Diversity is wonderful, isn’t it? To see all of the races and genders that make up our community. But with that diversity comes diverse ideas and opinions. Not all people live or think alike. Here in the center, that is most apparent. It is an assemblance of causes and passions all under one roof. Including my own. These are my thoughts based on my own experiences. I do not claim to speak for anyone else. In this place, your opinion is welcome as well. But remember, no matter how well thought out or articulated your words may be, you’re not going to change my views. That will only happen with time and my own contemplation.

HAY Archives

Homosexual Aware Youth was a gay youth group that existed in the mid to late nineties in Huntsville. It was the state’s only grass-roots group catering to the youth of our community. We met every other Thursday at the Metropolitan Community Church of Huntsville. Although started by a sixteen year-old gay man and his mother, so many others dedicated so much of themselves to the group.

We averaged fifteen to twenty people per meeting. We probably saw one hundred or so people through the life of the group. It was fun to march with each other through the mall after each get together. It was heart wrenching to hear a young girl describe how she had been living on the street for the past month or so after her mother kicked her out for being gay.

I had it fairly easy coming out, but seeing the pain on those young people’s faces made me never take that for granted. I was proud of all of the work I did for the group, including the website. I was proud of the young lives we saved from hate, alienation and harm. I was proud of those who made an effort not only to make but keep the group maintained and going strong.

Then, those doors were locked. The sixteen year-old was eighteen and had other interests. It just wasn’t fun anymore, he said. Someone else can do it. Well, no one has done it since, but the need is still there. I’m much older now and youth groups aren’t my calling, but maybe one day some other sixteen year-old will have the same vision. And I hope that they don’t lose sight of it.

You're Out!

Melissa Etheridge. Ellen Degeneres. George Michael. Amanda Bearse. Rosie O’Donnell.

It seems like whenever a celebrity comes out of the closet, we all make a huge deal of it. Maybe we should. I mean, it takes a lot to risk a career and a lifestyle just to be honest with the world. Maybe there’s more at stake for those in the public eye than for me, Joe Public, who worked in a gay friendly career like the airlines.

The above people are so revered because they stood up in front of the cameras on their own and proclaimed their lives to the world. We worship these people. They are our heroes. On the flip side of the coin, those we suspect but think are too afraid to come out, we revile. With as much intensity as we put into our cheers for the aforementioned people, we put just as much into our curses of the closeted.

I believe that there is strength in numbers. And I believe that the more people who do come out could only help our cause. But I also believe that each person’s life has its own set of circumstances. Each individual knows their own life more than any other. How can anyone else speculate on these circumstances? How dare we demand all of those in the closet to come out.

He who is not with us is against us.

In a perfect world, they say, everyone would come out. No. In a perfect world, people would not even need to come out. But this is not a perfect world. It’s full of struggles and conflict. An old gay professor told me that we each had to choose our battles. Those people who may or may not be gay who have decided not to come out of the closet have chosen their battles. As fellow human beings, we must forget for a second about the strength in numbers and respect their decisions.

I myself think the closet is a very dark and unhealthy place. I think that one restricts themselves when they choose a life inside of it. And that is their decision. But there is a line. When a spouse and children are involved, it becomes less about an individual and their choices. It becomes a tragedy.

I’m just glad I got through all of this shit when I was too young to know any better or have any real opinions.

Sticks and Stones

That dyke.

You fag.

Quit being a silly queer.

The above three lines would be enough to make some dyke’s, fag’s or queer’s rainbow blood boil. No context needed. Just the appearance of words that need to be banished from our vocabulary. Grr...

Fag, dyke, butch, femme,
Flannel wearing lesbian.

Wow. I’ve just committed gay blasphemy. They argue that in a world where gays are routinely beaten into oblivion with bats, why must we use these words which are the verbal equivalents of blunt objects?

I don’t see it that way. I think that we have taken these “blunt objects” away from the bad folks and now use them to tickle and play with each other like big feathery pillows. Like Bobby Trendy’s on the Anna Nicole show. They can be fun to use. They should be fun to use. That takes all of the negative power away of them.

There was an old boss of mine, a black man, who moved from Detroit to Birmingham. Boy, was that a change, he said. He told me that the entire time he was in Detroit, he was never assaulted with words. Then, after being in the south for just a month or so, he heard them. A bunch of central Alabama rednecks stuffed into an El Camino drove swiftly past him, yelling half the words they knew in their short country vocabularies. When the car was gone, he stopped. But he didn’t feel anger or shame. He laughed. He stood right there on the street and started laughing. There was no need to yell anything back or even let what had just happened linger within him. There was no need for revenge. “They had to go home to their shack in Clanton and still be them,” he thought. When he laughed, those men had lost all of their power.

Words can be painful, yes. But of all of the obstacles we face in this world, the words fag, dyke, and queer can be the easiest to disregard as a threat. Words don’t make you bleed unless you let them.

Those Greedy Bastards

An old friend of mine always had a saying- “Bi now, gay later.” This of course refers to the gay and lesbians’ old friend, the bisexual.

“Greedy little bastards,” my friend also used to call them.

The former saying, of course, refers to how many guys who claim to be bi one day usually end up gay eventually. Hell, I remember when I thought I was bi for that week or so. It was a way to reconcile my being gay while still maintaining a touch of normalcy. Sure, I might want a hot naked man, I thought. But, I’ll still be able to get married and have kids. Yeah…

I’m not saying that there aren’t any bisexuals. I’ve met many people who’ve claimed to be bi. But I think that only one or two have actually been that way. They were both women.

In my opinion, men are just too damn visually stimulated for too many of us to be bisexual. Men have images that drive them. And the image of a man and a woman are just too damn different. But, hey, I guess it can happen. I just haven’t met any yet.

Women, on the other hand, are attracted to more than just a vagina or a penis. Sexuality, I’ve seen, tends to be much more fluid on their side of the fence. One of my best friends (a lesbian) is in a long term relationship with a girl who’s only gay relationship has been this one. She has been with many, many, many men. (She was a slut.) But she is so in love with this woman that it doesn’t matter what she has in her pants. The stronger gender is just much more capable of this. I don’t consider her bisexual. I still call her straight. At her point, what the hell does a label matter?

Have you ever noticed that most bisexual guys claim to like either men a little more than women or to like them both just the same? Hardly ever do they say they like women more. And, especially in this age of openness, why does just about every bi guy have a woman on his arm in public but a guy on the side. Why is it never the other way around? Why is the woman never on the side?

Bisexuality I’ve learned can be a very touchy subject to those claiming to be "caught in the sexual purgatory." And I usually give them the benefit of the doubt. But, if you watch them closely enough, you see that they at least lean more toward one side than the other. At least more than they’re willing to admit.

Our Lady in Heels

Not a lot of people know this about me, but just before graduating high school when I was eighteen, I suddenly had this religious upheaval in my life. I stopped cussing. I finally got confirmed into the Catholic church (I was baptized as a baby.) I had decided to become a priest.

Father Chris. Now, that would’ve been something. I even went so far as to visit a seminary in southern Indiana. There, I met a guy I would never forget.

His face was bright and angelic. His words, articulate and striking. His life, centered on becoming a priest. I was face to face with this young man on my first visit to the seminary. His lips would form a smile only when talking about how proud he was making his parents. But behind his eyes, there was pain. I could tell he was gay, and perhaps his parents even knew. It was then, for the first time, that I realized priests are not superhuman or divine, but just as mortal as anyone else. Mortals who have taken a vow, essentially, never to fall in love and never to share their life with another.

I decided I could never do that and came out of the closet a few months later.

I don’t claim to be a religious man, although I have learned a lot about the bible after theological studies at Saint John’s University. What I have learned is that it doesn’t matter what kind of relationship the bible say you should with God. It only matters what relationship you do have with her.

A friend once asked me, after finding out about my brief seminary experience, what I thought about God and gays. I answered, after many beers and a joint or two, that being gay is not just about sleeping with people of the same sex. It’s also about falling in love and sharing a life. I believe that love can only happen when sanctioned by God. And when love happens, you’ll know it. Then you know that it has God’s blessing.

I have been in love with another man. I know that God let it happen.

I hardly ever bring up my knowledge about the bible when talking about spirituality and religion. The bible is a good resource, but not much more. It has been translated so many times that it has lost most of its true meaning through the centuries. It contradicts itself more than a Keanu Reeves action flick. Even in English translations, there are countless versions. The bible in a non-issue in my life.

My spirituality is a private thing between God and me. Just like my being gay, I feel no need to shout it from the roofs. But when I sit on top of Monte Sano mountain and look out onto the endless expanse of the Appalachians, I see her. More so than any evangelist screaming at the top of his lungs, I see her. And I know whether the rain drenches my body or the sun shines on my face, that she loves me.

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