into my new Midwestern apartment, I did two things almost immediately. First, I found a new church to attend. Call it force of habit or whatever you will, but I had attended church my entire life, and the thought still had not occurred to me that not attending church could ever be an option. Instead of being an active participant in a pastoral role, however, I took much more of a spectator's position in the new church, not really wanting to attract any more attention to myself. And second, I decided I really needed to figure out this whole "gay thing" through some method other than by going to church people for advice or by just ignoring it and hoping it would go away.

The problem was, I had no idea how to meet gay people. I was two months away from my 28th birthday, and I was still one of the most sheltered people you would ever meet. I had never knowingly associated with another gay person. I had never entered a bar of any kind (much less a gay one) except once in Wisconsin to call for assistance when my car broke down in a blizzard. I had never danced. I had never tasted alcohol, smoked a cigarette, or done drugs. And yes, I was a virgin (to all sex, straight or gay-- I never even had a romantic kiss!).

Fortunately, technology was advancing quite nicely by this point, and I remembered something I had observed when checking my e-mail on Yahoo. I saw this fascinating site called Yahoo Personals, in which you could say whether you were a "Man seeking a Woman" or a "Woman seeking a Man." But, amazingly enough, you could actually change the option to be "Man seeking a Man." Simultaneously terrified and aroused, I went to the site and, for the first time ever, saw personal ads for gay men.

I looked at the ads and pictures for a week or so, and finally, I worked up the courage to reply to one. Looking back, I am amazed at my good fortune in that first tentative contact. Any of us who have been on an online dating site know that, when you are contacted by someone with no picture posted (which was the case with me, as I was terrified someone I knew would find out I was on a gay site), more often than not, the person is ignored. But the guy that I e-mailed actually responded. He was a handsome college student, just a couple years younger than me, and he was at a university about 45 minutes from where I was living. And, to show you how blessed I was to meet this particular guy, a quick fast-forward to today, November 2006, finds that that same guy is one of my dearest friends and lives just a few doors down the street from me here in Chicago, nearly two hours from where I was living when I first e-mailed him!

When my friend responded to my e-mail greeting, I explained to him a bit of my situation, that I was completely new to all of this and absolutely terrified (I think I worded it as "kinda nervous"). He kindly corresponded back and forth with me several times, but it being May, he was just finishing school and was, in fact, graduating. So, in early June, he moved two hours away to Chicago, before we ever had the chance to meet in person. But, by that point, we decided we did want to meet, and so one day we arraned to have dessert in one of the Chicago suburbs about half the distance between us. I had a great time and was amazed to find a normal, attractive, masculine gay guy who I got along well with! I was thinking that he must be the only one of his kind, and I just got lucky!

That first meeting was followed up only a couple weeks later by the night that would change everything for me. June 27, 2003. Friday night. Pride weekend in Chicago. Exactly one month before my 28th birthday. My new friend invited me to drive into the city and stay at his place. He would then give me a tour of gay Chicago. I had to leave Saturday afternoon for a business trip to Dallas, but I agreed to hang out with him on Friday night and see what it was all about.

Now, try to picture this in your mind. As we left his apartment to head out to the gay clubs of Chicago, I was braced for the most extreme situations I could imagine. Because my exposure to gay people was essentially what I saw on the cover of Focus on the Family magazines, I naturally assumed that my friend and I would be the only two gay guys there who were not dressed in women's clothing, and I was certain that these "gay clubs" would be full of men having sex together. I had never been in any bar or club, so I didn't even have straight clubs to use as a reference point in my mind.

So, when we walked into Spin and Roscoe's and I saw these places full of handsome guys, some of whom even smiled at me, I was completely overwhelmed. I experienced a range of emotions that night that I have felt very seldom to that intensity. It was that same night that I tasted alcohol for the first time, that I was knowingly around more than one gay guy at a time, that I danced for the first time, and that I stayed the night at another gay guy's house for the first time.

It was at some point when I was with my friend on the dance floor at Roscoe's, awkwardly attempting to dance but having no idea how, that I experienced something that probably all of us who have come out have felt at some point. Bonnie Tyler was singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart", a song I had never heard before but knew I instantly loved. And it hit me. For the first time in my life, I was real. This was me. I wasn't suppressing what I knew I felt. I wasn't trying to be what everyone else expected of me just to keep them happy. I was just being who I was. And it was the most freeing, most satisfying, most relieving feeling I had ever had. For a moment, I just closed my eyes, and soaked in the sound and atmosphere, and I knew nothing would ever be the same for me. To this day, when I hear "Total Eclipse of the Heart", I feel a little bit better and smile a bit more.

That weekend began a summer of exploring this new world that had opened up to me. With perhaps only one or two exceptions, I would drive two hours to Chicago every Friday night and go out with my friend, then drive home Saturday evening. I could not have asked for a kinder, more easy-going, more patient friend than he. We got along famously, and he would let me go out and explore on my own, always keeping his door open to me anytime I needed a place to go.

Oh, and I won't kiss and tell and say with whom or when or where, but by the end of the summer, I wasn't a virgin anymore. And I found out I am a big fan of kissing.

Summer began to wind down, and near the end of August, I concluded that I needed to be honest about who I was with the people in my life. The very first person that I came out to was my roommate, a very hot straight guy. If all my other conversations went as well as that, I would have been the luckiest guy ever. My roommate could not have been more supportive. I think he knew the difficult times that were going to be on my path soon, because he went out of his way to make me comfortable and to let me know I could be real around him. He knew that I thought he was hot, and I think he loved the attention. The first time I met his girlfriend was when I arrived home to find the two of them making out on the couch in the living room. My roommate introduced me to his girlfriend and then told her, "Eukolos wishes it was he who was on the couch making out with me!" He would walk around the house after a shower wearing only his towel and say, "Eukolos, I bet you wish this towel would fall off, don't you?"

The next situation, however, did not go as well. I knew that, if I was going to be real and stop faking, I would have to change churches, because the church I was attending took a very clear stance against homosexuality. However, I naively hoped that I could leave quietly, explaining to the pastor that I appreciated his kindness to me, but that I needed to move on. Well, after writing a very kind, non-judgmental letter to the pastor, he completely freaked out, and as I mentioned in part 3 of this story, he told me he was going to pray that God would kill me, then he kicked me out of the church.

That was the breaking point for me. In a short time, I had seen unconditional acceptance and kindness from my gay friend in Chicago (and a growing number of other gay guys I was meeting there), but then I had seen flat-out mean-spirited and angry responses from church people. I figured that, since every church experience when I was real about my sexuality had been so bad, I no longer wanted anything to do with church. So in September 2003, for the first time in my 28 years of life, I stopped attending church. And I decided to move to Chicago.

By the end of August, I knew the inevitable could not be postponed much longer. I needed to tell my family. And it happened that our entire family would be gathering in Los Angeles in mid-September for my cousin's wedding. So, since it was only a couple weeks out and my parents and brother and I were going to stay a few days after the wedding, I thought that would be an ideal opportunity to explain things to them.

Well, once again I am a bit long-winded. If I have not built up enough anticipation for this next part of the story yet, I don't know what will. But to do this justice, I will have to extend the story a bit further into another post, which I will attempt to write quickly.

However, if your patience will indulge me a bit further today, let me conclude this post by sharing something that has been foundational in my life ever since 2003.

On September 10, 2004, I got my first tattoo. For many years I had been fascinated with tattoos, and in recent years that fascination had grown into an interest in getting one myself. However, after having observed many tattoos, I determined that, were I ever to get one, it would have to be very meaningful and significant to me, something that I won’t mind having on my body when I’m in my 70's. As cool as I might think it would be to have the Tazmanian Devil on my forearm in my mid-20's, I knew he wasn’t going to make the cut.

As I explained in this post, major life experiences culminated in September 2003, resulting in my moving to Chicago, Illinois, and beginning a new chapter in my life. During the following year, a number of lessons started to gel in my head that would become guiding principles for me in the days to come. At their core, these lessons were about kindness. Beginning early in 2002 and continuing through the fall of 2003, as I grew in my determination to resolve the issues concerning my sexuality and my faith, I saw extremes both of kindness and unkindness. Sadly, much of the unkindness came from those with whom I often aligned in my faith, but gladly, I saw amazing kindness from those with whom I found common ground in my sexuality. While my pastor (whom I had previously considered to be a close friend) called around to “out” me to people he did not even know and told me he would pray for God to kill me, some of my new gay friends surrounded me with kindness and showed me unconditional acceptance at a time when I desperately needed friends. In particular, two or three of my friends in Chicago, all of whom are Asian incidentally (perhaps signs of an incipient rice queen tendency?), helped me make it through that very difficult time in my life.

So, in September of 2004, I decided to get a tattoo to represent and remind me of the lessons I had been learning and the principles to which I would hopefully adhere as I continued on my journey.



I wanted every aspect of the tattoo “experience” to be significant. First, the timing of getting the tattoo was almost exactly one year to the day from when I had come out to my immediate family. I selected a tattoo that included Chinese characters as a tribute to my Asian friends who had been such an amazing help to me. The characters are the word “kindness” which, translated literally (assuming I have been told correctly), is “good at heart.” In 2004, this became the goal to which I determined to be most dedicated--to be a kind person, someone who indeed strove to be good at heart. The tattoo was both a reminder to me of the hurt that can be caused by unkindness and of the help and hope that can be infused by a kind word or action.

In addition to the characters, I included a small rabbit. This was partially a continued tribute to my Asian friends, as I was born in the Chinese year of the rabbit. But also, the rabbit is a symbol of kindness in some Asian cultures, so it seemed to fit with the theme of the tattoo. The location of the tattoo is over my heart, to illustrate to others (and to remind myself) that kindness is something that I endeavor to keep close to my heart.

More than two years later now, I can say that the tattoo has accomplished a good purpose in my own life. Because of its location, I see it every day as I get dressed, and although it may not always be a conscious thought, it is at least a subconscious reminder to me that I should strive to be a kind person. And, although I know I fail more often than I care to admit, I have been encouraged to see that, many times, my natural reaction to a difficult situation (one in which many would tell me to react in anger or to write someone off), is an almost-instinctive urge to show kindness. I say this fully aware that I have far to go before I could consider myself to be a wholly-kind person. But I hope that someday, as I continue this journey, people will be able to look back at my life and see acts of kindness scattered along the way.

Well, stay tuned shortly for what will hopefully be the last part in this story that is beginning to make Tolstoy jealous for length.

Today's Holiday:

• Travelers with Disabilities Week (Nov 26 - Dec 3)
  

My Coming-Out Story, Part Three

Note: If you have not already done so, be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 of my coming-out story so this part will make sense a bit more.

My Coming-Out Story, Part Three: The 28-Year-Old Virgin

The fall of 1993 found me at a compound college campus in northern Wisconsin, about 30 minutes from Iron Mountain, Michigan (which had the closest McDonald's). I make the "compound" reference in good humor, because it was what many thought of the college I attended. What else would explain this large campus in the north woods in a town of about 1,000 people? You may wonder why I ended up at this school, so I shall give a bit of background.

My parents both attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. For those who may not be familiar with that school, it is the place where George W. Bush spoke during the 2000 election campaign which caused great controversy because of their policy prohibiting interracial dating (and what about someone who is from a multi-ethnic heritage? they had to state their preference for which ethnicity they wished to date upon arrival and stick with it through their schooling). It is also a campus that does not allow gay people to enter (with the exception of visiting their sacred art gallery, which is admittedly quite impressive).

When it came time for me to choose a college, my parents wanted me to attend BJU. I knew that there was no way I would attend that school, so I begged them for another option (since they were threatening to give me no support whatsoever if I went somewhere they did not approve). After much cajoling, I convinced them to allow me to attend the Baptist Bible College in northern Wisconsin. The president of the college and much of the faculty were Bob Jones graduates, but they seemed to have left some of the goofier extremes behind (i.e. - no interracial dating prohibition). Still, it was very very conservative and definitely not a place where a gay person would feel welcome.

This was not a problem for me, I thought. Because, as an idealistic college freshman, I was convinced that I would now be able to put these gay feelings behind me and live as the heterosexual I was supposed to be. With these grand intentions, I began to unpack my bags in my new room in the all-male dormitory with community showers.

Yes, it took about 2 minutes for me to realize this gay monster had followed me to college. I mean, you can say a lot about the Baptists, but they have some hot guys! Very quickly, I fell into the cycle of jerking off to thoughts of my dorm-mates and then feeling extremely guilty about it. By the time I reached my sophomore year, I was an emotional mess. Here I was with these intense emotions but terrified to tell anyone about them and convinced I was a horrible person for having them.

It was during my sophomore year that I began a journey that was incredibly difficult but, considering my background and years of mixed-up thinking, a very necessary journey. I will summarize this briefly, lest I make this far too long. On four separate occasions during my second through fourth years of college, I worked up the courage to ask someone for help with my "problem." Remember I was still thinking that I had done something wrong to have this attraction to other guys. I went to the Student Body Vice-President, my dormitory hall leader, the Dean of Men, and the Vice-President for Student Affairs, asking each of them for help. In each case, I was disappointed. The first one prayed a prayer for me and never spoke of it again. The second freaked out and told my boss, causing me to lose a campus job I loved. The third was kind but didn't really want to deal with it, so he quickly pronounced me "cured" and moved on. The last became so uncomfortable around me that he never spoke to me again my entire time at the school.

Now, perhaps here is where you will start to get irritated with me, and perhaps I should have caught on, but I graduated from college still trying to figure out what was wrong with me. In desperation, I decided to go to graduate school, and I earned a masters degree in theology. This was followed by my being ordained as a Baptist preacher and working as a missionary in Africa and Europe for nearly 3 years. I kept thinking that, if I did all the good things I could do, this one bad thing would eventually go away.

So I found myself working as a pastor in Europe, nine years after graduating from high school, never having touched a guy the entire time, but having these overwhelming urges and thoughts constantly. Finally, I hit bottom, or so I thought. I felt that, if I did not get this thing figured out, I could not go on any further. So, going to the head pastor of our church, I told him of my dark secret, hoping that perhaps he would show kindness where others had not. Instead, I was reported to the missionary agency through which I was working, fired that day, and told I would receive nothing further from them. So I was stuck in Europe with no job and no way to get home. With help from family, I finally made it home, where I was publicly rebuked in front of my entire home church. I moved to a new town and attended a new church, but when the pastor there found out I was attracted to men, he told me he would pray that God would kill me and had me kicked out of that church as well.

You might be surprised, after hearing all this, that I am not a church-hating, anti-religious gay man. At some point, I will write about my reasons why I do not hold a grudge against those who treated me wrongly and why I still consider myself to be a person of faith. But I will admit, by the point I was kicked out of that church, I had arrived at a place where I wanted nothing to do with church or anyone related to it.

However, during this turbulent time, something else was happening that turned out to be beautiful and life-saving for me. That, as well as my recounting of coming out to my family, will be in the next part of my ever-expanding, yet always-intriguing coming-out story.

Side Note of Interest: Baptists believe that it is God who ordains someone as a preacher (a calling that is for life) while the church merely recognizes that calling. Thus, I am technically still an ordained Baptist preacher, since, if they are consistent in their theology, those churches would have to admit they have no authority to revoke the ordination. So I can still perform marriage ceremonies and the like. Somehow I don't think I will be invited as a guest speaker at my college's chapel services anytime soon, though.

Today's Holidays:

• World Kindness Week (Nov 7-13)
  
• National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week (Nov 7-13, US)
• Pursuit of Happiness Week (Nov 8-14)
• Kristallnacht Memorial (9-10)
  
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial Day (US)
  
• Return Day
  

My Coming-Out Story, Part Two

My Coming-Out Story, Part Two: Sorta Like a Lesbian Pollyanna

Note: If you have not yet read Part One of my coming out story, I would highly suggest you do so (by clicking here) before continuing. Otherwise, this part will make even less sense than it will for those who have read the first part.

A quick reiteration from the first part of this story.... Lest I appear to have an over-inflated view of the significance of my own coming-out story (since I am dividing it up over the course of four posts and going into extensive background information), allow me to restate that this is the first time I have ever written out my story in a disciplined manner, so I am doing this for my own posterity and will include this in my personal journal. I do hope that you will find it to be entertaining, though, as I share some unique experiences I had.

Part one ended with my ultra-conservative Baptist Republican parents determining that Los Angeles was the Gomorrah to San Francisco's Sodom and deciding to pluck my brother and me from the fire (they didn't notice we were already flaming) and move us to the wholesome, values-driven Midwest.

The way they went about telling us brothers that we were moving from everyone and everything we had known since birth and going to a place where snow fell from the sky was classic. During spring break in 1988, we flew to Chicago to visit some friends who had moved to the northwest suburbs the year before. At least this was the cover story. One day, while my brother and I thought our parents were driving us to lunch, we instead pulled up to a newly-completed house. This, our parents said, was our new home. I kid you not. That was the first inkling we had that we were leaving California. Within a week of our return to California after our "vacation," my dad had flown to Chicago to start a new job, and when school was done a couple months later, the rest of us joined him.

My parents said that the move was to protect us boys from the bad influences of California. Ironically, about a month after we moved to the suburbs of Chicago, I saw a pornographic magazine for the first time. It was a Playgirl magazine, and someone had put it behind the MAD Magazine that I had intended to read. Now, by this time I was in high school and was self-aware enough to realize I felt emotional connections to guys and attraction toward them, but I had never really seen guys naked before. If this sounds unbelievable, remember the first part of my story, that my entire life was centered around the church. The church school I attended frowned upon guys seeing each other unclothed, even in locker rooms, so the few times I saw another guy naked were so fleeting that it didn't register. So, looking at that Playgirl, something clicked in my head that finally made sense. The feelings I felt around guys were physical. And if the mental connection wasn't enough, my body made it very clear, requiring me to quickly hide the porn and buy the MAD Magazine to use as a shield in front of my pants.

Shortly after this, I asked one of my new Chicago friends (who I thought was quite cute) if he had seen guys naked. Turns out that Chicago church people haven't become quite as paranoid, because when I started attending my new church school that fall, I found what my friend told me to be true, that community showering was the norm after Phys Ed class. So there I am, not only just beginning to be aware that I am gay, but also never before having ever been around naked guys, when suddenly my entire class is naked in front of me after getting all hot and sweaty on the soccer field. I thought I would die (and didn't care where I would go). It took almost a month before I could walk into the shower room without a large washcloth strategically placed until I could stand under the coldest water I could tolerate.

Well, the conversation with my cute friend must have caught his attention, because not long later he brought up the subject again. I was so overwhelmed with what was happening, that I honestly do not remember exactly how things developed, but I do know that he and I ended up touching and groping until I came with a guy for the first time. That began ongoing encounters that lasted for nearly 4 years til I graduated from high school. Both of us were so sheltered that we did not know there was even anything to do beyond jerking each other off, but we knew we liked that a lot and did it at every opportunity.

This created a problem. Suddenly, I found myself on the express train to hell. Every time I sneaked away with my friend, I was certain I would drop dead within moments. After all, I was committing the worst possible sin, being gay. I knew there was something horribly wrong with me, but I didn't know what I had done to be this bad of a person. I would daily lie flat on my stomach with my arms outstretched begging for forgiveness and for God to fix me.

If it seems that the answer should have been obvious to me, that I wasn't a person whose evil character brought this judgment of homosexuality upon myself, keep in mind again how sheltered my life had been to that point. All of my life-forming influences had been from my church and parents. My TV-watching was strictly limited, consisting essentially of Little House on the Prairie and Captain Kangaroo. But I had never been confronted before with anything that would make me doubt those influences in my life. After all, the vast majority of what my church and parents taught me was essentially good stuff. It is a worldview that, while sadly blind in certain spots, is overall not a bad system. I was taught respect for others, kindness, honesty, playing fair, being willing to sacrifice my own comfort for the good of others--all things that I try to honor to this day. My parents demonstrated a love for each other that I hope to emulate in any relationship I have--a love that messed up on occasion but admitted fault, asked for forgiveness, and above all, stayed together. Obviously I see the glaring blind spots now, but as a high schooler, all I saw was that my life had been pretty decent compared to others I saw who didn't follow the rules and guidelines I was given.

So I thought the "gay" problem was with me. But, as I finished high school, I thought that going to a Christian college would help me figure out the problem. Surely, this was just a temporary thing, and now that I was going into college, I would find a nice girl who I would be attracted to, and we would have the same perfect life my parents seemed to have. I said goodbye to my jerk-off buddy on graduation day, and I never saw him again. The next fall, I left for school with a determination that I would never do such a thing with a guy again. And, for 10 years, I never did.

But that will be explained in Part Three of my coming-out story. Click here to read.

Today's Holidays:

• National Traffic Directors' Day (USA)
• Plan Your Epitaph Day
• National Men Make Dinner Day (USA)
  

National Coming-Out Day

We here in America have a bit of an obsession with creating special observance days for just about everything you can imagine. These observances can range from the significant (yesterday was World Mental Health Day) to the humorous (Monday was National Kick Butt Day) to the bizarre (this coming Saturday is Be Bald and Free Day). Today is a day of several notable observances. For example, today is Emergency Nurses Day, so be sure to thank a nurse you know. Today is also the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction, but the parade was canceled due to unexpected meteor showers. Finally, as I am sure many of you know, today is also National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work and School Day (seriously...I promise I'm not making this stuff up!).

But probably most significantly to me and many of the readers of this blog, today is National Coming Out Day. So, since I've already come out, and since I have never taken the time to write this out before, I figured I would begin to share my own coming-out story. I think it is probably unique enough to provide a bit of entertainment, for though I was smart enough not to come out to my parents while one of them was driving the car, the circumstances were yet far from ideal.

Now, I understand that blog posts ought not be too long, but I do want to take the time to write out the story thoroughly, so this will be the first of a few installments of my story that I will post in the next few weeks. Perhaps that will make the story more "bite-size" and thus possibly people will even read it! So, fasten your seatbelts, and prepare to be mildly amused.

My Coming-Out Story, Part One: Not Yet Old Enough to be a Congressional Page

Imagine a family whose roots are all from the South as far back as we can trace. Then add the fact that 3 of my 4 grandparents and my step-grandfather all served in the military during World War II. Finally, note that while I was growing up, my family attended (at least 3 times a week) a self-proclaimed "fundamental independent Baptist" church (1611 King James Bible-Only, naturally). By now, you have probably drawn the conclusion that my family was pretty much the Cleavers of the red states (is it mere coincidence that my mother's name is Donna Reed? I think not!). About the only time I ever saw my dad more upset than when I came out to him was when I said I thought Bill Clinton was a good president.

Yet somehow, this family that bled Republican red ended up in a very blue state, and that is why I was born in Los Angeles, California. From nine months before my birth, I was in church constantly. The church we attended, while not quite to the point of referring to their property as a "compound," did have a locked fence surrounding the entire grounds. It was in this nurturing environment that I began to learn how things were "supposed to be" in the world.

Now, it may be difficult for some of you to relate to my experience growing up. While being slightly facetious about the "compound" reference earlier, the church I attended did indeed share some characteristics of such a place. Though it would be a stretch to call it a cult, some things that happened there were borderline cult-ish. For example, nearly every aspect of my life (be it education, religion, social, or political) was centered around our church. I attended the church school (where my mother was a high school teacher), so my schoolmates were primarily from the church, and all our classes were infused with the church's view of the world. Even my friends in my neighborhood were mostly kids from my church who lived nearby. We watched very little television, NEVER attended movies in a theater (gasp! for shame!), and generally had very little to confront us with anything other than what we heard from our pastor at church (helpful things, like denim was evil, music with drums in it was from the devil, and everyone who did not use the King James Bible like we did was going to hell).

To give you an idea of how sheltered I was, I had absolutely zero awareness of the existence of sex until my dad sat me down and had the classic "birds and bees" talk with me when I was 12 years old. I did not even know at that point that girls and boys had different equipment (my only sibling was my younger brother). The only reason I found out then was because my penis had started to get hard on occasion, but I was so completely un-self-conscious that I didn't notice, and it was causing some embarrassment for my parents. So my dad figured it was time for "the talk."

So, especially as a younger child and into my teen years, because I was so isolated from the reality of the world, I had no reason whatsoever to question what I was being taught (because nobody and nothing in my life contradicted it). Thus, I accepted as truth what my church said concerning homosexuality. As my pastor explained, homosexuality is caused by one of two things (again, I promise I'm not making this stuff up!)....

• The first way a man becomes a homosexual is by being sexually molested as a child. This may cause him to become gay when he was not before.
• The second way a man becomes a homosexual is through prolonged exposure to pornography. You see, the first time a guy looks at straight porn, it is very exciting for him. However, over time, he needs more and more variety and extremes to arouse him. Eventually, women just don't do it for him anymore, and his only option is to look at pictures of men. And thus he becomes gay.

Confusing to me at the time, this teaching revealed to me the first-ever crack in my pseudo-idyllic existence. I was never molested and I had never seen pornography of any kind, but as early as the third grade at age 9, I felt an attraction to other boys that I did not feel toward girls. It was nothing sexual at that point, for I was still three years away from even knowing what sex was and several years away from comprehending that gay guys put it where????? But I knew that my best friend Marc was someone I felt good being around, in a different way than others. Looking back, in spite of the warped circumstances, I can kinda smile at the innocence of those incipient attractions I was experiencing.

Well, my parents, ever vigilant against things that might corrupt their sons, soon became concerned that the warm weather of southern California would force us to gaze upon the muscular torsos of young, blond surfers guys, with their perfectly-shaped biceps and their ripped, six-pack abs cascading down to the little trail of hair that vanished beneath their swimming trunks, drawing our attention to the beautifully-shaped bulge beneath their.....oh, sorry, got distracted for a moment....

Anyway, the best way to avoid naked people is to move somewhere cold, and thus the decision was made by my father (and submitted to by my mother, as was her place according to our church) that we would move to the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

And that part of the story, my friends, will be told in Part Two. Click here to read.

And finally, for those who just came here for the pictures....

Day 7 - National Suicide Awareness Week

*Note: I have been writing posts each day this week with information that I hope will be helpful concerning the problem of suicide. If you have not already done so, please read my initial introductory post on the topic for my background and a way that you can participate in helping to address this awful problem that devastates so many lives.

Also, if anyone reading this has his or her own blog, I would be grateful if you might be willing to do a post sometime this week mentioning the week (feel free to link to my blog if you want). Most people don't think of suicide beyond the occasional publicized celebrity death, but when it happens to someone you love, you too would wish more was being done to help those who fall into such deep despair. A post this week can be a small step in helping with that cause.

The focus of my posts throughout this week has been primarily on resources to help those who have lost someone they love to suicide. This is understandable since that is where I have come from in recent months. And I did this intentionally, because that has often been an overlooked aspect of the topic of suicide.

But it seems appropriate to close out the week with a post on the problem of suicide itself. Suicide is one of those topics that is not talked about in "polite" company. The stigma surrounding suicide is deep and long-established. Religions have considered suicide to be an unforgiveable sin. Socially, people often assume that suicide can only happen in the "messed up" families, that a suicide likely indicates parental or spousal failing. The person who has lost someone to suicide becomes a modern-day Hester Prynne, wearing a nearly-visible "S" on his or her clothing, always identified as "the one whose [relation] committed suicide."

But the problem of suicide is too large and too devastating for this stigma to continue. Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States, fourth for those between the ages of 18 and 65. Every 18 minutes someone in the United States completes suicide, and it is estimated that suicide attempts are made once every minute (in reality, the number of suicide deaths is probably far higher than the 30,000 or so confirmed, because many suicides are ruled accidental due to indeterminate situations....i.e. - was it a suicide or a legitimate accident with a gun?). And every one of those suicides leaves a trail of broken hearts and lives of those who are left behind.

I love the symbolism of the AFSP's fundraising walk, the Out of the Darkness Overnight, where those participating walk 20 miles through the night, ending the walk as the sun rises the next morning. It is a beautiful symbol of hope and healing for those in the "darkness" of the pain of losing someone to suicide. But it also is a bold statement that this topic, which has been kept in the shadows for too long, needs to be discussed openly, honestly, and frequently.

I think this quote is excellent: "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain." This is an excellent summary of a pretty complex topic, but it covers the two main aspects of the problem. To reduce the occurrences of suicide, we as a society need to help to (1) reduce the pain and/or (2) increase the coping resources.

Happily, many in the medical professions and in politics have begun to see the need to find answers to this problem. The resources today are greater than they have ever before been in history. 24-hour, free-of-charge help is readily available to anyone dealing with suicidal thoughts, from such sources as crisis hotlines like 1-800-SUICIDE. Constant, well-funded, ongoing research continues to identify those at greatest risk and develop strategies for helping those who are facing deep pain and hoplessness.

What causes passion? What issues or topics arouse something within you that prompts you to action? Generally, we don't just randomly select something to which we want to dedicate ourselves and our time; rather, we are confronted through mean of a person, an event, a story, or an experience which so affects us that we are moved to do something about the need we see. So I understand that many who read this will not feel the passion that I do, since I have seen firsthand the devastation caused by suicide. But perhaps hearing my story would encourage someone to put a bit of effort into educating yourself on the topic and contributing to its solution. Perhaps doing that may even help someoone to avoid the devastation altogether.

So, for anyone who may be interested, here are some good starting points on the internet for learning about suicide and how you can be involved in helping address this problem and identifying warning signs for those you love and care for:

• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
• American Association of Suicidology
• Befrienders Worldwide - I appreciate that they recognize the increased risk of suicide among gay and lesbian people. That's a subject I hope to investigate further in the days to come.
• Hopeline (1-800-SUICIDE)
• Samaritans
• SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education)

This is the final day of the National Suicide Awareness Week, but I hope that perhaps you will think about this topic in the days to come and ask yourself what you can do to be a part of the solution. There are many worthy causes competing for attention and resources, and I am not trying to say this is a cause that surpasses all others in importance. But I can say with confidence that it is a cause that is worth your time and effort and in which even a small effort can mean the difference in the life of someone in despair.

Day 3 - National Suicide Awareness Week

*Note: I am going to try to do posts each day this week (no promises) with information that I hope will be helpful concerning the problem of suicide. If you have not already done so, please read my initial introductory post on the topic for my background and a way that you can participate in helping to address this awful problem that devastates so many lives.

Also, if anyone reading this has his or her own blog, I would be grateful if you might be willing to do a post sometime this week mentioning the week (feel free to link to my blog if you want). Most people don't think of suicide beyond the occasional publicized celebrity death, but when it happens to someone you love, you too would wish more was being done to help those who fall into such deep despair. A post this week can be a small step in helping with that cause.

I am going to do one more post here concerning a book that I have read on the topic of dealing with the suicide of a loved one. There are many books and articles I have read, but this book and the book I mentioned two days ago are the ones I have found most helpful.

Both books offer very good and very helpful advice for those who have found themselves in the depths of this trial, but as a person whose faith is very important to me, I felt the one area the first book lacked was a bold and honest look at the difficult questions that come up for those who believe in a God that we say is good and loving when something tragic such as this happens. The first book is admittedly written to a very broad audience and does an admirable job of offering hope to both religious and secular alike. But because its stated audience is different, it very naturally is more delicate in its approach to religious topics.

Finding Your Way After the Suicide of Someone You Love by David Biebel and Suzanne Foster, on the other hand, is straightforward about the fact that it is written to an audience that holds to a faith in a God as generally defined by the teachings of the Bible. So, if that is not your background, this book may not be as palatable to you, though I think the tenderness and compassion with which the book was written would be appreciated by all.

But suicide does, for those who are people of faith, bring up some very difficult questions that cannot be answered by a pat on the back and some trite religious catchphrases. And, Biebel and Foster handle this in a real way, without glossing over the intense emotions and anger that can very naturally arise within the heart of someone who goes through this seemingly senseless devastation. Thus, I believe this book is essential first reading for a person in grief who is searching for how tragedy can co-exist with the belief in a God who loves those in pain.

Mandisa Speaks to The Advocate

Since Mandisa was eliminated this week, I have lost nearly all interest in watching American Idol for the rest of the season, though I am sure I will continue watching simply out of habit. I'm sick of a music competition where the people who make it through are progressing more because of their good looks or blonde personality than for actual musical ability. Maybe that's why I like classical music so much....it's music for ugly people!

Anyway, Mandisa was, in my opinion, the most polished, able, and dead-on musician in the competition. Unlike "Didn't you sing that same song last week" Chris (who I would vote for if this was Boy Meets Boy, but not for his limited stylistic range of music), she could take on any style, any genre, and make it shine. She didn't have to change the song to make it fit one area of comfort, because she was comfortable in all the areas. But, because she has a big butt, and perhaps because she speaks up about her religious beliefs, she gets eliminated.

So, speaking of her religious beliefs, she has taken some heat for comments she made on the American Idol website concerning her appreciation for some author who has made anti-gay comments. Frankly, I never even heard about this "controversy" until today, so I'm not sure how big the controversy actually was, but I read the interview she (I must say bravely) gave to The Advocate today, and I have to say, I am frankly impressed with her.

If all those who held religious beliefs were to act as she does, there would be far less antipathy between the gay and religious communities. Speaking as someone who does find value in my personal faith, I long for more Mandisa's in churches in America. Because, realistically, I know that many religious people will never approve of homosexuality, but those whose faith (particularly speaking of the evangelical/Protestant faith of my background) is truly authentic would live in love and without judgment toward the gay community. They would state their disagreement then go to dinner with their gay friends, their differences understood but not interfering with their care and love for each other. It's a great interview from a lady who seems truly to be humble, firm in her beliefs, yet treating others with respect and dignity even when they do not agree with her.