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.

Facebook

On the first day of 2009 I decided it was about time I got on facebook. I did this so as to keep from feeling like I was falling behind on the trends, and because I was jealous of all of Rob's friends.

Oddly "To Compete With Spouse" is not one of the check boxes in the profile under "looking for:" and so I left that blank.

In short, I'm a facebook virgin. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it or what the facebook manners are. Forgive me in advance.

There are a couple odd things, though, that it has made me realize.

For instance, I can't bring myself to say I'm "Interested in:" "Men" in my profile. I'm not. I'm just interested in the one. Call the NATH hotline; I figured out a partial cure to homosexuality! But does that mean I'm in the facebook closet? Even though everyone I know knows I'm gay?

Relationship status? There's no option for "married but in legal limbo or forcibly divorced". I picked married, and claimed my man. That's pretty gay.

Political views? In one line? My longwindedness and cafeteria liberalism cannot abide by that. I left it blank.

Religion? Again, it takes pages of blog posts for me to feel like I've even summed it up. I left it blank at first for that reason, and now I want to change it to agnostic so as to not be in two facebook closets, but does that then send out a notification that I've suddenly switched to agnostic? I don't want my agnostic street cred questioned by our non-religious leaders at our next non-church service.

Personal info? Is it custom to put all that in? Does, say, a coworker care to know that I like Sigur Ros, and No Country For Old Men? I guess I've had fun looking at friends' interests and so I'll get around to it.

And "friends"? I'm so bad with names and I've got people who've sent me requests that I'm not sure I know. Am I making some sort of horrible social insult by not adding them without more info? I can't even see their faces clearly in their pictures.

Then there's the whole being forced to talk about yourself in 3rd person when posting updates. I find it kind of disorienting.

Lastly, there's the world collision thing. I'm guarded with parts of our identity here, for threats I've received. But we have had no threats for a long while, other than those that come at every gay-headed family by vote. So yeah, it's probably time to let the two worlds of my blog and the rest mingle. As it's a one-way mingling though, I'm not dropping my alter ego, out of caution and habit.

It's not like we're near anonymous in the world at large, anyway. I squeeze an editorial into a paper or end up with a soundbite on the TV with my full name right under it at least once a season. Several of you have even been to the gay bat cave that is our home.

Besides, I have no choice; fellow mohos have found me.

The only horrible thing, though, is that they found Rob too! I will never have more friends than him if you keep adding him along with me!

The Neighborhood

Remember the good old days around these parts, oh, about a year and a half ago?

I miss Sean, GBUYS, Cas., and more. What about Chris, L, Fox, and GayLDSActor; remember when they actually posted at least once a week, not the current once every blue moon?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m very glad to meet and read new folks. It was just a simpler time, a smaller, cozier space back then, right? And I think I get it; I’m not saying people should stick around. Most people aren’t blogging for my aims; many are there to document a process and once it’s over or once blogging gets in the way of that process, they are rightly off.

Also, I fear I had some prophetic vision in my joking, when the first significant cracks appeared, with the great MoHo-HoMo debate of aught-7. It seems more people moved in than could keep a social network intact where folks were familiar with each other, familiar enough to not vilify and to keep giving the benefit of the doubt. Camps formed, some were shunned, others got fed up. There was some yelling, outings, threats, insults made with those familiar, polite surfaces (Say what you will, but we here in Utah know how to do the passive aggressive insult with great skill, don’t we? ;-)).

And, heck, I know I can be part of the same problem. I’ve been reading but not commenting or posting much lately. I’ve been busy with isocrat.org, and that’ll just make this area feel less like a neighborhood, to me.

Also, I try to be friendly and hope I have been. I know, though, that there’s always a point of indignation in me for anyone who admits to wanting to keep my family from legal equality, or insults my marriage or home, no matter how they might couch such to sound civil, or what their good intentions are. If it were just an academic argument, I think I’m pretty good at keeping feelings out of it, but I know when it’s my family, I have to watch it too, to hate the sin and not the sinner. I mean, it's my family. I’m sure that frustration has seeped out from me at times; perhaps it just did ;-).

Eh, of course, I don’t think anything will change back; I was just feeling nostalgic. Am I the only one?

On the other hand, you know, gays are renowned for their preternatural gentrification abilities, even in some of the worst neighborhoods :-)…

I've The MoHo Solution

For those not following there is a debate going on as to what to call folks in this little web of blogs, others have summed it up (here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here) and I will not.

But my solution is very simple. Let’s let “MoHo” keep the purer meaning: A true believer in every aspect of the LDS faith (yes, even the gay stuff) who is also homosexual. And everyone else will be called AntiMoHos. Simple.

We can split all our blogs up into hyperlinked camps, and each can organize against the other. We can all have posts like “10 Reasons Why I Hate MoHos” and “The AntiMoHos: Satan Lovers, or Satan Likers?”. All true MoHos can, say, give their avatars a blue background and the true AntiMoHos can be red. That way, without even reading a comment, we can all make snap judgments as to whether we should seriously consider what’s in it. If you're red and they're blue, you can just go right away on to thinking of ways to insult and refute even their observations about the weather; It’ll be a timesaver.

Of course the camps themselves may split a bit. For the higher-law members of the MoHos, those who are doubly LDS and can’t even ethically say the word homosexual, we could have the MoMoSSAs (a queer drink if there’s ever been one). They’d of course be better souls than the average MoHo, but would swallow their disgust for the sake of defeating the AntiMoHos (But once the AntiMoHos are gone watch out, regular MoHos. Nothing is a better chaser for a purge than another purge). In the AntiMoHo camp, we’d have everything from liberal LDS to vile atheists, and so you know there’ll be trouble there too. But I’m sure we can all put those differences aside as well, as long as we’re all in agreement that the MoHos suck and their differences cannot be tolerated, that is.

As I’ve never thought of, or referred to myself as a MoHo, I’ll be handling registration for the AntiMoHos. Give me an email, and, with a 50-dollar donation to our new organization, “The New Organization for the Terrorization of MoHos” (NOTMOHO), I’ll send you our secret team handbook that delineates all the great reasons we should fight the MoHos to our last internet breath, insights into the MoHo’s secret and frightening agenda, and why they want to drown puppies. I’ll through in a T-shirt too, with our logo and cut off at the midriff, free.

Let’s do it, team AntiMoHo! Yeah!!

Other than that, which is undoubtedly the best option, we could just let it be :-).

Born That Way?

While A is my rough and tumble kid, my little B is a sensitive soul. In any media, when he sees a person somewhat different, say, a three-eyed alien, I’m talking the cartoonish friendly type, he wants to know if they were born that way. In trying to figure out why and past a couple layers of child reasoning, it finally became clear that he assumes if they were born that way, then he can’t become that way. He’s more comfortable with three-eyed aliens, as long as he can’t grow into a three-eyed alien.

Certainly it’s something we have to work on. They’ve cousins with certain differences that make B similarly uneasy, and it’s taken a couple instances to get them to understand how such is okay, and to think of their cousin’s feelings before showing their discomfort.

Now, typically, if it’s in any sort of media, right after the “Were they born that way?” comes “Are they just pretend?” (I know, should go the other way :-)). We’ve had the talk about the difference between dinosaurs, dragons, and lizards, and pretend or not subsequently matters much to him. If they’re not born that way and pretend, then he’s at his most comfortable with the character.

But if they are born that way and not pretend, he has one last recourse. He wants to know if they live in Utah.

That said, I was faced with an uncomfortable set of such question last night for a particularly unflattering image of Michael Jackson.

Getting Out, Meeting People

If the television can be trusted, meeting people met first online ends, without fail, in your 15 minuets of fame being a 2 minuets cautionary tale on the 10 o’clock news. Just ask my family; they’ll tell you the same. And I can’t say I’m not very leery of it as well and I do think for some good reasons.

When I came out as a teen, I had not one of the internets (;-)), but we did have creepy strangers, who’d hang around where we hung, with whom you’d not want to find yourself alone. We had closeted gay men, married men posing as out gay men just to live a fantasy. We had people posing as an understanding ear for the vulnerable, either out to “save” us from or “help” us live with our orientation, but who were only out to take advantage. And none of them could conceal their nature as easily as they can now, online. I’d absolutely say to watch out for such; I and the TV are sure they’re out there still.

Through my life I’ve never really found myself thinking I’d actually meet any of the people I’d met online, save for one other time, for the above reasons. Oddly, looking back, most the people I’d like to have met have been those I’ve debated most :-). But now, here, with much of this blogography associated with my same geography, it’s come up. I think also it’s come up because there are some really good folks here. I’ve come to respect, and internet-ly know some to the point that it feels natural to want to drive a bit and chat in person, as I would with any other person I’ve come to appreciate in my every day activities. I simply did not anticipate feeling such would be okay when I entered these blogs with my first comment, but, in short, it can and has (in a public place at first, of course, always with R, and not until after we’ve interacted for a while, and… :-)).

Fortunately, I can say it’s been well worth it. I’m as glad to have met offline as on, and more. It really is nice to put a face to the avatars, and to the personality coming through in text. It’s nice to let down a bit of my guard, talk comfortably person-to-person, and get past some of the unwieldy but purposeful cloak and dagger of this area of the gay world. But it’s been particularly appreciated to find a better way to involve R. If you’ve not noticed by now, R barely gets his email and has little interest in anything computer-y (too many made-up words per post?); I deal with the electrical, and he deals with the rest ;-). To be able to give him a better idea, in a way that he can better interact, about the whos and whats of these blogs has been appreciated. And at least now some of you out there could vouch for our real-world existence ;-).