Ringing Those Wedding Bells, But Quietly

The house sitter has sat, the bags are packed, and we will, within a day, be off to California to get married, once again.

Everyone in our lives has been congratulating us and making a big deal out of this. We very much appreciate it, and it is a big deal to us too. But I have an emotional reflex to keep it low key. We had our wedding, 13 years ago. We forged our vows in front of all those friends and family. We felt that overwhelming emotion and celebrated with our loved ones, some of whom, like my grandpa and uncle, aren't here to celebrate with us today. We rented the tuxedos, ate the cake and had our honeymoon too.

That specific August day is so important to us, so much so that I recoil from making a big deal of geting married again. We are doing this because we have to, because the law and equity should have been there on our wedding day but it was not. We are doing this for the right for my family to be treated as equal if something bad happens, even though that would mean I'd have to see death coming and move them to Ca or Ma. We are doing this before those fighting for Proposition 8 snatch it away from us. We will just hope they don't find a way to retroactively take rights away.

These are kind of mood killing considerations, you know? And we really wouldn't want this coming day to be as special as that first day anyway; it shouldn't be.

So it will be a simple, pleasant affair at the courthouse, the morning before we head off to Lego Land. We don't want to give our boys the impression that we are getting married in a better way than we did before, or even that we are "renewing" our vows, as that may give their young minds the impression their parent's promises, what they rely on, have a problem to fix. I've been trying to make it clear that this is about getting more legal protection for their family from the law because we couldn't get it when their daddy and papa were first married. Still, these aren't easy ideas to get across to a 6-year-old.

Nevertheless, this morning the very first thing Alan said to me was, "Papa, are you excited? One more day!" They get it, some of it at least. Yep, I am excited... and worried this will be for naught, but I didn't tell him that second part.

I'll try to post while there. It may be my only post while legally married, who knows? The last poll I saw looked good but there is some fervent and well-funded opposition lining up to convince the people of CA that my family and the equal legal treatment of my family are somehow the biggest threats to children and families in existence. They may succeed. But heck, they may not. I'm going to try to not think too far ahead in the next couple days and just enjoy the beach, the amusement park, and the legal right for my family to be treated as family, until we land back here in Utah.

Implicit Association Test

On Talk of the Nation yesterday they had a segment on hidden racial biases. They had a sociologist on who was measuring them by what they call Implicit Association Tests (IAT).

I'll not explain how they are thought to work as I don't want to bias your results. Give it a shot, maybe before you read the rest of this post. The tests can be found here:

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/

I took 3 of them. I took the one for skin color, black vs white, and was more than relieved to read:

Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between European American and African American.

Great, right? 1 for 1. But...

I saw they had a gay/straight test and I ended up with:

Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Gay People compared to Straight People.

At least it's "slight". I was worried I may have negative subconscious biases against gays, due to my reflex regarding promiscuity.

Let's see, how to rationalize this?.. I don't want to be biased in favor of "my kind", even (or particularly) in my local anti-gay political arena. I think this might go back to my idea of moral orientation. There is an undeniable moral reflex component to my orientation built deep inside. I know this even though, rationally, on the surface I know it's not right. Heck, some of my best friends are straight ;-). It's something for me to keep in mind and watch for.

Finally, I took the Arab/Other test:

Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Other People compared to Arab Muslims.

I know it's just a test and could certainly be wrong for all sorts of reasons, but this worried me. Did I maybe pick up bias after 9/11? Another bit of evidence may be in some overcompensation. Most of the charity my family has done recently has been involving the local refugee community, most of whom are Muslim, though not Arab. One of my good friends now is a conservative Muslim woman. Some people on the radio program talked about realizing their bias and then, in reaction, surrounding themselves with its target to work on that part of themselves they can't stand. Could I have subconsciously began involving myself with Muslims in recent years because I somewhere felt that bias and a need to exorcise it down?

It's complicated being human, conscious and still not privy to all that goes on between the ears, but I regret it could make sense to me now that I've this bias in me. I will be on the lookout.

Anyway, I recommend you take the tests (and share the results, please). Also, at the end they give you the distribution of others who've taken the same test (click on the image to get the detailed breakdown). Could you e-mail me the images of those distributions if you take a test I have not? I'm graphing them together out of curiosity:
I find it interesting how similar the reactions to black/white are to gay/straight, and I wonder how other groups compare.

If you get a unwanted result, I'd try to keep in mind (as I am trying :-)) it's not the subconscious bigotry that speaks to your character. It doesn't matter if a person feels nauseated at the sight of two men kissing, or an interracial couple, or whatever. It matters how they regard their reflex and how they act, how they treat their neighbor, or how they vote.

As a head of a minority family I know subconscious bias, regrettably held, is nothing compared to unabashed bigotry, felt without shame, felt even with surface self-righteousness and entitlement over the minority. One is a forgivable weakness of the pattern-seeking human brain; the other, though, is one of the most prolific fonts of human cruelty. Simply, there are the bigots and then there are bigots. We all probably have work to do and strict attention to pay to how we see the other, even if such a test means nothing.

When I'm not sick of it, I'm going back to do the JFK/GWB test. I know if that one comes off in a way I don't expect there's not much credence to them ;-).

Voyeur

Last night we attended a fund raiser for the Guy running against Senator Buttars, arguably the most anti-gay, anti-equal rights legislator up on our capital hill. Okay, it's true, we might have donated to his opponent even if his opponent was a narcoleptic lemur, with fleas. But this guy, John Rendell, is far better than not-Buttars. I wish him the luck he needs being a Democrat in West Jordan, Utah.

The fund raiser was put on by Salt Lake Acting Company, at their performance of this year's Saturday's Voyeur. It's basically a yearly parody of Utah's current events and foibles, and we often make the job of parody easy. They had Marie Osmond Dancing with the Stars, IM1RU Ring Tones, Mr. Becker's Neighborhood, Tap Dancing Queer Missionaries, and Buttars Refusing to go to racial sensitivity rehab, Amy Winehouse style.

They even did the bit they're best known for for this, their 30th anniversary: No Erection in the Resurrection, where they basically read straight from a 1970's LDS pamphlet about masturbation; not much commentary or ad libbing was needed on that. Suffice it to say, the "little factory" should not be rushed; it will send out it's excess product at night when it needs to. If you can't resist altering the, umm, production schedule of the "little factory" you can do stuff like keep a factory calendar and black out all the early, uh, shipments (?), or "think of having to bathe in a tub of worms, and eat several of them as you do the act", or even tie your hand to the bed. Good advice, that.

It's telling of both the time and subject that the funniest bit SLAC did wasn't something they wrote. If someone in my ward gave me the bruised banana example about women, I bet I'd be twice as gay as I am today; no wonder there's so many mohos ;-).

Anyway, it was a fun evening and you have about 3 weeks to see it, if you're so inclined.

Anti Marriage

How do you spell the tired sound? Is it Pfew?

Anyway, the big arguments-against-marriage-equality-page(-draft) is finished at isocrat.org.

http://isocrat.org/politics/marriage/anti_marriage.php

I've very much appreciated the editing many of you have offered in the past and am begging for more.

Aside from spelling and grammar, have we missed anything, any big argument? Is there anything that should be removed, cut down, or even expanded upon? And tone, too grumpy, or too weak in places?

To Me, the Most Annoying Anti-Gay Bigot Has to be..

...Myself.

A couple days ago our paper published this editorial.

The guy basically cherry-picked one country and presented some misleading information. As I just looked over a lot of this data for a recently updated article at isocrat.org, here, I knew he was full of it in his claims of doom in Europe.

But I read this line: "In one study, married Dutch gays had, on average, eight casual sexual partners." and I just let it slide in my mind. I, to my shame, actually wasn't sure if the author was being honest here. Do Dutch married gay men really have an average of 8 partners? (and where do they find the time?)

I search for the source of the "fact" and came across numerous anti-gay sites claiming the same thing, along with a claim that the same research showed these marriages (or "marriages", sheesh) lasted an average of 1.5 years. I considered it. Could that be right?

Yesterday, I was at the University and decided to see if I could find the research for myself, and I did:

Xiridou, M.; Geskus, R.; de Wit, J.; Coutinho, R.; Kretzschmar, M.. The contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam. AIDS. vol. 17 (7), pp. 1029-1038, (2003).

Turns out the Amsterdam Cohort Study on HIV and AIDS was the source of the data used in this research; it was meant to study AIDS, not marriage. As such, over the life of this study the admittance requirements changed. At one point only men with 2 or more sexual partners in the last 6 month were allowed to participate (monogamous men were effectively excluded!). At another point participants were directed to the study because they were found to be HIV+. Furthermore, this study began in the 80's, in the peak of the western world's gay sexual adolescence, almost two decades before the first same-sex marriage in the Netherlands, and it only looked at gay men living in one of the most permissive cities in the world, Amsterdam. Finally, this study threw out all men over the age of 30, only looking at the most sexually active gay men in their teens and twenties.

In short, the research group rightly searched out high sexual activity in order to study their model of AIDS transmission, and what they term a "steady partner" in their study was not a marriage. It was a self-assessed classification of the regularity with which a participant had a sexual relationship with a particular partner; they did not even need to live together.

Yes, gay men in research seem to be, on average, more sexually active with more partners, for some understandable reasons (I've outlined the research I've found on the topic so far here; gay monogamy is not, of course, in nearly as bad of shape as many anti-gay activists seem to hope, though). But to use that data as this John Williams did to make such shocking conclusions about married gay men is ridiculous, if not outright deceptive, and I've seen anti-gay rights activists use the same tactic before... yet I kind of bought it here, just a bit, just enough to make me take a closer look at myself.

Somewhere in me I do hold a bit of a negative stereotype too.

Hi, my name is Scot, [gulp] and I sometimes reflexively assume gay men are promiscuous.

Okay, though I am trying to deflect it, this really is serious and difficult for me to admit.

I regret that I have that reflex. I know where it started. It began in my teens with my experience with only a handful of people that seemed to play right into the stereotypes of my conservative culture, stereotypes based a good deal on the kind of deception presented in that editorial. I mentioned it, here and here, for example. Over the years I know I have, at times, wondered why I have to put up with my gay bothers tarnishing my family in the minds of others. I have thought it was true that they were, in the back of my mind, but were they?

Heck, I, a gay man for all intents and purposes, have only ever wanted or had monogamy; maybe I'm doubly an oddity, right? Or maybe I'm a self righteous bigot, right?

It's something I have to watch out for. I know, even if it's true gay men are more sexually promiscuous, on average, it's unfair to hold the bias against any individual, and most all the gay men we know personally are monogamous family men. I feel horrible for the gay men I may have maligned, if only in my mind, by extrapolating on that old bit of bigotry. I am sorry, for what it's worth.

Or maybe I have a problem with the Dutch? Yeah, that's it. Why can't those crazy, lecherous Dutch keep it in their pants?

I'm a Sucker for...

...community. I feel hokey just writing that, but I am. State Fair, County Fair, Gay Pride, Cinco de Mayo. I'll try to take my family to all of them; I'm not picky. I love every award winning pig, pie eating contest, every pandering local politician, and candy tossing beauty queen; yes, the girl queens too. Rob, well, not so much.

I wonder a bit if my love of such isn't a reaction to that push of my culture for us to be outsiders, others. I guess that could be part of it, but certainly that doesn't explain every bit of the joy I find in, say, a life-sized butter sculpture. I find a lot of pleasant peace in just milling around with my neighbors, everyone relaxed, and celebrating as a community.

On the 24th, our neighborhood has a parade that consists mainly of kids with decorated bikes, and politicians in vintage cars. It's a great event for us. We waved through the heat in the parade, and the kids ate the candy as fast as it was thrown:
We then played at the little fair they had in a grass field next to a local elementary school until it was time for fireworks.


Is there anything like laying on your back on the grass waiting for fireworks to start?

Anyway, welcome to the valley Brigham. Here's to the day when such feelings of community in Utah are there every day for every family.

Homosexuality's Owner's Manual

I'm interested in making a short summary of helpful advice for gay men and women just coming out. To that end, I've reedited the document I had on my blog and put it up on our work in progress of a site, isocrat.org.

HERE

But I'm sure I need much more input. If you get a chance, could you check it out? It's not finished but it's near. Tell me if you think something is missing or some advice is bad, and the criticism will be welcome.

Favorite Arguments Against the Gays

With isocrat.org I've been pouring over all my old files and looking at a lot of anti-gay material. It's exhausting stuff. Much of it should be taken seriously, but I keep coming across some arguments that by now, instead of looking like a real argument against rights in need of serious reply, just put a smile on my face. They've become the arguments I actually enjoy encountering. I thought I'd collect my top three:

1. "Extension cords have a male and female end. That's why being gay is bad". This argument also comes in the pipe fitting variety. Ah, how to counter the impenetrable argument by hardware? This argument of geometry is similar in fun to the "homosexuality is unnatural; you'll never see it in nature" argument, with creation being as ripe as it is with homosexuality. I guess the men using this one think they fell in love with their wives after doing some sort of morphology calculation about what fits where? It's not about a purposeful attachment, love, dedication... Eh, it's just plain fun when people want to look to their electrical outlets for moral guidance, isn't it?

2. "I know all about gays; I am one." Take the gay guy with the disapproving family who sneaked around with his orientation, did things he thought were wrong, or failed miserably in all his relationships and then "escaped the gay lifestyle"; he'll be the guy the other side will use for testimonials about how the gays live. It's the only area I can think of where the worse you are at something the more likely you'll be taken as an expert on it (liberal readers may insert Bush joke here). These men hardly knew their orientation as anything apart from the superstitions they were taught about it; they treated it as an addiction to the physical, to sex, and sometimes even took their alienation as an excuse for promiscuity and substance abuse. Yeah, that guy knows what it means to be gay for me :-)...

Sure, okay, I do feel bad for these guys; I've known some of them to come back and renounce their renouncements and they seem like okay men. They have problems put there by people they should've been able to trust, which weren't there for other gay men with more supportive family, clergy and community, and it's rightly tough to judge. But my sympathy ends at the point where they use their orientation as a platform from which to harm others. It's such gay men, though, that I sincerely hope could become straight, and stop spreading mischief in the gay community, first from the inside as a lowly sinner addict, and then from the outside as a righteous expert.

3. "God gives us all the knowledge of the difference between good and evil, and I know same-sex relationships are wrong." They may as well tell you "You're right and I don't know what I'm talking about." Simply, talk about evidence and data all you want, but you've shot yourself in the foot, at sentence one, using any argument that tells the other side a lie about what they experience directly. What's even funnier is that, if both sides were to agree on the premise of this argument, that every person comes with an innate knowledge of right and wrong, that then proves same-sex relationships are 100% kosher for many gay men (That reminds me... I want to look at that moral orientation idea again).

Anyway, have you encountered any anti-gay arguments that are more fun than serious?

Uncrashable

In the car yesterday, Brian and I seemed to reenact a scene from this radio broadcast. I had to share it.

Brian started off by asking us, "It's illegal to crash your car into a house, right?"

"Yes" I answered, confused as to where this was headed. Was he wondering why I, the driver, haven't yet crashed into a house? I know both the boys have been brainwashed by Rob to think he's the better driver.

Then Brian asked, "Can you make things that are legal illegal?"

"Yes, that's what our legislators do", I told him, knowing he'd remember our talks about why it's important to be involved with our legislator.

He then announced, "When I grow up I'm going to make it illegal to lose your husband".

I took a moment to decipher the kid vocabulary and asked "Do you mean you want to make it illegal for people to get divorced?"

"Yes"

We've recently had a divorce in the family and some of their schoolmates have parents separating at the moment too. I knew it was something on the mind, and we've been working hard to explain that that won't happen to their family. While other couples may make the same promises that their daddy and papa made, and the promises weren't kept for some reason or another, we want it clear to them that they can count on our promises being kept.

So, curious if he was worrying about us I asked, "Why, bub?."

"Because when you are divorced it breaks up a home."

I'm sure no one but Rob and I can be as struck by their insights :-). They are, of course, the most intelligent, most adorable children in the entire world, and anyone who disagrees is a liar, a filthy no-good liar. But come on, making an analogy with crashing a car into a home? That's pretty clever for a newly-6-year-old, if I do say so myself.

What made me laugh though was that he may well get his wish. We will all soon be headed to California, and his parents will make those promises, once again, on our 13 anniversary. This time it will be legal; this time they will be able to see us promise and not just see the photographs from so long ago. But here's the kicker: when we all come back to Utah, there will be no legal way to divorce.

If there's one good thing about this political situation it will be, when we come back to this state with its higher than average divorce rate, telling our sons they are some of the few children here, in the world even, with parents who are undivorcible, in more ways than one.

Dealing With Monster

My Grandmother haunted the room right next to mine when I was a child. She was never so rude as to rattle chains or moan, or give any evidence really that she was there in spectral form, but she had lived in that room and had passed away. To most any child's imagination the fact that she now resided there as a spooky ghost is as unassailable a fact as 1+1=2, right?

What's worse is that her room was across the hall from the stairs leading down into the basement, the dark, lifeless basement full of strange furnace noises and creepy storage rooms. The section of hallway between the two may as well have meant a child proof psychic forcefield some nights.

What I'm saying is that, while I remember waking up scared at nights for the typical childhood fears, there were many nights I didn't try to sneak into my parent's room for the greater fear of being dragged into the basement by some drooling monster or pulled into my grandmother's room by her spectral form (Why would you do such a thing, Gran?).

My parents were lucky.

Alan, our more rough and tumble of our boys, gets scared of the dark. We leave the closet light on all night and I lay with him until he's out, but he inevitably wakes up and, without the haunting grandma/monster basement barrier, he makes his way to our room most nights now.

Brian has never shown any fear of the dark, monsters, ghosts, or any of that. He has a firm grasp on such reality, or lack thereof. As a kid I was more like Alan, and knew only peers who were afraid of the dark. As such I find myself impressed at Brian's courage or his obliviousness to it. BUT he does wake up with first light... even in the summer.

This all means I am spending most of my nights with Alan's foot in my side (he like to lay sideways, poking into both Rob and me). Also the dog likes to lay on my feet, no matter how many times I push him away. Then I'm awoke from this light sleep too early by Brian's cheery self.

In short, I'm not sleeping up to my potential.

I don't want to forbid Alan from coming in to our room when scared. One of the worst weeks of my childhood was after a sitter let me watch Salem's Lot and I became convinced I couldn't go to my parent, as they were now secret vampires. No, I want him to have a safe place for his fears... just not feel he needs to use it as often. Does anyone have any good imaginary monster tricks? Anything that works with your kids? We've tried the anti-monster spray, flashlights, and reasoning it through, but it just doesn't work. As a kid who had those fears, I can see why, but is there a good way to mute them at that age?

Your Bithday is My Birthday Too

Among many other associated worries, there are twin fears in becoming a patent: 1. How will the world treat your child, and 2. How will your child treat the world. Clearly, in our situation, #1 is something we worry about quite a bit, but #2 is right up there. How do you teach true compassion? Not just "be nice or you'll be punished, by me or the supernatural" but teach them to want it for its own sake? How do you teach a child to feel and want to feel the pain they caused in, say, a brother when they, say, take their favorite toy? The rewards of empathy, sacrifice and the golden rule can be subtle and the paths of causation complicated (for adults, let alone a 5-year-old).

Given all that, one of my greatest fears is to raise a man who doesn't give a damn.

When our boys were about two, I remember our dogs getting in a little fight, and Alan ran in between them trying to protect the the littler, older pet from the bully, with genuine distress on his little face. After I grabbed him for fear he'd get bit, I choked up, even at that small bit of evidence, just at the possibility that he was showing concern for something else.

But I've more evidence to go on than that. (The following may come off as blatant parental bragging, as is intended ;-).)

Last year an organization I volunteer with was doing a needs drive for refugee families. I wanted our boys to donate some of their unused toys and so thought up this whole complicated speech on charity on my way home from work. Once home I sat the boys down and started telling them about the children in these families, how they had to leave their homes, and how they had next to nothing. I hardly finished my first sentence when Brian asked me if they had any toys. I swelled with anticipation and said no. Then they asked me if they could give some of their toys. While I tried to keep from crying, they started going though their toy chest. And sure, a couple toys of what they selected weren't the best, and they kept their favorites, but a lot of refugee kids are playing with their toys today.

As for today... Our boys will soon have their birthday party. One school friend of theirs always asks for food donations instead of gifts for his birthday and we were talking about it. I was against such a thing, remembering my birthdays full of gifts too fondly. I admittedly kind of thought it was the parents imposing on their children too much. But from discussing that friend's party the topic came up and, once again, our boys thought of those refugee kids on their own (the pictures I took of them with our boys' toys last year made quite an impression). This time, though and maybe I was wrong here, I tried in two separate family discussions to talk them out of it. "You understand that your friends won't bring you any toys, right?" But they were set and the invitations went out.

Of course they'll still get a small ransom in toys from us, grandparents, aunts and such--plus a trip to Lego Land right after their dads get married, again...--but they wanted to give up this bit from friends. The idea of those other kids with toys where once they had none gave them more pleasure.

Now don't get me wrong. Our boys will fight; they have, at times, tried to hurt another's feelings; they'll simply be as selfish as any 5-year-old. If you get between a hungry Alan and mac-and-cheese you might even get bit, though purely by accident.

But there's that other piece to them. We didn't put it there; I can't take any credit. They came with that spark of empathy and charity as far as I can tell. I'm just absolutely grateful for it, though, to be able to worry less and less about the #2 fear up there, to have these hopeful hints of the men they'll become.

It will soon be 6 years since we carried them into their nursery, so tiny and packed with potential. They've been six of the shortest years of my life, the most complicated years of my life, the absolutely best years of my life. They've grown into little boys, unfolded their personalities. Yes, yes, yes, we've laughed and cried and all that good stuff; I know I'm getting too sappy when I'm tearing up at my keyboard :-). I just want to write, have it known and in digital stone, I'm proud of them.

Fun New Toy

We finally found a wii fit yesterday (It was supposed to be Rob's Father's Day present from the kids--a present they could enjoy too :-)--but all the stores were out in these parts). We goofed off on it all afternoon, and really did work up a sweat.

I had to share our family portrait:


Ain't we cute? You should see me hula!

Sell Out

Our first dip into activism came just before the push in the Utah legislature to put a constitutional amendment to forbid our legal marriage on the ballot. I was speaking out against a bill aiming to do the same in regular law up on capitol hill.

After that and once the push to make that bill into an amendment began, I was asked by a representative to give the opening prayer for the legislative day, as an open gay man and father. She wanted them to have to see me.

To put this in context, not many legislators came to hear my testimony... Okay, hardly any came; they didn't want to hear what they were doing to people and were seemingly content with the assessment Senator Buttars provided of gay families (or what's the term he prefers? Child abuse collectives?). He gave them all some pamphlet about what the gays do in bed. He knows, see.

I'm sure none of them wanted to be near enough to a gay man that hand shaking might become a possibility after reading that, let alone to have to consider his family in their legislation.

Anyway, so here was a chance for me to have a captive audience. They'd have to see a gay father, without warning. They'd have to know they were going to hurt someone real. They'd have to know more about our lives and concerns than they got from the paper or the news the day after they didn't show up to hear what we had to say. They'd have to see we shared some common ground.

Sure, that may be very little, but it's something. Consider that the bill passed by one vote.

I'm ashamed to admit I was tempted. I was. I thought out some justifications: "I'm not an atheist; I can say a prayer as an agnostic, can't I?" "It's no big deal. I at least know what faith feels like..." "This could soften some hearts; a prayer without faith is the lesser of two evils."

I came close, so close that that episode is something I'll keep as a constant reminder of how weak I can be. It's something to weigh me down when I start to float.

Nevertheless, I didn't do it. I called the representative and told her I couldn't do it, that it would be improper. She ended up using her turn to select an Episcopal for the person giving the prayer, straight man though.

I didn't do it because, as an agnostic pretending to speak to anyone in prayer, I would have been selling out one of my core principles, my respect for democracy and science in epistemology. I would be doing that for possible political gain. Equal treatment, sure, is another of my core principles, but I don't want it reached that way. Some sins can spoil the best blessings.

Still, I wonder to this day, what if there was just that one legislator on the brink, thinking of gay men as shallow club hoppers with no more need of marriage rights and responsibilities than the average fraternity brother. What if they never thought gay men were men of family, and dedication, that they weren't parents, parents terrified of how their government is treating their home. Could a sliver have made a difference? Probably not, but...

That brings me to yesterday. I opened the mail and found a thank you card from my representative, now running for senate. I donated to their campaign last month, just a couple years after refusing to even put up a lawn sign for them because they voted for Amendment 3. I donated not because I now like this person; I donated because I want to break the super majority the republicans have in the senate. In short, the thank you made me feel a bit dirty, unexpectedly; it made me feel like I feel when I think back to considering that prayer.

One must be careful. I have to be careful. It seems there's no greater a population, per capita, of lesser evils than in politics.

Of course I can't support the republican here, she's worse on most of the issues I care about. And at least this representative knows my disappointment, we've talked numerous times and even their campaign staff knows me by face and name (they must have some sort of malcontent constituent file?). I'm sure she can easily guess why we've donated now, and knows we're not now anti-gay rights...

Still, for some reason, I'd rather have not been told thank you; that thank you lowered my opinion of my self, just enough to sting.

Independence

We had a fine 4th of July weekend. We spend the morning at the pool. It's the same pool party I've gone to every year of my life, and it is wonderful to see the boys enjoy the games and festivities as I did. Apparently, they're completely over their fear of the diving board:
Brian even found the silver dollar in the money toss:
And Allan, he just had fun alternating between stealing my or his grandpa's hat.
That night, along with my parents and a sister, we had friends over, another pair of dads and their children. Their daughter told me she's going to marry Brian but she doesn't know why because "he's so crazy sometimes." It was so cute; they sat and watched the fireworks hand in hand.

Then Saturday we took a hike up to Lake Marry:
It was a great weekend, but for one thing. Every hiker we passed and said hi to, there was that thought in the back of my mind, "Do they also want our boys to be entitled to different parents? Are they paying their church to help annul our rights and responsibilities? Are they on board with the harm that will be done to us and many others?" Unhealthy, I know, and, for some people, unfair. I don't much like that feeling, feeling like I can't just say hi to a stranger in this town and approach and leave feeling like we've both given the other equal standing, like we've both agreed to respect each other's family, and rights. At least it's fleeting and gone as soon as a kid slips in the mud or makes an adorable observation.

Happy 4th

First, I thought this was funny. Just after I read a very nice comment from Kengo about our children being well adjusted, they came running into my office clucking like chickens and looking like this:

The timing was impeccable (if you can't tell, those are surgical gloves on their heads). Care to make a reassessment, Kengo? :-)

Anyway, I hope you all have a happy and patriotic 4th of July.

May your barbecues be heavy with meat, your soda pop glacier cold, and your potato salad free of flies. And, please, try not to set any of our great nation ablaze tonight. (Particularly those of you in California. Many more fires there, and you just know Pat Robertson will start blaming us.)

The Children

I just finished a review of the research on children raised by gays and lesbians, if the topic interests anyone. It's here:

http://isocrat.org/science/children_of_ssp/effects.php

In short, the kids are alright, and somewhat different.

As always, edits and suggestions appreciated.

Ctrl-P

A little break from the serious. I always need at least one.

A couple days ago our boys discovered the magic of Ctrl-P. To date they've gone through a small grove of trees in paper, and I've put a stop to it. It was hard though; I loved finding the little, and often mysterious notes about the house.

Here's a couple examples, punctuation and spelling intact. Maybe you can translate (each represents a paper... or more; they don't do conservation):

----------------
Brian and Alan are the best kids.

Brian likes kung fu!

Alan likes monsters!
---------------------

No way crazy Jay!!!

----------------------

[FYI, Brian manages the lives of 26 stuffed animals; they live in his closet and have many adventures]

Once upon a time... there were 26 animals!

They were so cute and cuddly! But they miss
There parents. And the fresh air.

what did they do? They went back home.

the end

---------------------

Once upon a time there were 10 mean and cuddly animals.
And 26 nice and cuddly animals! this is a show.

time: 11:00
when: tomorrow night

-----------------------

Once upon a time, There were 26 animals

they were very pore. And didn't have any food.

They met a man! He had change and food!

they were happy!

---------------------

When I Grow up I am to make a video Game!

called Wolfeys monsters Adventure!

[Wolfey is his favorite stuffed animal]

---------------------

I love you papa you are the best I love sitting by you

-------------------

See. How could I be mad? :-)

He loved sitting by me, Alan said, while at Wall-e, which I must recommend. By far the best post-apocalyptic movie I've ever seen. I think it also had the best performance by a cockroach to date.

PS You may think there's an overabundance of exclamation marks in Brian's writings, but, thinking on it, that's how he speaks, often enthusiastic :-).

A Question...

My brother, my father-in-law, and my uncle are all bishops, but in Utah. Does anyone know if they were asked to read that letter today about the marriage amendment, or was that just leadership in California? If you are in Utah, did your bishop read it?

Thanks, and don't worry. I'll not start a fight. I just feel like I need to know.

Gaynerations

Generational changes have been on my mind of late. Being a Utah (ex-)Mormon boy, of course, one cannot go too far back, on all sides of my family, before running into pioneers and polygamists. I see my last name comes from a Jacob, baptized into the LDS church in 1833. By his daughter's account he was married to 4 wives, the last 3 marriages performed by the president of his church. He was arrested for polygamy, "went through the persecution of the saints, and knew the pioneer life in its raw."

But it’s not more than a generation after those pioneering progenitors that hints of homosexuals start popping up—The man who never married and is photographed next to his mother looking much too dapper for his time and place, or the woman with no children but a number of sister wives. All that, of course, is speculation; gays were very well hidden back then. There were no gay people in the good old pioneer days, just as there are none currently residing in Iran.

The first gay man I can indirectly verify in my family has to be my great uncle Jack. Sad story, that. I’m sure I benefited for his tragedy in the way it softened my now departed grandfather, the man who baptized me; still, it’s very sad to think of the life of gay men back then. From Jack I can pick out a bunch. There are a handful of gay aunts, uncles, and cousins. Some are out and open and others are quietly gay. One still feels the need to call his partner his “business” partner in their small town. He still lives under some of the pressures that my great uncle faced, but has found a compromise that works for him. They are almost all, in that generation before me, still somewhat skittish about talking of their orientation, even though they’ve made it apparent.

And no worries, I’m not outing anyone. I’ve enough family that to say some are gay is next to saying there’s a gay man somewhere in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (not that I'm saying I know one of those too... [cue ominous minor organ chord]).

When I came out, I knew none of this, of course. I thought I was the homosexual in state of Utah. It was about a couple years after I came out to everyone when family began coming up to me to express our similarity. Some would come out somberly, with a hand on my arm, and a difficult paragraph about their experiences. Something like, “I know what you’re going through. I have cancer too.” Others just let it blurt out with a joke. One just laughed and said after dropping vague, confusing hints all day, “You didn’t think you were the only one in the family, did you?” as if I would have been egotistical enough to imagine that (Err… I did imagine that I was, though).

To the point, I'm glad they're their, as family, in my genealogy. But, as gay family, I was never given the opportunity to learn from them, until after I had my coming out trials settled and didn't need help, particularly from those still, sadly, much more closeted and scarred than I was.

Now, regarding the next generation, I am an uncle more than 30 times over and have many younger family members of other sorts. They all know I'm gay; they all know Rob and I are married, and that their cousins have two dads. And I know some of them are gay too, even if they don't, yet. Some of them are just now old enough to head off to missions, get married, and, it turns out, come to terms with their orientation.

I'll leave even gender out of this, just in case, but the first relative of that next generation has recently come out to our family. I think I imagined helping them through those tough times in a way I wasn't helped, but it didn't work out that way. They struggled on their own, and then came out to my parents, and eventually us. I was heartened to be told we were a big help, just by us being here and paving the way in the family, but still I was a bit sad they didn't think they could come to me sooner.

When I think on it more, though, I don't think I would have either, even if I knew of my gay relatives. Some fights really have to be your own, and in that state you don't really want influence as you don't really know where you should end up. At least I could be there at the finish line. They asked to join us for their first Pride festival a couple weeks ago, and they did with our whole group, which included other family, friends and some mohos. I hope it wasn't intimidating.

Anyway, where was this going? I'm not sure. Something about generations?...

Eh, I'm tired having been kept up most of last night with one of my kid's foot stubbornly pressing on my ribs... Anyway, it will be interesting how the rest of that next generation handle their orientation; the fact that they are now entering gay adulthood gives new urgency for me in my [gulp] activism. Also, I'd pay big bucks to read the genealogical accounts of my generation 200 years from now, from the perspective of our great great grandkids. I wonder if Jacob and his four wives ever imagined I, their progeny, would be thumbing through his life story... and posting about it on my blog, with my husband at home taking care of our two children?

Probably not...

Why it got to me.

Yesterday's announcement by the LDS church that members should "do all they can" to make sure our families are kept from equal rights in the California constitution upset me more than I've been upset by such in a long time. I stayed up late last night upset (Utah does need a MSDS; I wonder how much shorter my life will be for such stress :-), or maybe :-\).

I'm used to groups attacking us with that false shallow veneer of concern for my children. I'm used to them doing it with no veneer. I'm used to the LDS church doing it. True, I was hoping, based on rumor, that there would be more just treatment outside the church, or at least political hands off our families with the new leadership, and I'm sad that's not the case. Also substantially, we are about to get married there in California, after 16 years as a couple and 13 married. We've waited a long time. To have that giddy joy of feeling like you're so close and then have it mixed with what feels like a punch in the gut from an organization you once trusted and that strongly influences the minds of much of your family, well, the punch in the gut stings all the more, even if you were once used to it.

Mainly, it was the fact that we just got back from Rob's family reunion. We just spent a wonderful weekend with my in-laws in Park City. I love his family and I know the feeling is mutual, and they have come to know we belong together. They've told Rob, that they don't understand how, but through prayer they've no problem with us as a couple, even if that is contrary to what church leadership is teaching, and I'm fine with that truce.

But now we get home and find the leaders of the LDS church (the church of my in-laws and much of my family) are asking them to do all they can to legally diminish my family, to hurt us, their son, me, and their grandchildren. Their leaders are asking that of Rob's siblings too. The cousins our boys were laughing and playing with all weekend, they are also now being asked to "do all you can" to annul our upcoming legal union, to in effect harm our whole family. They are being told to view our children as somehow defective or deficient.

I hope I never learn of any of them donating financially or physically to that cause, though I know the church they give money to already has and will. They, many of our loved ones, are already funding this. It's sick, undermining to families (and demonstratively, in the real world, not merely mystically), and it is why this upset me as much as it did. I was feeling good about the people in the LDS church in my life, now I have to watch and see once again where they go from here.

It's just tough not being in your culture's predominant faith. I'm sure it always has been hard, and far worse than we have it today, from the gentile killed by Moses for collecting sticks on the sabbath to the youth from another tribe headed up the side of a volcano to "appease" a force of nature. You're told you have to be hurt or hurt another. Why? For the good of everyone else, of course. You're not selfish, right? You want the tribe to have a good crop, you don't want your city to be destroyed, or, in this case, you want to do right by some proposed supernatural fertility law. But when a person is unwilling to do such harm on faith, even when it feels good, they have a problem. What's worse for them is that faith has never meant to be verifiable anyway; it has done a lot of work over centuries to not be verifiable outside our all too potent tools of self assurance. There are centuries of effective tools of confidence in place, social proofs and so on. There are even many failsafes: "Your faith in Allah is wanning? Well you must be under the temptation of a demon then. That proves demons exist and thus faith in Allah is true." But there is no real test by which two people can surrender in equal deference to evidence.

In the end, the guy at the side of the volcano arguing that "Hey, the last ten virgins you threw in had no effect on our crop yield" isn't going to stop those with the strongest faith. That only means you need more virgins. Heck, he'd be lucky to not end up being a little extra bit of "appeasement" in the more brutal days of humanity. At least things are far from that bad. But the situation is sadly similar for the guy who doesn't hold the faith of those around him, when that faith asks that one neighbor harm another.

Nevertheless, here's to hoping my in-laws aren't or don't become as ardent of followers as to attack the family with which they just spent a wonderful weekend. I just have to hope they can somehow keep their faith and just treatment of our family too.