I have recently been told I am a bigot. Racial bigot. And of course the idea that I would be such a miserable creature is particularly gruesome for me and others due to my long and very vocal fight for gay equality, which is of course based in part upon fighting bigotry. that would make me a hypocrite as well, which actually is, I think worse. It is not an easily accomplished task to truthfully examine ones' own thinking, words and actions to determine the validity or not of such an accusation. In my temper at being accused of something I detest and do not believe myself to be I've lost someone from my life whom I cherish., and that is indeed the tragedy.
I recently posted a column on this blog which bemoaned my fate at being forced by mark's employer to take up residence in a middle class working neighborhood which is slowly being gentrified. I quite rudely and wrongly expressed my strong distaste for the "local color" and the "rat children" of the neighborhood. It was an unkind and uncharitable statement for which I apologized to the people who may have read the posting and immediately withdrew it from my blog.
I will leave to others to decide if I am the bigot I'm accused of being but I would like to defend myself. Oh, not for the unkind words. I suppose if that is the basis and only criteria for my judgement than I am indeed guilty.
However, bigotry is not as simply defined or verified by an emotional outburst regarding a situation one does not like and of which one does not wish to be a participant, namely living in an economically challenged area with persons who do not share your own values and beliefs. I come from a working class family of very moderate means and I have no regret or shame of my past or my family. I do not, however, share the general values or beliefs of the rest of my family and I had and still have every wish to leave that world behind me - and for very good reason. I don't 'fit in'.
It's many years now that I have lived on my own, and then with my spouse, Mark, striving to build a very different life with very different expectations of what is worthwhile in having and working towards. That is not a criticism of my parents or brothers and sister and the lives they've chosen. I know each of them has given the best of themselves to the lives they've built and to their families. Mom and Dad have given to me the very best of what they had and one of those gifts was the encouragement to become in life what God meant for us to be. Have I used the gift well and been successful?
I am a gay man. Living in a small town in southern Arizona with a strong Catholic community did nothing for my self esteem or ability to express myself and who I am. I'm not here to debate the issues of growing up gay and being catholic or from a small western town. There are reams of papers describing the horrors and traumas of being completely outside the mainstream of a heterosexual family lifestyle and what happens to the young people who are faced with this situation which entails self hatred, verbal and physical brutality in one's peer group and ostracism on a large scale. That is if you don't hide and deny whom you are and appear different from others outwardly.
I suppose I flitted - it's a good word for this - in and out of being myself and hiding myself. As a child i knew nothing of homosexuality, or any sexuality for that matter, and never even identified as being 'gay' until my mid-twenties when living in Phoenix. I simple knew that I was not attracted to girls other than as friends, and when puberty hit like a Mack truck found I WAS definitively attracted to men. And I do mean men - I wanted to be with someone older and wiser than myself and had no interest in boys my own age. In some ways I longed for a father figure, for I was not in an intimate relationship with my own Dad growing up.
But back to growing up. My interests in art, design, literature and fashion were not the interests of the other boys my age. I was quite alone all through puberty and my teens. In high school I never once had lunch with a friend in the cafeteria but spent every noon hour reading in the library. I slowly became proud of my learning and knowledge and found it extremely useful in defending myself against the many attacks perpetrated by kids who saw me as different and taunted me and attempted to pick fights. If I could make it clear to these bullies that they were not educated, had no world vision and would always be small town insignificant redneck twats than I could manage one more day of being alone and lonely. Hating those who hate you for no particular reason other than you don't like football is a shallow and empty gesture. Nevertheless, I had no guidance in becoming forthright and open, loving and accepting of others differences for I had a secret.
Secrets are terrible things. I don't mean a surprise party of Christmas present sort of secret. I mean a secret about whom you are, and I was homosexual. I was so terrified of being different in this way that I would do anything to avoid being around boys. I was excused form P.E. - showering with the other boys was so terrifying a prospect that I would lie awake every night before the days we had the class and stare at the ceiling of my bedroom until I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. I awoke daily sick to my stomach all through high school, dreading every moment that I was not in the safety of a classroom. The bus stop, on the bus, milling before and between classes, lunchtime, dismissal, after-school were all times of fear for me of either verbal or physical harm. There was plenty of both. I never, or rarely told, because I might have to say something about my secret. It was a deadly cycle for mental health, and it didn't do much for my physical wellness either.
Mom and Dad had some inkling I suppose. i was taken to a therapist at one point and Dad would regularly have temper fits over my playing with dolls and rearranging the furniture. I was happier with mom. She allowed my reading and let me bake,a great delight, and was helpful in letting me draw and paint, which Dad disliked for a long time. If i spoke of art lessons or someday being an artist i was quickly reminded they all starved. I grew discouraged and at some point something in my spirit broke and it has never healed.
Don't misunderstand, as I did for a long time; Mom and Dad loved me and wanted me to have a life that was safe and normal and happy. As adults they knew i was on a journey without a foreseeable happy ending. Once Mom was talking to Aunt Jerry about how 'it' ran in the family and I knew what they were talking about. They reassured each other that devout prayer would bring me and my cousins back into the fold of heterosexuality. It seems the prayers weren't heard.
So, my secret grew. The scope of it became larger and larger as I had near misses with other boys and men. I never actually had sex with anyone until I was in my mid-twenties. But I so wanted it - to be loved and touched. My first boyfriend, Dennis, from St. john's kissed me once and asked if it bothered me. I told him no. i so wanted him to kiss me. Yet the guilt of it caused my first attempt at self harm. i took a razor and daily slashed my thighs with it - I still have a few of the scars on my left thigh. This frightened me enough to look for help. I tried hinting broadly to Mom by writing poetry about Jonathan and David. It made her cry, but she never spoke to me about what was happening to me. Fr. Trupia apparently said it would all resolve itself and not to speak to me. I had a terrible crush on Trupia and wanted to be with him. It never happened. Apparently he preferred those who didn't want to be with him.
At St. John's I admired a Fr. Windsor. He was a great Anglophile and I was well developed in my love of all things French by that time. I was too shy to spar in jest with him openly, but I grew to respect his knowledge. I approached him regarding my self harm, unwittingly exposing Dennis and several others, and I was sent to see a psychiatrist in the little town (at that time anyway) of Camarillo. The visit was overwhelming for me. It was secretive and hidden and shameful - all of what I was already experiencing and I told Fr. Windsor I couldn't go back. He never spoke to me about it again, it was as if nothing had happened. I knew I must be terribly evil to have warranted being ignored and shunned, as i thought it was at the time. I see now that they were probably far more concerned about publicity and a law suit. It's too bad the statute of limitations has run out.
That summer, to be near Dennis, I took a mission post at a parish in California along with two other seminarians. It was during that summer that I tried at last to be with Dennis sexually, but it never worked - at least I don't think it did, I don't remember everything. I became very despondent. Having access to a parish car I went to the drugstore and bought several bottles of Unisom and, along with a bottle of Vodka, 120 proof, I downed the liquor and the pills in the Camaro in the drugstore parking lot.. As they started to take effect I drove back to the Church hall where we were bunked and laid down to die. but I heard noises in the parking lot - I got up and went to the window and saw thousands of little demons laughing and dancing and beckoning me to join them in hell. I woke of Fernando and he raised the pastor and i was transported to the hospital and had my stomach pumped. I became agitated as I slowly recovered -- and when the pastor tried to see me and became upset and asked them not to let him in - I had my precious secret! that was when they transferred me to County Hospital (no use wasting money) and left me sitting upright in a wheelchair all night. Every-time I tried to be pleasant to a nurse they would ignore me. Later Mom said she read them the riot over the phone. I never noticed any particular change in demeanor.
I was transferred to a psych ward and at last someone tried to talk with me, but I was locked in and I didn't know this person and I resisted. Mom and Dad arrived and whisked me out, visibly embarrassed. I followed them and the last thing I said was to a nurse watching us leave: "Don't worry, I make my own decisions". Her look of compassion was the first i had had through the whole incident, at least that I could remember.
The drive home was long. When I got home it wasn't long before I heard from Dennis. He was willing to come and get me. being 19 I could go and did. I'm sure it hurt Mom and Dad terribly. I'm sorry for that - but I was still hiding my secret and at home it was no longer possible. dennis took me to lake Tahoe and I thought all would be grand. In some ways it was. Dennis was a deal maker, he always knew someone who had something - in this case a cabin. We stayed one night. I don't remember anything about it, maybe we did and maybe we didn't. I do remember seeing a deer caught in our headlights and trying to lay my head in his lap on the drive - that frightened him and so i slid back to my side. He had tried. he helped me find a job and i stayed at his home in Long beach. At some point his father, who was terminally ill, shot himself in the head. Not long after I learned Dennis was married and expecting a child. I wrote him once and he wrote back saying he was married now and not to write again. So goes my first love.
I asked if I could come home again and was allowed. It worked for a bit, but Dad and I were always at each other and i at last got my own apartment. I worked for a time as a busboy, than managed a social service job at the Boy's club. I bought a car and my first sofa and chair and tried to date one of the Wilhelmy girls.
I think things are out of order, actually. I've been up all night and am tired. I'll finish the story later.
You may rightly ask what this all has to do with the charge of bigotry. I will make my point, be not afraid!
I recently posted a column on this blog which bemoaned my fate at being forced by mark's employer to take up residence in a middle class working neighborhood which is slowly being gentrified. I quite rudely and wrongly expressed my strong distaste for the "local color" and the "rat children" of the neighborhood. It was an unkind and uncharitable statement for which I apologized to the people who may have read the posting and immediately withdrew it from my blog.
I will leave to others to decide if I am the bigot I'm accused of being but I would like to defend myself. Oh, not for the unkind words. I suppose if that is the basis and only criteria for my judgement than I am indeed guilty.
However, bigotry is not as simply defined or verified by an emotional outburst regarding a situation one does not like and of which one does not wish to be a participant, namely living in an economically challenged area with persons who do not share your own values and beliefs. I come from a working class family of very moderate means and I have no regret or shame of my past or my family. I do not, however, share the general values or beliefs of the rest of my family and I had and still have every wish to leave that world behind me - and for very good reason. I don't 'fit in'.
It's many years now that I have lived on my own, and then with my spouse, Mark, striving to build a very different life with very different expectations of what is worthwhile in having and working towards. That is not a criticism of my parents or brothers and sister and the lives they've chosen. I know each of them has given the best of themselves to the lives they've built and to their families. Mom and Dad have given to me the very best of what they had and one of those gifts was the encouragement to become in life what God meant for us to be. Have I used the gift well and been successful?
I am a gay man. Living in a small town in southern Arizona with a strong Catholic community did nothing for my self esteem or ability to express myself and who I am. I'm not here to debate the issues of growing up gay and being catholic or from a small western town. There are reams of papers describing the horrors and traumas of being completely outside the mainstream of a heterosexual family lifestyle and what happens to the young people who are faced with this situation which entails self hatred, verbal and physical brutality in one's peer group and ostracism on a large scale. That is if you don't hide and deny whom you are and appear different from others outwardly.
I suppose I flitted - it's a good word for this - in and out of being myself and hiding myself. As a child i knew nothing of homosexuality, or any sexuality for that matter, and never even identified as being 'gay' until my mid-twenties when living in Phoenix. I simple knew that I was not attracted to girls other than as friends, and when puberty hit like a Mack truck found I WAS definitively attracted to men. And I do mean men - I wanted to be with someone older and wiser than myself and had no interest in boys my own age. In some ways I longed for a father figure, for I was not in an intimate relationship with my own Dad growing up.
But back to growing up. My interests in art, design, literature and fashion were not the interests of the other boys my age. I was quite alone all through puberty and my teens. In high school I never once had lunch with a friend in the cafeteria but spent every noon hour reading in the library. I slowly became proud of my learning and knowledge and found it extremely useful in defending myself against the many attacks perpetrated by kids who saw me as different and taunted me and attempted to pick fights. If I could make it clear to these bullies that they were not educated, had no world vision and would always be small town insignificant redneck twats than I could manage one more day of being alone and lonely. Hating those who hate you for no particular reason other than you don't like football is a shallow and empty gesture. Nevertheless, I had no guidance in becoming forthright and open, loving and accepting of others differences for I had a secret.
Secrets are terrible things. I don't mean a surprise party of Christmas present sort of secret. I mean a secret about whom you are, and I was homosexual. I was so terrified of being different in this way that I would do anything to avoid being around boys. I was excused form P.E. - showering with the other boys was so terrifying a prospect that I would lie awake every night before the days we had the class and stare at the ceiling of my bedroom until I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. I awoke daily sick to my stomach all through high school, dreading every moment that I was not in the safety of a classroom. The bus stop, on the bus, milling before and between classes, lunchtime, dismissal, after-school were all times of fear for me of either verbal or physical harm. There was plenty of both. I never, or rarely told, because I might have to say something about my secret. It was a deadly cycle for mental health, and it didn't do much for my physical wellness either.
Mom and Dad had some inkling I suppose. i was taken to a therapist at one point and Dad would regularly have temper fits over my playing with dolls and rearranging the furniture. I was happier with mom. She allowed my reading and let me bake,a great delight, and was helpful in letting me draw and paint, which Dad disliked for a long time. If i spoke of art lessons or someday being an artist i was quickly reminded they all starved. I grew discouraged and at some point something in my spirit broke and it has never healed.
Don't misunderstand, as I did for a long time; Mom and Dad loved me and wanted me to have a life that was safe and normal and happy. As adults they knew i was on a journey without a foreseeable happy ending. Once Mom was talking to Aunt Jerry about how 'it' ran in the family and I knew what they were talking about. They reassured each other that devout prayer would bring me and my cousins back into the fold of heterosexuality. It seems the prayers weren't heard.
So, my secret grew. The scope of it became larger and larger as I had near misses with other boys and men. I never actually had sex with anyone until I was in my mid-twenties. But I so wanted it - to be loved and touched. My first boyfriend, Dennis, from St. john's kissed me once and asked if it bothered me. I told him no. i so wanted him to kiss me. Yet the guilt of it caused my first attempt at self harm. i took a razor and daily slashed my thighs with it - I still have a few of the scars on my left thigh. This frightened me enough to look for help. I tried hinting broadly to Mom by writing poetry about Jonathan and David. It made her cry, but she never spoke to me about what was happening to me. Fr. Trupia apparently said it would all resolve itself and not to speak to me. I had a terrible crush on Trupia and wanted to be with him. It never happened. Apparently he preferred those who didn't want to be with him.
At St. John's I admired a Fr. Windsor. He was a great Anglophile and I was well developed in my love of all things French by that time. I was too shy to spar in jest with him openly, but I grew to respect his knowledge. I approached him regarding my self harm, unwittingly exposing Dennis and several others, and I was sent to see a psychiatrist in the little town (at that time anyway) of Camarillo. The visit was overwhelming for me. It was secretive and hidden and shameful - all of what I was already experiencing and I told Fr. Windsor I couldn't go back. He never spoke to me about it again, it was as if nothing had happened. I knew I must be terribly evil to have warranted being ignored and shunned, as i thought it was at the time. I see now that they were probably far more concerned about publicity and a law suit. It's too bad the statute of limitations has run out.
That summer, to be near Dennis, I took a mission post at a parish in California along with two other seminarians. It was during that summer that I tried at last to be with Dennis sexually, but it never worked - at least I don't think it did, I don't remember everything. I became very despondent. Having access to a parish car I went to the drugstore and bought several bottles of Unisom and, along with a bottle of Vodka, 120 proof, I downed the liquor and the pills in the Camaro in the drugstore parking lot.. As they started to take effect I drove back to the Church hall where we were bunked and laid down to die. but I heard noises in the parking lot - I got up and went to the window and saw thousands of little demons laughing and dancing and beckoning me to join them in hell. I woke of Fernando and he raised the pastor and i was transported to the hospital and had my stomach pumped. I became agitated as I slowly recovered -- and when the pastor tried to see me and became upset and asked them not to let him in - I had my precious secret! that was when they transferred me to County Hospital (no use wasting money) and left me sitting upright in a wheelchair all night. Every-time I tried to be pleasant to a nurse they would ignore me. Later Mom said she read them the riot over the phone. I never noticed any particular change in demeanor.
I was transferred to a psych ward and at last someone tried to talk with me, but I was locked in and I didn't know this person and I resisted. Mom and Dad arrived and whisked me out, visibly embarrassed. I followed them and the last thing I said was to a nurse watching us leave: "Don't worry, I make my own decisions". Her look of compassion was the first i had had through the whole incident, at least that I could remember.
The drive home was long. When I got home it wasn't long before I heard from Dennis. He was willing to come and get me. being 19 I could go and did. I'm sure it hurt Mom and Dad terribly. I'm sorry for that - but I was still hiding my secret and at home it was no longer possible. dennis took me to lake Tahoe and I thought all would be grand. In some ways it was. Dennis was a deal maker, he always knew someone who had something - in this case a cabin. We stayed one night. I don't remember anything about it, maybe we did and maybe we didn't. I do remember seeing a deer caught in our headlights and trying to lay my head in his lap on the drive - that frightened him and so i slid back to my side. He had tried. he helped me find a job and i stayed at his home in Long beach. At some point his father, who was terminally ill, shot himself in the head. Not long after I learned Dennis was married and expecting a child. I wrote him once and he wrote back saying he was married now and not to write again. So goes my first love.
I asked if I could come home again and was allowed. It worked for a bit, but Dad and I were always at each other and i at last got my own apartment. I worked for a time as a busboy, than managed a social service job at the Boy's club. I bought a car and my first sofa and chair and tried to date one of the Wilhelmy girls.
I think things are out of order, actually. I've been up all night and am tired. I'll finish the story later.
You may rightly ask what this all has to do with the charge of bigotry. I will make my point, be not afraid!
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