Been Busy

Our boys recently had another belt promotion in their martial arts class. They are now "High-Yellows".

Brian, he may not yell the loudest or punch the hardest but he's all about the discipline and much more concerned for the technique:
So serious about it, he eagerly memorizes the forms and is almost too into the "discipline and self-control, Sir!", "courtesy and respect, Sir!" aspect of it. Each morning he hurries to do his list of chores to get check marks, which then go to gaining him stripes for his belt (His parents like that part of karate the best ;-)).

But, Alan, on the other hand, is about the power. He throws wild punches and swings his nunchucks like a furious little blender. Look at that face:

These twin sons we orbit give off such different light. But light is light and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's striking, when you think about it, how much revolves around your children. I'm sure every parent sees this. These boys practically own the hearts of many people beyond their parents. We were there at the belt promotion with the biggest cheering section of any student, from both sets of grandparents to a great aunt. It's unfortunate so many look at offering legal rights and responsibilities to our homes as just a gay issue, but that interdependence in so many lives makes defending what we have all the more important.

Then, of course, as anyone following this blog for years would know, Easter is a big holiday for our family. Rob and I are responsible for the activities. We hide hundreds of eggs:

Some of the eggs have prize tickets they can use on toys.
That stuffed animal dog Alan has there is named Pico Gwuasala, and he's Mexican, or so I'm told.

For the older kids I usually do some sort of word puzzle for the prized golden egg, but this year and after much complaining that my puzzles were too tough (e.g.), we did a survivor sort of thing, starting with a peep-elbow race:
They then played marbles with eggs (which is much more difficult than it sounds):
We also did a sudoku relay race (which was more fun than it sounds :-)), and in the final trial the three left standing were given a sack of materials to be built into protection for an egg dropped from the roof. Anyway, it was a great party.

Then, on Sunday, we had brunch with those closest to us:
It's funny, I know, for a gay man or any man for that matter, that I've been very lucky, blessed in the area of family, and weeks like this week really drive that point home. That's what makes the decisions that have to be made this summer so difficult, stressing. If only we were surrounded by homophobic jerks ;-).

Good Times

For each year of our boy's life, and even through the process of becoming parents, I've gathered all our many pictures and videos and put them to music on dvd. I swear they must be the most photographed children in history; it would probably take a good 6 hours to watch all those dvds.

Yesterday they were off with their grandparents and so I decided to start on the 6 to 7 year video. A couple days ago Brian told me this song was his "favorite song ever, because it's Icelandic" :-):



Which is cool, because I like the song too. So I started out with that and then looked to add our pictures. I found that the first photos from that month just happened to be from our legal marriage in California, last August.

Remember that? How nice that was before we knew how the story would progress?

This year will forever begin in our family record with that wonderful weekend.

It made me laugh, looking over those photos again. What a great couple of days; it seemed like we'd finally made it over the hill and time would quickly take care of the rest. We were actually in a place where, if something happened to me, I knew my family would be treated as family should be treated. Sure, it wasn't the whole load off, but it was some relief, and I felt I could let down my guard.

And it didn't end there. What a great month: married in Ca, helped my cousin with her art exhibit in Helper, attended a nephew-in-law's wedding in Moab, and had our huge family reunion in Sun Valley. It was a near perfect month, made all the better by the fact that I knew my husband and kids had this added bit of legal protection.

I'll put the video of August I have below, though you'll have to imagine in the song (Not yet in my life have I violated copyright law, and I'm kind of hoping to avoid it just to see if I can :-)).



Anyway, that's what I want to get back to. I finished putting this video together from our August marriage to our February Hawaii trip and it really put what has happened this year into condensed perspective; each snap shot fading in and out in seconds jogs the memory of weeks.

I watched this video as it makes it to November and past, and read those two posts after Proposition 8 won (or, heck, most of my posts since) and can see this sense of being pathetically unable to protect my family take hold in me, and I feel I'm just now getting a hold on it, even though I naively thought it'd be a matter of days back on November 5th. So, yeah, thank you for your patience :-). It's taken too long but I will reassemble an optimistic sense of fairness, my sense of the public's standards of evidence, and my sense of what to expect from strangers. I'll reassemble where I was 8 months ago.

If Ca doesn't decide soon, maybe we should just head off to Iowa; speed up the process :-).

Proclamation

Last Sunday we were invited to my nephew's mission homecoming. While several of my siblings' families have had sons return from missions, I think this may have been the first we were personally invited to by the parents. To be clear, I don't think we were not invited to other such events out of hostility. I imagine LDS church functions are a difficult subject for some family to bring up, even if we see eye to eye, and so they assume we'd prefer not to come or that we'd just hear about it through my parents and decide to come or not. Heck, things get lost in the mail and as phone messages too. Point is, the specific personal invitation made me feel we should go to this.

Going, though, presents a problem for us too. While I want to celebrate my nephew's return, there's the whole issue of a church that threw the first stone, one that teaches that my family is inferior, fights hard to politically harm the people I love most, and even tells its members our children are defective and questions their moral character... I can't celebrate my nephew's conversion of people to that way of thinking, any more than a mixed race family could celebrate the same back in the 60's when the LDS church was aiming at them. I also can't feel right taking my children into a church building and telling them to show respect to a place in which they and their family are slandered and plotted against.

I wish things were as they were when I came out and there wasn't this whole history of LDS involvement in Proposition 8, or Amendment 3, or on and on. Back then, going to a LDS church building would not have felt such like a betrayal to my home. I can take sitting though doctrine which I don't buy, but when that doctrine has aimed to do such harm to us, how can I take my family there, right? How could I risk my kids hearing something like what was heard at my sister's wedding?

So, it's another tricky family/faith decision. We ended up with a good compromise, though. We made the two-hour drive two-hours late, missing the church service, and meeting up to celebrate with my family back at my brother's home.

One thing, however... I walked into my brother's home and noticed he had framed and hung the "proclamation on the family" in his kitchen. He's in a new home, but I never noticed this in his old home. I suppose he must have it up, being the bishop, or maybe he agrees with it wholeheartedly now. Maybe he interprets it unconventionally as innocuous when it comes to his brother's family, as some around these parts have suggested.

I don't know; I was under the impression he was all for equal rights. As with that wedding, I wasn't about to make an issue of it there, though. All I know is that that "proclamation", with all its subtle and not-so-subtle language, has been often used as a weapon by church leaders and laymen alike against my family. It has been used to try to excuse harm to those I love most and to insult my children and my marriage on both real and supernatural scales. And it's framed and it's hanging in my brother's home.

I have to wonder how they'd react if I hung a proclamation in my home that states the unions of my siblings are inferior, threatening them that they will be "accountable to God" for violating "the family". What if I framed a paper and hung it in my kitchen, for them and their children to see, that encouraged governments to resist support of LDS marriages and families? I would, of course, never do that. I, of course, love and respect their families, but would they even come to my home, if I were similarly "pro-family"?

I'd like to think it's all unintentional. Who knows?

But, yeah. I'm not whining about anything new here. It's difficult. It's complicated. For all. Et cetera...

To be clear, I'm not saying I'll refuse to go to my siblings' homes and risk alienating family that has no ill intent because of such displays; we'll just be there feeling we are merely tolerated, which may, in fact, be part of the message intended by those encouraging LDS members to display such a thing. Also, yes, I know it could be a lot worse, and I know it is for many gay men and women.

It would just be nice to go without the wedges that strangers in the LDS HQ push down into my family with these "pro-family" proclamations from on high. It would be nice to just have the simplicity of typical family differences ;-).

Wedding Crasher

Well, it didn’t take long for trouble to find me back here in Utah.

I did not sleep all night on the red-eye flight back from Hawaii, and my sister was getting married the day we got home. By the time I had to be there for pictures I was in that fuzzy sleep-deprived state that I remember from our boys’ infancy. Which is fine; the twins taught me I can go months in that state :-), and I was happy to be there.

All my brothers and sisters were there and it was nice to see them outside the usual holidays; we met up in the mezzanine of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. My sister, the bride, was to be married there and not in the temple as her first husband died long ago. That building holds very fond memories for my family. As a kid we used to go there for dinner every Christmas Eve, back when the LDS church ran it as a hotel (with a big bar and all :-)). I would come to find, however, I don’t much feel welcome there anymore.

She looked beautiful, and, as I always do at weddings, I got caught up in the emotion of it as our dad walked her down the isle. But then everything went downhill. The LDS Bishop, literally in his first sentence, started out by going off on marriage for gay couples . He said that the institution of marriage was under attack, and “the family” was being “mocked”, but look how lucky his audience is to know the value of a real marriage. He read from the President of the LDS church, quoting that marriage between a man and a woman is the only union that’s ordained by his God, and I’m fine with him thinking that, but he went on to say how only that union contributes to society and only that union raises healthy children. The guy was disparaging our children, and my marriage, and as a matter of course in his wedding ceremony for my sister. Furthermore, this sister has a newly out gay child, who I could see tense up as the man spoke.

I'm left wondering if this is part of other LDS Bishops' marriage ceremonies?

I actually considered I might be dreaming, being so tired and out of sorts (who'd do that while performing a wedding, right?) but a hand on my leg by another sister brought me back to knowing this was an actual event. She, a very faithful LDS woman too, leaned over and whispered she loved me and my family and that she believed my family matters too. She wanted me to know the Bishop wasn’t speaking for her. Just then I noticed my mom, a couple seats away. I heard her voice and looked over. She was visibly upset, and I could hear her voicing her objections to our dad. It sure did feel like a dream.

I tried to get back into the spirit of things as the Bishop finally got away from political attack to the actual ceremony. This was my sister's wedding and I knew where she stood and I'd not let this jerk get in the way. Funny thing is he actually gave some of the same advice I do. Then we all cheered as the couple was presented and the bride was kissed. But I knew that was not the end of it.

As the crowd dispersed, I decided my sister's wedding day was not the time to get into a political argument with her bishop. I just hoped she was too nervous to notice what he said. However, I know my dad as well as anyone, and I knew he was going to come to a different conclusion. I searched him out in the dispersing crowd, to head him off. I've had to get between him and anti-gay advocates before. I’m grateful to have such an advocate and friend in my father, but I asked him to not make an apparent issue of this at the wedding and he agreed he’d only take the Bishop aside quietly. That he did, and it was a good thing it was done in a quiet corner of the room, as the Bishop said worse and made it clear he wasn’t misheard or misunderstood.

As they were at it, an in-law came up and apologized for the Bishop, and I realized everyone probably felt the hostility in the man; it wasn't just my close family. Worse, as I went up to give the bride a congratulatory hug, she apologized as well and said she was thinking of us through the ceremony because of the guy’s words. That’s what burned off my dreamy haze and finally got to my temper. I’m so used to such “loving” assault on my family from the LDS church that I took it as just another arrow from just another sanctimonious stranger… but to think this worry had to be brought into my sister’s mind during her wedding, when she should have been thinking of her union and the importance of the ceremony. That’s just horrible; real pro-family and pro-marriage of the guy, right?

Of course, some family didn’t acknowledge any of that. I bet some agreed with that Bishop, maybe not with all the legal ramifications of their church’s position but with the spiritual superiority of their family over their brother’s, at least. They were off socializing together, probably thinking it unfortunate we had to hear the tough love “truth”, but that it was good for us? It doesn't really matter.

In the crowd I eventually ran into my mom and she gave me a hug and I could see she had been crying. I was glad to see it wasn’t just for me as I’d hope she knows I can and do take far far worse than that :-). She was with her gay grandchild and was upset about us both sitting through that. I told her not to worry about me, but I know, as a parent myself, that’s kind of useless. Regardless, gay relatives and supporters eventually coalesced at our table, and we enjoyed the company and the rest of the evening. But the wedge in our family was palpable.

I often defend my LDS family against non-LDS family, even before I came out and even as an agnostic. It’s how they make it through the day and how they feel significant and secure in the world and their hoped-for world to come. I remember what it’s like and if they enjoy thinking obeying some organization during their brief time here will lead them to being immortal gods and goddesses, why should anyone pull threads from that sweater? But when those beliefs become attached to others that hurt and demean my family and my kids, I have a hard time trying to get the side that supports and loves us to see the point of view of the other.

I still, however, try to keep peace. Should I? Half way through the night a very LDS brother-in-law approached me and told me he has always respected the way I’ve juggled family in this area, but it kind of made me feel like I've sacrificed what's right for peace. Should I have felt like my dad and went for confrontation, even at my sister's wedding?

I’m in an odd position in my family. So often my home is the issue, though not the only issue, that causes LDS family to harden up and, as often, I’m the one who tries to connect both sides. It feels as though, perhaps with too much self-importance, that if I’m not the ambassador and just treated those family members like I would any stranger who supported a group that attacks my family, then a future split in the larger family would be on my shoulders, my fault. I’m a bone of contention that thinks at least he can be the link that brings together the two beasts pulling on it :-).

Or maybe any bone of contention is just a source of, well, contention and all would be happier if it snapped, halted attempts to smooth over? Even though I can’t get angry with the other side—I know they’re under significant psychological pressures here—maybe, again, we should act as though we were angry, for the sake of both sides. I mean, I’m sure most LDS at that wedding would have been much happier to have only folks there who’d nod in agreement when told how superior their families and children are, and I don’t want to be an issue at my sister’s wedding.

I also hate how it can bring out a similar ugliness in me. I love my sister, and respect and support her union, but I admit the thought crossed my mind: how can her Bishop insult our 16-years together and 6-years of parenting, while performing a marriage after for a person who has divorced twice and is well past the age to raise children. I adamantly want her to have all the same legal rights and privileges and responsibilities I want to have for my family in marriage, but, if the Bishop wants to argue which marriage will produce more for society, then these “ideal family” arguments cut both ways. Fact is we should not be measuring our sibling’s or our neighbor’s marriage like that and especially on bias about inborn traits like sex, but that’s the weapon the LDS church wants to use here, making it hard not to pick it up as well. I regret feeling that temptation.

Anyway, how should people socialize with siblings who choose to belong to a group that teaches that their children are somehow defective? Should people even go to a building owned by a group that wants their family to be legally invisible or second class because of their sex, and has said so with pride, pretending to defend from us what we have and cherish too? What if the issue was race and not sexual anatomy? We know this same church was doing this for race once before; how was that best handled back then by those families?

I still don’t know, and, along with my sadness, I will have some relief in making the question less important once we move from family.

It’s just sad.

Salt Water

We did that Prop 8 interview with Reed Cowan yesterday. Each time we do anything like this I try to brace myself. Questions like "What does family mean to you?" or "Tell me about how you became a parent." or "What does your relationship mean to you?" are common. With such topics that slight cramp at the back of the throat eventually seizes and I can't get a thought out that's not too heavy with emotion.

That's another benefit to being a gay man, though. I can be as masculine as I am by nature, and still get emotional without feeling I have to hold up some masculine stereotype (I don't even have to watch the Superbowl today!). Example, I let loose a tear in Batman, The Dark Knight, for goodness sake :-) (when the convict takes the remote on the ferry...). In short, I'm a crier, but don't really care much to control it in most instances. I spent too much time when coming out trying to hide how I was feeling.

However, that makes me a bad interview, and so, in those instances, I've tried to learn ways to hold it down again. I've taken to just telling people interviewing me right off the bat they can ask what they want, but stay away from emotional questions about family until the end if they want anything useful.

Now, there is a certain reason anyone with kids and who knows much about Reed would find their emotions near the surface around him. I don't want to go into that; suffice it to say it was an emotional setting from the start.

He was great. He just let us speak, and normally I'd have been okay, but my parents went before us. My mom got emotional, talking about what we go through in this state and I expected that; I could keep composure with that much. However, my dad, he rarely loses composure but he did yesterday. That finished off the flimsy interview barriers I've reconstruct during our last 4 years in this fight. When it was my turn, I'm afraid I left them with nothing usable.

The potent thing is that you don't really know how much your parents love you when you're growing up. You can't. You know they love you, but not what that means for a parent, not until you feel it yourself. And when you are a parent, your focus goes to the love for your kids, and you kind of stop thinking much about the love from you're parents. My parents were and are wonderful parents, and as an adult they are two of our best friends, people we love spending time with. I may not take enough time as an adult to realize or enjoy that love they have for me, but, recognizing what I have for my sons in them, it was more than I could hold in.

At the end they had everyone say their name and what they want. My parents said for me and my family to be treated fairly; I said (or tried to say :-)) to be able to protect my family like any one else, to have my family treated in the way our LDS neighbors want their families treated. It's that same sort of drive, pointing that particular love forward, into the next generation; I wish my composure stood a chance in front of it when also in front of a crowd, but am also kind of glad it doesn't.

Anyway... getting a little too serious?

Why stop mid-post though, right?

I also want to take some time here to give some kudos to Scott and Sarah. We stopped by their home last night on the way back from the interview. They are very good hosts, and all that was appreciated. Thank you.

But the thing that strikes me most is the fact that they've generously given a nonjudgmental place to relax and fit in for gay LDS who either just want to hang out with others like them, or those who desperately need a break, a place they don't have to hide who they are. Sometimes families of gay kids in these parts lose track of that familial love for a time, or cause distance thinking it's love, and it's a great comfort to me to know people are there to catch them. To open up your hearts and home like that is impressive, and inspiring to me. Whatever the blog equivalent of applause is, I'm doing it.

Ira Furor Brevis Est?

Soon, next weekend, we'll have our huge family Christmas party.

They will all be there, from the sister who made a point during the Proposition 8 fight of saying that she cannot support my family (though, she enjoys nothing but love for us), to my Bishop brother who stays away from the topic, to our various gay family members. Most were right behind us, despite their church's instructions, but some were not and others, I'm sure, would rather the whole issue just go away before they have to stand up and say what they believe one way or the other.

As I said, in October, something has broke in my family with Prop 8. That wasn't temporal. It has. I can feel it, see it clearer each time we're together. I see it in a sister's fumbling around simple pleasantries, in my parents' curtness with some of them, and I see it in me, as I described in that post.

But the thing is I don't have really strong feelings about these relatives. I've never been able to hold anger well, even when I wanted to... or maybe even when I should. For all their strange talk of free agency, about magical actions somehow neither caused or not caused, the reasons some of my family did what they did here seem fairly clear; the causality in humans is often quite simple, too simple. Once I take time to think about the whys, I've no place left to set anger. It's just a lesson learned about how that person's mind works.

My wonder is, though, should I feel anger, to change how their mind works next time? Or, as the subjective emotion is not really a choice, should we gay relatives show some form of anger when we're together with extended family who acted to harm our homes? A cold shoulder? A verbal confrontation? Do we have to be abrasive now to get the point across, make it uncomfortable, so that later they'll factor us and our children into their decisions more strongly? I think Edgy brought this to my mind with a comment a while back and it's been on my mind.

I know. People want to say anger doesn't help anything; "people" often including me. People want to say they'll never negotiate with such tactics and I'm the sort to recoil from the use of it anyway.

But I'm wondering; is there a use for it here? I mean, my family knows me. I'm probably the calmest guy they know. They know I get my kicks out of bland stuff like collecting data and look at the world in much the same way I look at my lab: I feel wonder and awe, and I'll also feel frustrated or sadness when things go bad, but anger at anything just comes off as silly. Point is, when it came time for family to decide what to do in the marriage debate they knew I'd not get angry. They knew I'd still be pleasant at our next encounter. Hurting us offered far less of a threat than the threat of "disobedience to God" the other side was selling them. If they were to bet, why not bet on their leaders instead of me? I offered very little downside.

I'm not sure it's in me to act hostile without feeling it. To be honest, I probably am unable and this post is a bit pointless because 1. I'm a horrible actor and 2. it strikes me as dishonest to act angry without actual anger. But I'm still wondering... Is anger what's needed to make their calculations come out right next time? Does a show of anger have a useful place when someone hurts your family? I'm not really sure. Does anyone have in-family experience they could share here? Does it just end in tears and frustration, as I reflexively expect, or do people actually act more inclusively when they can't count on us being a good sports?

Happy Hanukkah

I think one of the greatest aspects of being in a gay-headed family is one of the things people often deride: our inevitable lack of direct genetic relation. Like many other infertile couples, until science advances, at least one parent will always be genetically unrelated to their child (well, unrelated is misleading as humans share so many genes it's hard to quibble about a tiny percentage of single nucleotide polymorphisms, but some people do and you get the point).

I think nothing more shows the meaning of family, though, than the ability of some to get beyond those Darwinian urges and just love.

Which brings me to the fact that our boys are ethnically Jewish, and neither Rob or I are. We've debated back and forth how far into Jewish culture we should get, if at all. There's the idea that, because they are our children and genetics don't matter to either of us, we should just keep passing on our LDS-Christian-rural Salt Lake culture, green jello and all. There's also the idea that, because their genes carry some cultural baggage in the eyes of the greater public, we should change our culture to show how the child has changed our family, to show some sort of integration and pride to those who'd pick on yet another minority. Heck, when I was in High School, being Jewish was still a bit of a problem in Utah and such bias still hangs around, I'm sure.

So far, though, I've leaned towards just sticking with what we know.

I suppose these decisions are differently made when your child is visually put in a different racial category. Outsiders may continually remind them they are different from their parents and so it makes more sense for parents to take on a new cultural dynamic. While it's clear we're not all genetically related, we look to be in many of the other artificial categories; people tell us our boys almost look like clones of Rob and I. But the twins know how they came to be and they know they are, in significant part, ethnically Jewish, just as their dad is predominantly French and their pop is predominantly German/English. And they aren't shy telling people about such info. We've left no traumatic surprises about our family's history for them to have in the future and that's worked great so far; such facts are just facts to them now, like their eye color.

Recently their school began teaching about Hanukkah, though, along with Christmas and they were bringing home related work. The other day Brian sang us a song about the menorah and we asked if he thought we should light a menorah. At a yes, we researched the meaning behind it and consulted a Jewish friend, to make sure it wasn't any more offensive to Judaism for us to do so as it would be to Christianity for us agnostics to put an angel on our tree.

In the end, this year, we'll be incorporating one more culture into our holidays.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a menorah, or, well... you probably would, considering where we live. It wasn't easy, but we found one. This was the best we could find:
I'd like to have had something a bit more simple, but the kids like it.

Anyway, I now hope you all have a Happy Hanukkah!

(We're Chris Buttar's nightmare, aren't we?)

Utah Mormons Will No Longer Aid Prop 8

A couple days ago the tribune reported:

Church: Utah Mormons will no longer aid Prop 8

While I doubt the headline is completely accurate, there has been a change and I've been wondering about this for a while.

The reason given is:

"It would be more troublesome for Prop 8's public relations if non-Californians were making those calls," said Davis, who teaches political science at Brigham Young University. "If a caller says, 'Hi, I'm calling from American Fork, Utah,' that might be a turn-off to a California voter."

They aren't going to call people because their calls will make marriage equality for our families more likely? Have you ever gotten a political call where the person said "Hi, I'm calling from [not your state]..."?

For all I know every political call I've received was from Bolivia.

Rob thinks the actual reason is fear of having to pay taxes while acting as such a significant political force. But, as I understand it, they're fully within the IRS guidelines.

Why did they think these calls were a good idea and put out a call for them and then change their mind so quickly, though? Even if they did plan to ID themselves as Utahns in their calls, you'd think the negative consequence of that would have occurred to them right off the bat.

Maybe they did rethink the whole thing... but I guess I'm saying I'd like to think the true reason was that they saw the trouble this was causing in families like mine, and they wanted to pull back and doing so in Utah was as much as they could afford. Yeah, it's a little late, and I'm probably being naively optimistic.

I am glad I've less reason to be upset with some of my family, though it's not much when you know they'd just have to move a day's drive and they'd be as active in the anti-marriage equality campaign as possible. Still, it's something... or it might be?

Ug, I'm tired of having so much of my family riding on the choices of strangers.

S

Time rolls down the hill of order, they say... or they might?

No one has, for example, seen a shattered window reassemble assemble itself, and if we did we’d assume we were watching the world rewind, and for good reason. There are simply many more ways a system can be chaotic rather than ordered, and thus, with each time step, black holes decay, carcinogenic replication errors become more likely, and our i-pod ear buds become more tangled in our pockets.

Damnable entropy.

There is no truly irreversible action, in the universe or in our relationships. Everything leaves a mark. It takes energy to melt and reform a shattered window. It takes great effort to even approximate a fraction of justice after an injustice. For some crimes, the act is truly irreversible in any sense. Regardless, all work spreads more entropy. Thank goodness the earth has a tiny water wheel placed into the stream of solar energy radiating into the void, else we’d be... well, we’d not.

Anyway :-), these are the sorts of things my mind wanders to when considering the feeling that something irreversible has happened. I’ve been feeling like this business with the LDS church, Proposition 8, and my family has broken something, irreversibly. With their aims, ads, accusations, ominous predictions, and even literal demonization of my family, that pro prop-8 team of churches has put out a lot of energy, and, by it, many stones were thrown through my extended family and our relationships with LDS friends. By the laws of chance and nature, by the thermodynamics of interpersonal relationships, something valuable and intricate was bound to be broken, right?

I think it has.

I just don’t see some people the same now. I love them; I’ll be polite, but I don’t feel for them what I used to, knowing what they supported being done to my husband and children, acting on orders or not, feeling love and righteousness and good about it or not. They hope to debase and harm in very real terms my family and then think asking for respect for their faith, their motivation sounds near reasonable? You can shoot into a man’s home, hope he understands, and complain if he comes out and decks you? The excuse being you feel, with all your heart, that God wants and will reward you for shooting guns into people’s homes? That’s not an excuse; it’s a statement of guilt, selfishness, and lack of regret.

Sure, it sucks for us both. I understand they feel such motivation deserves respect--every supernatural claim must ask for special treatment, from Scientology to Islam, or they'd never last a day. I wish I could give it to them. Such God-given, moved-by-the-spirit feelings are a dime a dozen, though, all over the world and to many different ends; when the ends are to take rights from so many families, respect necessarily ends.

I've read some research that shows some people's brains are literally built to believe with special spiritual feelings and I know some of my family may be such people. In a way, maybe I'm being intolerant of their build, their nature to be intolerant of us on faith. But my home can only afford to give leeway to them if they can control themselves and keep away from harming us and others first; I wish they could see that. When the Golden Rule is broken, a line is crossed and they make their faith fair game. I can respect faith in, say, that people can become gods, that people can be resurrected, or that bread turns to flesh; all that is fairly benign and I'll keep away. But not the rest, not that they have to legally harm my family. Slapping a label of "Faith" on that makes it no more deserving of respect than any other bit of bigotry; it only drags down the brand name.

And sure, maybe I should be a bit more understanding as there was a day when my whole world was the spiritual, and being moved by unheard voices of the spirit decided all sorts of decisions (one of which was leaving the church that most of these family members belong to :-)). I do understand these feelings can be quite pleasing and assuring to the human mind; it's the hedonism of agnosticism. I'll try to be understanding of their use of them, but it’s just not the same as it was for me last year; something broke.

The funny thing is that I probably have become, with respect to them, as they were with me. All these years, when they were doing it to us, I just never really knew how it felt for them. I’ve always had an issue with their choices, but never felt it was much of my business and I could be happy that it pleased them. I could look at it more like their preference for certain foods than being on a different team. More and more, though, their choices are becoming my home's problem. I love all my extended family, but, for some of them, not in the way family should love each other anymore; I love them the way they love me, without that deep feeling of support for who they are and what they want out of life, when what they want means harm to the 3 most important people in my life. We’ll hate each other’s sin, love the sinner, and be pleasant when we interact… And that’s the way it is; that’s the broken window.

And look here, adding more work to the system just increased the overall entropy, didn't it? I wish the analogy didn't hold :-).

The question remains, though. Could we find the energy to melt the glass down and reform? It can’t be undone, but can it be remade? Don't know; I just know I'm not willing to do it alone.

(Boy, that was supposed to be a short post; guess I needed to vent :-))

Chain Letter Reaction

A LDS chain letter just got to me through my brother. He was upset by it and wanted to share his response, which was supportive and loving (This is the younger of my older brothers, not the brother who’s a bishop). In short I was touched to know exactly where he stood, but even more so appreciative to know he’ll stand up and say it and that he wanted to make sure I knew he would.

I went through bits of the letter on isocrat.org, but this blog is more about the personal. In short, it’s a deceptive, strange and kind of sad attempt to garner support for Proposition 8.

Anyway, the letter is written by a Sharon, who I don’t know from Adam (or Steve). But the person who spread the letter is a person in the periphery of my extended family. We see them here and there. I don’t care to address them directly and will put my energy elsewhere. I don’t think it’d do much good to confront such people anyway.

But my brother has entered the fray, and is now a couple letters into it. Furthermore, this letter was also sent to my parents and other family, and they’ve gotten upset as well. They are sending out a letter of their own to everyone on the long string of emails listed, which will include family closer to us. The man who sent the letter to my brother is a man on his 3rd marriage, and a guy who my parents know to have physically abused his children; they also tell me his current wife has been convicted of fraud, some pyramid scheme. So you can guess how personal this could get, now that the first stone has been thrown.

I can’t blame my parents for getting personal, though. I’d be upset if a guy I knew was spreading the message that equal treatment of my son’s family is somehow an insult to marriage and a goal of the Devil. I guess I’m just wary of how these things spread and grow in a family. Will my siblings or parents get too heated? Will other siblings or cousins take the other side and defend this guy?

And yet, another part of me is admittedly beginning to want to get it all out, get it over with, to stop the sublimating and self suppression on all sides and have our trial by fire. I want to know who we can trust and who is just being polite to our faces; I need to know to whom in my family my family is family (I think if you read that again it might make sense). Maybe it's naive, but I suspect, while it may hurt, we'd all get through one intense big event closer and better for it, instead of second guessing through all these little things.

Maybe we should do it at the family Christmas party ;-) (or maybe :-\).

I guess all families have fault lines. I just fear each little event like this, a chain letter from a guy I hardly know, could cause the tremors that lead to the earth splitting for our extended family. Or maybe it's the start of the refining reaction we need. Or maybe it’s just a flash in the pan.

Hand Holds

I used to rock climb quite a bit, before our boys were born. Once, due to a mistake of communication and a blinding overhang (note: not hangover), I almost dropped a friend to a rocky riverbed and, long story short, I caught him and dropped the desire to do that again.

A couple days ago it felt kind of like it did when, while you’re ascending a new climb, you look around to be unable to plan an obvious route to the top. I couldn’t see what our next move should be, with family, law and the simple geography of where our family should live. Really, I still don’t know how to surmount those large questions. Nevertheless, it seems the analogy holds in that you don’t really need to see every move to get to the top; you know others have done it on far more difficult climbs. You just need to see how to move one hand or foot even an inch higher, and you’ll eventually find a higher place on the rock for your other appendages.

So I'm feeling good after inching up a bit in a couple areas.

Family: My Father in-law, well, I asked him if he’s been involved in any the pro-prop-8 movement, making calls or asking his congregation to act on it, and he told me no, he hadn’t. But that was it; his reaction was abrupt, the sort that says "no but let's not get into this". Okay, I learned the minimum of what I needed to know. I can live with leaving it at that without a debate on what the LDS church is doing. I love my in-laws and it continues to hurt us that they indirectly support people working so hard to undermine our family, but it’s not direct support. Maybe I’m a hypocrite for not holding more ground, but I see the way Grandpa is with our boys and I can swallow some of it for now, rightly or wrongly. Maybe these are things that defy measurement anyway.

On my side of the family: I came home from work to find out that, after my mom read that “go viral” article, she spent the day calling all our family and asking for their help and asking about what they’ve done on Prop-8. There was some good news and some bad; sadly, the wedges have been driven deeper for some others, but my family is still attached to the bulk. I’ll deal with the bad new when we have to all interact again. But it was a great blessing to find out that my mom had done that. I feel grateful and phenomenally lucky to have the parents I do. They have always understood and are probably the reason I have the home I do; they gave me the freedom and example to do so all the way back to the day I came out. I’ve been too lucky both as a father and a son, and may deserve to be told to shut up when I complain too much about the extended family (Note: not a license to tell me to shut up. Shut up are the only two words that are "a bad word" in our home.).

Doing Something: I spent my lunch calling organizations. If only the gay community were more like a church or a business. If only it really had a monolithic gay agenda. But no, there’s a bunch of people with a bunch of aims and we’re brought together by others' bias and demonetization, sometimes literally by our local culture. No one really had an organized reaction to the interstate LDS push, and we really need help getting organized here. One local community leader suggested that the members of these various boards should meet once a month, just to know what everyone is doing (I think that’s a great idea and hope it’s implemented). Anyway, I’m going to try to help put something together; just waiting a weekend for suggestions from HRC. I know whatever we come up with may not do much, but it's something.

PTC: We had parent teacher’s conference and our boy’s are doing great. Scholastics come much easier for “way above grade level” Brian, but Alan is not struggling either; he’s “where he should be”. Their teachers told us they are doing great socially and have a lot of friends. Hoping to head off any problems, I asked if our family structure has been an issue in any way. They both separately gave back a quick no, almost shocked that I’d ask. They both even went on to compliment our family for our extra involvement and familial support. One said "Everyone here thinks so highly of your family and I can tell your son has all the support he needs", and the other said "I wish we had 20 more like him". I eat that stuff up :-).

I think we’ve been very lucky with teachers and parents at their school. While it is predominantly LDS, it seems to not be your typical suburban Utah political atmosphere; most don't seem to be buying what their leaders are telling them about our family. Or perhaps it just changes the atmosphere by breathing it and giving others the chance to see us for what we are, instead of amoral monsters backed by activist liberal judges out to destroy The Family (TM) and convert their children (Brian’s teacher even has an Obama pin… Brian must have convinced her in political debate ;-)).

So maybe, as a repeating theme of this blog, I worry about our family here in Utah more than is justifiable, but not less than I want to; just in case.

Anyway, there are still problems to face, opponents to challenge, and more hand holds to find in this climb to equal rights, but at least we’re moving. In leaning on our loved ones, whatever November holds, we'll be okay and we'll keep inching up.

Oh, and today is National Coming Out Day. FYI, I'm gay. Your 18th (or 19th?) coming out day really ain't that special :-), but kudos and good luck to those for whom this is their first.

Cecret Lake

Yesterday, we took the boys up for a hike to Cecret Lake (nope, that's not my typically bad spelling making it past spell-check again; that's the bad spelling of the 19th century miners of Alta, Utah).

As anyone in Salt Lake would know, yesterday was a beautiful day, and we started out our hike under blue skies. But about 100 yards from the lake the only dark cloud in the state of Utah parked over the trail and began a refreshing little drizzle... then rain, then sleet, and then a blizzard of hail.

I turned my shirt into a makeshift umbrella and we all ran down the mountain in a snow storm. When we got to the car, we were all freezing cold and a disheveled mess of ice and mud. My arm was just frustratingly away from numb with the pain of holding an icy shirt over Alan as we stumble down a mountain. Brian even declared it to be the worst hike ever (well, the "most terriblest" hike). But we were all laughing, and did so the way down; Brian couldn't wait to tell grandpa about it, with a big smile on his face.

Isn't it odd how that can happen? Something miserable can happen and all it takes is context and company to make it a fun, fond memory? Even at the time, you know you should be miserable, but misery is far from what you get. Such a hike kind of has a way of showing you why you're going on a hike with your family in the first place. I mean, we go on many hikes, but the boys will remember this one, and with that odd mix of fun and "I hope that never happens again".

Maybe that's near how we'll look back on the politics of today. When the day comes that our family is treated with equality, we may just look back on these days of struggling for our rights and dealing with bigots with a certain humor.

Not that I'd say we're nearly having fun with the attacks on our home that come with items like Proposition 8. We get hurt; some nights I have stayed up too late worrying about what the our legislature will try next, and each threat and belittlement of my home as sub-par or non-ideal or whatever euphemism they'll use may as well be one of those icy pellets hitting me from nowhere. Nevertheless a little hail and struggle in a family has a way of illustrating what is great about a family, and, depending upon who you're with in life, threatening clouds can seem ridiculous in the face of what you know and what you have, even as you wince at each seed of ice down your neck.

(umm... and the warm car is legal equality. Yes, I must find a metaphor in everything.)

Spore

I bet most of you have seen the commercials for the game Spore. It looks like an entertaining game, if only there were more hours in the day.

I downloaded the free creature creator for the boys; such things are right down Brian's alley and I think they're a good exercise of creativity. It wasn't long before he reproduce our family:

I'm the gawky purple thing, and Alan has the crab pincers. You should see us dance.

It Happened in Sun Valley...

We just got home from our big family reunion. We've gone to Sun Valley, Idaho for every year of my remembered life for this reunion. It's a great place for a family vacation.

Number one on the list of most kids (and parents wanting to occupy their children and have no filth-phobias) has to be the streams. Little streams cross the grounds making for hours of boat races and mud cultivation:

That picture of a muddy Allen was taken literally 5 minutes after arriving; he can be very efficient.

Number two is the bike riding. There are miles of bike paths and we all bring our bikes:

Okay, that's not my bike. We use the tag-alongs with the boys:


We typically bike half way between Hailey and Ketchum and then stop on the way back to play in the Wood River:
Now you may think the dads do all the work, but our boys can be little motors. They were exhausted by the time we got back to town:
There's also the ice skating. Though, Brian spent most of his time like this:
On Labor Day weekend there's also Wagon Days:
Eh, it's more fun than that parade picture makes it look.

Finally, My parents put on a big competition for all their 32 grandkids (and now, let me count.... about 6 great grandkids). We have relay races:
And a written test on how well you know your family, the first prize being a trip with the grandparents.
Our boys, being among the youngest, didn't stand a chance this year--at least they got their questions right :-)--but they see their grandparents almost every day anyway.

Finally, we do a family picture:

How LDS are we? As we were crowding in to take the picture one of my brother-in-laws quipped that he was glad he didn't bring his other wives.

And yeah, I'm sad to say there was that Proposition 8 issue looming over the whole thing. During the family quiz, one of the questions was which of your family there was married. I heard debate, and some asked their parents about my family. When the topic of the election came up Rob expressed his dislike for McCain for his support for Proposition 8 and the room turned from jovial to cold to another topic. In the midst of idle chit chat we were talking to one of my sisters about our August month of many trips and our San Diego trip came up along with our reasons for going there. There was a surprised and quiet moment of mental processing between us then where I'm sure she was feeling the same thing I was: how sad it is that I, her brother, didn't feel I should tell her we got married, even if again. It had to come up in a round about way, because I, right or wrong, thought it'd just cause trouble between us. And I may have been right. I mean, how sad is it that she couldn't say congratulations? To her brother, who's marriage she and many others in our family are paying their church to fight to annul.

I don't want to end on that note.

It was a great trip. I love my family, from the sinners, to the saints, to the sinning saints, and the sainted sinners. We enjoy all their company, when the walls of faith and politics are down. It can just be bitter sweet, at times.

[Commercial] When you're headed to Sun Valley from Salt Lake, take the Burley/Paul exit and head north. Not only is it my favorite exit, you'll take 20 minuets off your trip headed to Shoshone that way. Best of all you can stop right there at Connor's Cafe. Great home style cooking, and superb pie. We used to go there all the time during the pheasant hunt and it holds a lot of good memories for my family. It's Utahcog approved.

Moabite Wedding

Yet again, we just got back, this time from Moab. Seems we're spending most of this month out of town. We had Rob's cousin's wedding to attend. Like our Helper trip, this was with the side of Rob's family this time that are mostly Gentiles. That, I suppose, should go without saying, as we were invited to the wedding :-) and not just the reception, which is, for those unfamiliar with my cultur's ways, what happens if you're a non-LDS family member and it's a LDS wedding.

We got there a day early so that we could hike a bit and play before insisting the boys keep their dress clothes clean.Those pictures were taken in Moab's Millcreek canyon. When we're there in the heat of summer it's one of our favorite hikes, one I'd recommend. We just park the car and walk up the cool stream instead of a trail.

At the rehearsal dinner Brian battled his cousin, Darth Vader. See, I told you they're heathens like us.
For the wedding Rob, once again, helped with the flowers. Poor guy, he's now got a reputation for being good at it in both families and so upholds another stereotype. But I don't care; at weddings I'm one of the first to get watery in the eyes... for the allergies, you know.

I do love a wedding. The whole idea behind public vows and watching them take hold in front of friends and family, young and old chokes me up and easily. I appreciate every chance we get to take our boys to them. Much, in fact, of the next generation in my family are now getting married, and we go to a reception about once a month it seems. I only wish my family could be invited to more of the weddings.

Still, as I was reminded with our Helper trip, we are rich in family of all sorts, even with the faith-based divisions. It's just been nice to spend the last couple weekends after our legal marriage with family who greeted the news with jubilant congratulations instead of a thought of how to possibly change the conversation before it got to Proposition 8 :-).

We'll be spending next weekend with that less jubilant part of the family, but, really, I'm looking forward to it and am more concerned about school starting for the boys soon. First Grade! I can't imagine where the time since their birth has gone so quickly.

Scenic Helper

We spent the weekend in Helper. That's Helper, Utah. What, haven' heard of it? Here, it's right here:


View Larger Map

Just after a time wherein I was feeling worried about family, this was good remedy, a great reminder of what I'll always have in family, even if a split does occur down the gay-friendly divide.

First, one must admit that Helper has seen better days:
Nevertheless, it has a good deal of historical character and has become a hang out for some talented artists. We go down to to help my cousins during Helper's arts and music festival. They've bought a home and a couple buildings on main street, I'm sure at a surprising bargain. My mother's side of the family all come from that area, and my cousins are trying to help revitalize and redefine the old town.

Now you may be thinking what I was thinking. Helper? Isn't that just a place to get gas and a stick of beef jerky on your way to Moab, or, heck, Price even? In all honesty, while the town is not ever going to be a showcase city of Utah, the arts festival there is a great event and some of the galleries are well worth a visit.
I know I may be an irrational sucker for such community events, but all in my family agreed. You can find a good time and great art in Helper, and next year keep them in mind; bringing some tourism dollars would, um, assist them a good deal.

During the heat of the day we went to the Dinosaur Museum in Price:
That's their terrified-because-I'm-being-chased-by-a-dinosaur face. We had a good time there; while Alan was walking around he told me, "When I have a son, I'm going to name him Random." Cool huh? Where do they get such ideas?

Almost lost Alan there to a Utahraptor.

That night was the big reception and art competition. Rob was asked to arrange the flowers for the reception... What can I say? He's good at arranging flowers; sometimes you just have to admit to a stereotype or two. They ended up being used in an artist's still life, for their so not-gay beauty.

Brian took his job of punch-cup-refiller with a purpose and focus usually only seen in men who disarm land mines:
And me, I was just a manual laborer, my talents not being in fancy dinner parties. I was also the Alan Wrangler:
It's more difficult than it looks (or maybe just as difficult?).

Anyway, another great weekend. The nice thing about having a huge family, is that, by the statistics alone, there will be a good number you connect with and can trust with every bit of your self and your family. A split in our family would break my heart, but last weekend reminded me that there'd still be plenty of family to go around, more than most people are blessed to have, even if they're all heathens ;-).

Luke 14:26

Rebecca Walsh had an article in the tribune yesterday about being gay in Utah, here.

In it she writes about Gary and Millie Watts and their family. I know the Watts, just barely well enough to say that. They are some of the nicest people you could meet, though, the sort that give Utah its good reputation for character and friendliness (It's not just my imagination. We do have that reputation, right?).

Gary and Millie are parents to a couple gay children, among others (a big Utah family) and were once a very active LDS family. They went to bat for their kids with their church for many years, thinking it could be resolved and they could keep their faith and their acceptance of their children and their children's families. But I read now, and to my surprise, they have all--parents, gay siblings, and straight--left the LDS church over the issues of how same-sex unions are treated.

I'm kind of sad to learn that. I'm sure everyone involved has their reasons; it just all seems so... so much like wasted conflict, an unnecessary cut. Of course, I guess, if you think same-sex unions are sin, it could seem like some families, those who support the families of their gay children, should best go.

What really hit home though was that, my mom, after reading this, called me up and said she wanted to send the article to all of my siblings, in the hope they'd follow their example. My parents, a sister and a brother have already left the LDS church, but some are very much involved. I think I successfully discouraged her from it. There's no point to that, here, in a family. Is there? Is it okay to just keep from fighting in your family on issues like this? Was it okay for interracial couples to just swallow relatives' bigotry to get along, to keep those bonds? I'm not sure, but we just keep away from politics with some family and they do the same and we most all get along great.

Nevertheless, they'll bring religion up with my dad. My brother, he's a bishop. He is vocal about his hope to convert our dad back, which upsets me. My dad was always there for me as a kid, he's become one of my best friends in my adult life, and one of the most important persons to our children. My brother hopes to make him into a man who sees my family as sinful, something to be "tolerated". Can you see how threatening that comes off? It's tough for me to not be angry at my brother for such aims, no matter how prone to failure they are, for both the hoped for consequences to my family and my relationship with our dad, and my brother's apparent obliviousness to them, as he'll do it right in front of Rob and me.

But all this seems to have stepped up even more with the Proposition 8 fight. Just two days ago my dad and my sister got in a fight over us, when she told him she doesn't "agree with our choices", something she'd never say to us directly. These are the choices that brought his grandchildren and Rob into this family and so he got heated. He's a very smart man and, as she was using religion in her reasoning, came back at the weak spots in her ideas of the supernatural. I've never seen my dad phased by such confrontation--a quality I'd hope to learn still--but I'm told it wasn't pleasant for her. I'm sure she regrets bringing it up, and I wonder if it will be uncomfortable the next time we get together.

Simply, I too can feel the politics and religion tearing at my family, not just at the rights of the four of us in our home, at our extended family. Often, I find myself trying to make excuses for my siblings to my parents. As long as my siblings can keep from undermining our family in the open, where our children can be harmed by it, I want our children to have their cousins. And my siblings have been good about that so far. Should I, instead, be as ardent as my folks? I'm not sure. I love my huge family and want to be able to keep going to reunions without a fog of mistrust and things said in anger hanging over the funeral potatoes and games of kick the can. Is that sacrificing ideals for pleasantries? Is that pointless? There's already a fog there knowing they are most all paying for the church to put on a political campaign against my marriage.

I want to hold it together, but on some days it's not easy, regardless of want. By November and the vote on Prop 8, I'm afraid it will only get worse. I don't think we have the same end in the works for us that the Watts had, where the family acts together. I'm afraid we must keep on balancing a delicate truce, or it would tip and each would go their separate ways.

How I Got My Name

I kind of use this blog as a place to keep a record of things, just in case they get lost in memory or physical record, with time. I just realized, after that last post, I never explained how I got my name.

Here, I posted on how we determined our family name. Just after that, though, we had to figure out what our boys would call us. They would soon be on their way home.

Again, being a relatively new sort of family in these parts, there was little to go on. Both Rob and I call our fathers "dad" and our mothers "mom," but neither of us was really wanted that last title ;-).

It turned out a tradition had already been established for our families. Where there are two fathers, one was most often "daddy" and the other "papa". The poor lesbians often have to rely of the subtle inflections their child puts into the word "mom" but you'd be surprised how accurately those mother's ears can discern between the two words, "mom" and "mom".

To tell the truth, I didn't like "papa" at first; it felt unfamiliar, kind of old world ("father" was right out). We both wanted "dad" and some gay couples do both take the title, but we thought the name should be different.

So who gets "dad"? Rob had just taken my family name... I was in no position to debate ;-)

It was one of those things that was cleared up in a moment. I was in the car (driving on 94th south in fact :-)) listening to This American Life and a family was the subject; I can't remember why. In the program, a son was talking to his father. He never referred to him as "dad"; he called him "pop." I can't even remember the topic of the program or what they were talking about. I just remember sensing in his voice that very familiar relationship, the love that son felt for his father; I knew the same for in the man I called my "dad".

Suddenly, just like that, "papa" (or "pop" when they get older and stop calling Rob "daddy") felt right. It felt perfect. I'd not be a "dad". I am, in fact such a mixture of my parents' personalities, I was suddenly sure that I should take on "papa". Today, our boys will even correct people when they assume they have two "dads"; to them a dad and a papa are very different parents. Anyway, I called Rob and surrendered "dad" immediately :-).

And that's what I am now and I can't imagine being anything but a "papa". That name comes before my given name, before "son", before any professional title. As we both agree, it even comes before "husband". It's hard to believe the word that has become my defining title once sounded a bit unfamiliar.