jay leffew's Open Salon Blog

On Cynthia Nixon & Balancing The Kinsey Scale

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:01:23 -0500

On Cynthia Nixon and Balancing The Kinsey Scale

We've all heard the same tired, worn-out "Being gay is a choice" arguments before. We have heard it from religion when they want to characterize being gay as sinful, we here it on television when those same religious viewpoints are used to reinforce political ones, and we here it from out parents when they are looking for something...or someone...to blame when we come out to them. After all, if it wasn't for our reckless choices or that person who "recruited" us into being gay we would all be straight. Right?....Right? Um........Anybody? I'm being absurd here but the notion that we woke up one day and decided to be gay...or worse...yielded to some form of temptation has led to the emotional and psychological torture of thousands of LGBT people.

Yet not everyone stands with both feel planted fully in the "gay" or "straight" camp. Each persons individual sexuality is a shade somewhere between those two polarities. Alfred Kinsey defined a scale numbered 1-6 with "1" being exclusively heterosexual and "6" being exclusively homosexual. Now...most of us fall somewhere along the length of this line with few of us being on the extreme ends. For myself, I would place myself at about a 5.5. And...as someone who fought his orientation tooth and nail, I see that as an inborn part of myself I could not change if I wanted too. Yet there are those who disagree...

Cynthia Nixon, who did an incredible job of standing up for marriage equality in New York has recently come under fire for comments made in a New York Times article in which she defines her sexuality as a choice. Nixon is currently engaged to be wed to her longtime girlfriend Christine Marinoni after a previous marriage to English professor Danny Mozes. This change is not so unusual, many of us come out later in life or perhaps we sit a little closer to the center of the Kinsey scale and have attractions to both sexes...as seems to be the case with Cynthia. there issue here is not whether or not Cynthia was being completely honest to her experience of her own sexuality...but in how her account of that experience gives ammo to those who claim that homosexuality is simply a behavior that can and should be changed. Nixon's comments to the NY Times leave a lot of room for debate and heated opinion:

(emphasis mine)

...... “I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

There is a part of me that understands where Cynthia is coming from because we have all heard the arguments(that often come from gay people) that bisexuality isn't real. As if it's just a "phase" they are going through on their way to being fully gay. And while some gay men and women do refer to themselves as bisexual for a while until they become for comfortable with their homosexuality....utterly rejecting the notion of bisexuality seems crazy to me. In rejecting the experience of others, we do to them the same discrimination toward them that we seek to end toward ourselves. It is a failure of empathy.

Additionally, while Cynthia is being totally honest to how she views her own experience I am one of those people who did a double facepalm when I read it. So here is Cynthia Nixon with the ability to feel attraction to both men and women looking to her own experiences and acknowledging that she made a choice to follow the ones that made the most sense to her....I get it. But......the problem lies with the self same bigots that Nixon doesn't want to concede the ability to control the conversation.

See...just as Cynthia won't use the term "bisexual" for herself because she claims they get "dumped on" she is making a conscious choice to use labels or not use labels as they benefit her. The problem is that many of us though we may be sprinkled along the continuum of sexuality don't see our sexuality as fluid. We have found something that feels right for us and in most cases we have had to sacrifice the acceptance and love of our biological families to see that through. We have endured the discrimination and disdain of a society that see us as not deserving of equal respect and legal protection under the law. Those very conditions exist because society still struggles with seeing a gay, bisexual, or transgendered person as someone who did not "chose" to be what they are....and in that choice is the implication that we can simply make another choice to be the opposite, which we all know is not true and kills hundreds of kids through ex-gay programs, bullying, and suicide every year. I do not think it is conceding a point to bigots...even if her use of the word "bigot" may have alluded to a portion of the gay community. It is acknowledging the awful on-going damage that is done to LGBT people every year that at best poisons are ability to accept ourselves and be accepted as a part of our communities and at worst can lead to despair and death. We've seen it happen time and again.

Just the notion of their being a word for people who are predominately drawn to the same sex is only as old as the 1880's when sexual acts and those who engaged in them began to come under scientific scrutiny. Before this time there really was no solid state categorization for a gay person other than "sodomite" which focused more on their acts than an orientation. Even sex in the ancient world was viewed as an appetite with everyone having the potential to engage in heterosexual or homosexual acts with different cultures having their own separate opinions on those same acts. A wealthy or powerful man could be the aggressive sexual partner to anyone below his station....a women, a young man, or a slave, and suffer no judgement because he was of higher status than them....But, being a passive partner could end in fines or imprisonment...even in the days of early Rome. And yet, it was all seen thought the same lens that we commonly use when approaching an all you an eat buffet. It was all regarded as taste and appetite. I think it is that view of sex as a smorgasbord in which we all pick and choose our dishes that we inherit today and manifests in the idea that being gay is a choice. And while Being gay, Bisexual, or transgendered was seen as merely a choice of behaviors we know a little bit more about sex and biology now to know better. We do not get to chose who we are attracted to...we do get to chose whether or not to follow that impulse.

For a young person struggling to accept themselves, that definition of choice can mean all the difference. I respect that Cynthia Nixon was being truthful in her disclosure of how she experiences her own sexuality. The trouble lies in the fact that not everyone else experiences it in the same way. And in a perfect world her story would be accepted as merely her personal experience and not to be applied to others. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen and a young person reading her comments may take them to heart about themselves and go right back into the closet to pray their gay away a little harder.

I also understand that Cynthia states that for others it simply is not a choice...I don't think anyone is demanding that she change the truth of how she deals with her own sexuality. But we also need to know that the words we use matter. Not only to those who work against us...but to those who one day will be us. I respect Cynthia Nixon a lot...not only for her acting...but also for her activism in New York. She stepped up and put herself on the line to be a face and voice for marriage equality. However, I do wish that she had considered the deep pain so many people have to go through to overcome the notion that we chose to be gay. I do not consider myself a bigot or word nazi for holding that belief...nor do I think less of Cynthia Nixon for hers.

Until next time dear readers......

What Makes A "Better" Parent?

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:01:28 -0500

What Makes A "Better" Parent?

Whether or not gay men men and women can parent has been a topic of conversation for ages now. I can remember it being debated when I was a teen and had a lesbian cuuple that lived across the street from me raising a boy not much younger than myself. I did not take me long to figure out that their was a disconnect between what I was being taught...and what I could witness in life of the family across the street. And I have heard the worst of arguments over time...that we will raise emotionally damaged and confused kids to allegations that we adopt in order to make kids gay...and so much worse. "kids need a mom and a dad" is the rallying cry of those who appose LGBT adoption and marriage equality and they beat that drum with fervor. They are old arguments that strike a sensitive cord in any of us that thought that being gay meant giving up on the notion of having a family of our own. Yet, as damaging as these arguments are, there are lots of same-sex families out there to prove them wrong. I feel fortunate to have grown up across the street from one that helped me see differently even before I came out to myself.

Now...It seems like we have hit the flip side of the debate. With more gay families out there to point to, a lot more people are familiar with same-sex families with children. The adult children of gay parents can also stand up to defend themselves and their families much like Zach Wahls did for his own family. We have fought and struggled to show the world that a gay family looks and functions just like any other family does...in our triumphs and our shortcomings. And then this article comes along from livescience.com carrying the headline, "Why Gays May Be Better Parents"

Strangely enough...while the article may make points that I absolutely agree with, I still find myself troubled by this article. Lets dig into this this thing and I will explain why...

The author of the article...Stephanie Pappas, uses a handful of scientific studies to advance what are largely four main points....

1) That gay parents often fill a much needed roll in adopting and fostering....

An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the kids placed were older than 6 — typically a very difficult age to adopt out. About 25 percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted across races, which is important given that minority children in the foster system tend to linger. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lesbians had special needs.

2) That children raised with gay parents tend to grow up to be good kids...

Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples — both adopted and biological kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other life-success measures.

3) And that LGBT parents tend to have the built in capacity to teach acceptance of life's diversity...

these kids may have the advantage of open-mindedness, tolerance and role models for equitable relationships, according to some research. Not only that, but gays and lesbians are likely to provide homes for difficult-to-place children in the foster system, studies show.

4) and lastly...that choice and commitment are the key to it all...

Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian parenting. Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. "That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."

If you are heterosexual and feeling a little slighted by this...I understand. While some parts of this article are fact...the way in which those facts are being presented is biased in a way that I feel does a disservice to all parents regardless of gender or sexual orientation. In my opinion, most of the reasons that this author has given as being the qualities of a superior parent are not exclusive to any sexual orientation. The suggestion that anyone is a better parent does help the cause of equality for gay families...it just sets up resentment and furthers division.

When Jay and I began dating we had those talks about our future hopes and dreams that young couples often have. We knew from our first few months together that both of us wanted to be a parent "someday". That "someday" arrived for us a few short years later as we realized that we had met some basic requirements....we were committed to each other and had several years to back that up, we were financially able to support children, and we were able to talk to each other about what our expectations and limitations were with parenting. Once we looked at each other and realized that "someday" was "now" the next hardest thing to do was figure out how to build our family and that process took us a couple of years of oscillating between surrogacy and adoption.

We went into the process with intent and sometimes in the face of an utter void of information to guide us along the path of family building as a gay couple. So, on the surface it is true that gay couples have a step toward being good parents because we have often had to struggle to create them. However....I have known women who have planned their pregnancies and eagerly awaited their child only to suffer heart breaking miscarriages. One such woman that I know personally just became pregnant again and I know that she lives everyday with the anxiety that it could happen again and the hopes and dreams she carries for her child. No one can tell me that she will not cherish her child just as much as I cherish the two I adopted with my husband. Also...I have a cousin who is the Martha Stuart of moms. she never feeds her children sugar, makes all his costumes, and even as a baby made her own pureed baby food. On the occasions when I bring home Taco Bell I think of her and imagine the nutritionally balanced, home cooked meal they must be having and feel like CPS is gonna knock on my door any second for feeding my kids fast food. Choosing to be a parent is not an automatic guarantee of being a good parent...but it does go a long way and it does not matter if you are gay or straight.

The authors second assertion that gay parents will often adopt outside their race or kids with special needs is factually true...I did it. But so have a lot of other really incredible straight parents that we see at our fost/adopt support groups once a month. I do think that LGBT men and women have a unique perspective on life and family that can give us a great deal of empathy towards kids who have been treated poorly by their birth families or passed over by others. Many of us have walked that path ourselves. I remember the first time I saw Daniels profile on paper. The behaviors they ascribed to him and the medical challenges they listed made me hesitate. I wasn't sure I could handle all that or that I would connect with him at all.....and then I met him. He was the cutest little boy with his lost eyes and terrible bowl cut and my heart melted on contact. It didn't take long for me to forget that Daniel was a different race then me or that he had special needs. He was just Daniel and I loved him. I think that is just the nature of human connection when you are open to it and not something that is unique to Jay and myself as a gay couple.

Lastly I think that comparing gay parents to straight parents is bound to have a lot of statistical flaws due to the discrepancy in the size of each population. Perhaps if they evaluated the same number of gay couples to straight couples in similar life circumstances we would find a clearer picture of the differences in each. There are just too many variations and different life experiences to compare the two parenting models with any kind of fairness. Which brings me to my final point.....the only better parents are the ones who work everyday to love and care for their children. It doesn't matter what that looks like.

One of the many points Jay and I try to make on our YouTube channel is that gay families look and function exactly the same as everyone else's...our kids grow up just the same. Making the claim that gay parents are better then straight parents just reverses the discrimination and does nothing to bridge the gap between us. We love each other, we love our children and do the best we can to care and provide for them, and sometimes we make mistakes. That is a story that is common to all families whether single parent, heterosexual, or gay.

I am not a better parent than anyone else. but I am getting better at being a parent with each passing day. We do the best we can to be the best dad's we can be and the kids do the best they can to push us into new territories of parenting(I.E...drive us nuts). I think this is universal to all parents and while I may not be a "better" parent or even a pro...I love being a dad and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

Until next time dear readers......

Foster Diaries: The Return of Baby Boy

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:12:23 -0500

Foster Diaries: The Return of Baby Boy

Well dear readers, it seems that life is bringing me full circle again. Many of you may also watch us on YouTube, and if so...you know that there is a new addition coming to our home. Way back in February of this year I bloggedabout a little boy who was placed with us that I had dubbed "baby boy" since we can not put him in print or video. On the first day he came to be with us he had two ear infections and a whole lot of fear and neglect issues and so he cried every night....for hours. At that time, it made me wonder whether I had the chops to handle being a foster parent. But as time went on, his medical issues cleared up and became the cutest little baby I ever could have imagined. Sadly though, the time came when social services found a family member willing to care for Baby Boy while his mom could go through drug treatment and the family reunification process. We were sad...but we also knew that this would be a part of emergency foster care and we thought it was good that he would be with family......And so Baby Boy left our home to whatever the future would hold for him. All of us shed a few tears as we said our good buys.

Except....that the future that he went to wasn't as bright as we had hoped and it seems that Baby Boy is returning to our home today....

Social services called us just a couple of days ago with Baby Boy in a bay area childrens hospital. The information we got was sketchy and unclear...as it often is when the case if first unfolding and information is being filtered through four or five people who are working in emergency mode. We were told that he had one broken arm and possibly a second...and that he was removed from care because the family member had been making allegations that he was hitting his head against a wall and throwing himself against things. He claimed that Baby Boy had cerebral palsy as a way of explaining why Baby Boy would do this to himself. However, the injuries present did not match the explanation given by family and so Baby Boy was removed from them for suspected abuse and an emergency call was placed to us to see if we could take him back. In the mean time, doctors testing him for Cerebral Palsy, Brittle Bone syndrome, and Autism among a bunch of other things in order to determine whether the claims of Baby Boy's family held any truth.

Now...I had really bonded with Baby Boy. He was never far away from me and as time had gone on in his first placement with us, it was getting harder and harder to let him go. So when we got the call and I heard what his family had been doing to him, I had only one immediate thought and that was that if he came back to our home, it would be to stay...for good. I know, that's getting the cart before the horse and there was so much more to consider...but that was my initial gut reaction to the news. After the shock and anger wore off...other thoughts and feelings began to work their way into the mix....

Like.....It's just past Christmas, and we were breathing a sigh of relief that the holidays had passed and perhaps we could relax. Also, we still have the two children placed with us that came right after Baby Boy left. This was our limit and we didn't want to have five kids to manage. And on top of all this, social workers were telling us that he might have two broken arms AND autism......holy cow....just thinking of it all from that perspective was enough to knock me back in my chair. Can we do this?!.....With two broken arms he will need everything done for him just as if he were a newborn infant. And if I am thinking about possible adoption or guardianship....Is autism something we can take on?.....Are we nuts to be considering this?! And the biggest question...How were Daniel and Selena going to feel about it all?

I admit to feeling a little sick to my stomach remembering every time I handed Baby Boy off to to the family member who did this to him. I went to those visits looking for signs that anything could be amiss and I saw nothing. They had a nice home and three kids of their own that all looked happy and well cared for. There was nothing that would have indicated that this family member was capable of doing something like this to him. And even a veteran social worker who's job it was to investigate the home and determine its suitability saw nothing. And yet...here we are after a few months of what must have been hell for this little boy. I know I am not responsible for what his family did to him...but I wish I could have seen this coming. I want to take him back and never let anyone hurt him that way again. And on top of this...there was also the nagging fact that we had no idea if Baby Boy we still going through reunification with his mom......Crud...this situation just seemed to get more and more complicated the more we thought about it. Here I am thinking adoption thoughts and that may not even be a possibility.

There is so much to be afraid of. So many reasons not to do it. So many boogie men to be afraid of. But when I remember Baby Boy as I knew him this last spring all I could remember was his bright smile and toddler mischievousness. He was this tiny little package of cute with the eyes of a very old soul that had already seen too much. If he has autism...he had it then too. Yet all I could see were his giggles.

So we sat down with Daniel and Selena and told them the situation. They are old enough now to hear it now without sugar coating it and they both had really fond memories of this little boy. I was mostly concerned from Daniel because he has been my only son. I did not know how he would handle having to share that with another. We always joke with Daniel that he is our favorite son...to which he indignantly replies, "But I'm you're only son!" And yet as we explained the situation both kids hardly let us explain it all before they were getting excited at the prospect of having Baby Boy back with us. Selena whooped with glee and Daniel gave his best "I wan't to be a sullen teen but I'm not really yet" seal of approval.

But then there was still me....I has gotten used to the idea of our family being just the four of us. Why did it make me feel sad to consider adding one more person to that mix? I guess I am the one with sibling issues because I guess I was feeling like I was betraying all that I had promised to Daniel and Selena by bringing in a new child to our home and wanting to make him my son. Silly eh?...love doesn't work that way and I still was not even sure if that kind of situation was a real option yet. Baby Boy's mom could still pull through and he would be out of our hands again to another uncertain future.

So many reasons to be afraid. But In the end...none of them were good enough.

And so...after so much deliberating and wondering about unknowns...Jay and I came to the conclusion that all the what ifs were stonewalling what we already knew...and that was that we would take Baby Boy and see what comes. We may well be crazy, but that's never stopped us in the past. Why let it now? And so....the runway lights have been lit for the stork to make his return trip today. Baby Boy will be coming home today. I hope he gets to stay....but that future is still uncertain.

Until next time dear readers........

Meeting Randy Robets Potts...New Friends And Old Scars

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:12:33 -0500

Meeting Randy Roberts Potts...New Friends And Old Scars

We at gay family values have been fortunate enough to meet lots of other fantastic YouTubers. The great thing about meeting these people in person is that we really get to know them as the regular people. Sean Chapin was the first YouTuber we had ever met and we had so many stars in our eyes. Also, this summer we got to meet the infamous Jim Stone and his husband and had a wonderful time hanging out together as well as eating his husbands fantastic cooking. And each "Big Gay Vacation" has brought us to YouTubers that I now count as good friends. As people often tell us that we have impacted their lives in positive ways...I don't know if you all know how much richness all of you add to ours. It's one of the big pluses of being a part of the YouTube community.

Therefor, it was with great excitement that we looked forward to meeting Randy Roberts Potts. Randy is the grandson of the legendary Evangelist Oral Roberts...a father to three awesome children...and a gay man facing his past with courage and using it to make positive change in the world. I, in particular, had a strong desire to meet Randy because of his grandfather's ministry and its ubiquitous place in my own past. I admit that I was not sure what I was hoping to find in talking to him....healing...revelation...both of those being very religiously loaded terms. But what I did find was worth so much more.

I had come to know about Randy through his "It Gets Better" video in which he wrote a love letter to his uncle Ronnie...who was also gay and who had committed suicide. As he speaks so lovingly to his uncle about how alike he and his uncle were and how much he had wished his uncle could have survived to be able to see Randy now.....all of us were thinking the same thing about Randy. The more his story unfolded, with so much passion and raw honesty, I felt like he was telling a little bit of my story as he was telling his own. I'm sure many of us who grew up in religious homes felt that way. His tears had become our tears in one magical moment of baring his soul to someone who may desperately need to hear it. I needed to hear it too...

I left that video with tears in my own eyes as I also remembered hearing his Grandfathers voice every Sunday morning. Each and every syllable he uttered had become unquestionable cannon in what my family accepted as literal "Gospel truth." I even remember my Grandmother having a tiny replica of the prayer hands that stand at the entrance to Oral Roberts University. That type of belief is not something that stops when you turn off the T.V....it becomes your culture, the boundaries of your universe, and the bedrock of your personality...as it had mine. And as with most of the televised sermons of the day there were a lot of sermons about hell and what it took to be a good Christian. If I had learned two things from these sermons it was.... One...that I was terrified of going to hell and I would do just about anything to make sure that would not happen. And two...that just believing was not always enough. You had to evangelize others, you had to give, you had to witness, and you could never never trust that you were good enough. Next to the good messages of love and forgiveness that my Grandmother taught me sat the messages that I need to be on guard against myself...to be afraid....because complacency was spiritual disaster.

And this is not something I am mean to lay down at Oral's feet. That would be really unfair and my understanding has changed over time. These men were a product of their own training and his message was a part of many similar ones I could have gotten from Billy Graham or a host of others who's voices steered the course of millions of believers. It was the 70's and 80's and it was all religion, big hair, and giant churches. I was also not even in my teens and anything that my family believed in...I took to be an unassailable truth. But the fact that I was meeting this particular mans grandson brought back all those moments into light of day again.

Fast forward twenty years to a young man who is realizing that his feelings for men are NOT going to go away no matter how much praying he did or how much denial he lived in and unassailable truths had to be questioned or I would not survive. Coming out for me meant finding a way to reconcile all I had been taught to believe in with what I was coming to learn was an unchangeable part of myself. I can't say I really found a way because...while I never stopped talking to GOD...I for sure walked away from the church, religion as a whole, and all the notions that came with it. But those same notions had already been laid as the foundation for who I was many years ago. They would never go away without erasing everything I had experienced in my life up to then. And so a small wound exists in the soul that never totally heals. I survived as a gay man and have made my way through life the best I know how...but like many of us....I have a few scars.

And along comes Randy Potts with his past and his heart on his sleeve.....

That video hit me like the meteor that took out the dinosaurs. It cut through to the part of me that is never able to feel secure in the universe I live in. i thought, "You mean Oral Roberts...this man who had been the paragon of virtue...had a gay grandson?!!!!" I literally said, "Holy Sh*t!" It instantly changed how I thought about Oral Roberts and all those sermons I had listened to in front of the living room t.v. with my parents nearly every Sunday morning. Suddenly they weren't so unquestionable...because if this could happen in Orals family...What did it mean? Was that message of condemnation somehow less true for Randy's existance? or...could it have been a part of Gods sense of humor to again grant a gay child to a family that really needed their world view shaken up a bit? It seems to happen with alarming regularity.

And this is the baggage that I brought with me when Randy pulled up to my doorstep with his three children in tow. I knew he was a divorced father of three, an author, and an activist in his own right....but a part of me was looking to talk to him about all of this like he had not heard it a million times before from a million other guys like me. All of us expecting pearls of wisdom from the guy who lived within such a huge part of the religious institution that had rejected so many of us....he not only lived in it...he survived it and came out to tell his story. I wondered how he had made peace with religion, as he had been taught it, and what how that affected how he thought of himself as a gay man. Maybe I would find that piece that would finally close the wound.

.....yeah...fanboy...I know....

And then....as with meeting everyone we look up to...We got to know the real Randy. He is a very caring dad, as well as a very sweet and genuine person. He loves Star Wars(big plus) and he is incredibly easy to talk to, even though he is as shy as I am....and that's saying something. He even helped Jay and I put on our ties for the movie event because neither one of us had ever bothered to learn how. The rest of the night was such a whirlwind I barely remember it but the next day we all got to sleep in, and then have a real human conversation over several( insert jitters here) cups of coffee. We both got the chance to take off the hoopla and expectations about each other and just get to know each other. It was while we were able to relax and have fun that the three of us shot this interview together:

But backing up a bit,....the evening before, when Randy helped both of us get our ties in order(I promise we don't make all our guests do that :p ) and as he was tying mine.....I had a sudden image of him in my head as a little boy in a suit of his own, standing on that great big stage with Oral and his family...and it hit me. Just how much pressure he had gone through to help put forth that image of a perfect family and how much pressure I was putting him under by looking to him to find the answer to why we had to hear all those messages growing up. I wondered how long had he been standing in the shadow of his grandfather so much that the awesome guy that Randy Roberts Potts is was getting lost in the his legacy. Randy was not responsible for what I had taken away from his grandfathers sermons at 10 years old. That rift between what I had been taught to be and what I am is mine to carry and putting it on Randy was a little unfair and too much burden for anyone. And while I don't know what existence will awaits me at the end of my life...the love I have known in my life has taught me more than all the televangelists in the world ever could. Perhaps some scars we are meant to carry and work with over time...perhaps they even help us to be better people.

As Randy says in the interview, for a long time he wouldn't even refer to himself as a Roberts. He had to run through his own fire and learn to find new beacons of light to guide him home just as I had. That does not mean that he had reached his own final destination. His was not a story of coming to ultimate terms with his past...like most of us it's a work in progress and I think he has done an incredible job with accepting himself through all that has happened to him. that is inspiring to me.

The Randy that does not stand in his grandfathers shadow is the sweetest person you will get to meet. He is a great dad to his kids and it was nice to be able to swap stories with another gay dad. Having had kids before he came out...it was nice to highlight that being a gay dad is not any different from being a straight dad....only the circumstances had changed.He is raising three very sweet kids.....and did I mention they all like Star Wars? That's just good parenting there.

Randy also has a lot to give the world in the way of fighting for equality. The "Gay Agenda" project is a great example of this. Setting up a living room in a public space and living in it with our husband/partner for all the world to see takes some serious stones. That's taking what we do here on YouTube to another level and I think it's an awesome way to speak to people who may not ever log onto a site like YouTube. It's not standing there talking at people. It's really letting them into your life in a very practical way where they can see, ask questions if they chose, and hopefully shift what they think it means to "live the gay lifestyle"...whatever that is. As Randy said, maybe a mother will see this and come to the a different understanding of the life her son or daughter could have. How beautiful is that?

Once I took off my illusion of who Randy was, the Randy that stepped out of the shadow of that expectation was ten times more incredible for being real. I think he needs to know that. I felt like I walked away from that time with a new friend as well as a new perspective on myself. I hope that Randy caught on to none of that and instead, I hope he and the kids just had fun....and I hope we all walked away with a new friend.

Everyday we change and grow. It's all just another step on the journey. I know I am still working on making peace with my past even though I am alsovery glad to be gay, a dad, and a husband. I would not trade any one of those things for easy answers. I wish Randy well on his journey...and I hope his path crosses ours again.

Until next time dear readers.....

Holiday Traditions: Awkward Conversations With Family

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:11:35 -0500

Holiday Traditions: Awkward Conversations With Family

I don't know if anyone has seen the the video floating around from Maggie Gallagher and the National Organisation for Marriage? You know...the one in which she gives tips on how to talk to your loved ones about your opposition to marriage equality over a heaping plate of turkey, cranberry, and mashed potatoes. You know, I can just imagine it now...."The Turkeys just delicious this year Margaret! Did you brine it?...oh and while we are on the subject...I think gay marriage is totally wrong and the work of homosexual activists bent on redefining a sacred institution to destroy the family....please pass the yams John.......John?....Why is your face so red?. Yams please dear.".....Holiday family get togethers can often be the site of family dust ups but anyone who goes to the dinner table with conversational ammo about their views over gay marriage?...talk about an agenda. Who knew this was something people needed pointers on?

However...Maggies psa about holiday insensitivity does bring up a topic that has long been a challenge for me personally....talking to my family about anything gay. Contrary to what I do on the internet...I am not that vocal in person and some of the hardest people I have ever had to talk to are my family. So lets go there....pass the gravy Maggie...

I have had some rough conversations about gay topics with my family... but I can say that I have NEVER brought it up on a holiday. The scariest conversation I have had on a gay topic by far was coming out. Even though I had been raised and spent my whole life with those I was coming out to and thought I knew their beliefs intimately, I still didn't know what to expect. That conversation I did have to prepare myself for because I knew I would have to stand my ground and I truly did not know which way things were going to go. After that, came a long time of tacitly agreeing not to talk about it anymore. I didn't rock their boats and they wouldn't rock mine. That is...until Jay and I started to pass some milestones that most families celebrate...marriage and children.

Most couples find that announcing an engagement or a new addition to the family is met with joy. Mothers and grandmothers get involved in wedding plans and/or begin planning baby showers....everybody hugs and there is a general sense that something really good is happening. For most, these are happy occasions. For gay couples it's not always so....For Jay and Myself, telling our families that we were going to adopt brought no spontaneous woops of joy and definitely no baby showers(darn). It actually took our family some time to get used to the idea and they universally had to express their fears that society might reject or bully our kids because of us. But there again...not the worst or most awkward conversation, but also not what we had hoped for.

The worst came when we could actually marry. That seemed to be one step too far for them. I remember being very excited to tell my family the news and I drove out to see my Father and Grandma at the little antique shop our family runs. No matter how excited I was to tell him before I got there, standing in front of him seemed to sober me up. But I told them and hoped. I hoped for a "congratulations"...a smile...some form of positive response. Instead what I got was silence and an....."Do you expect us to be happy?"......"Um...well yes dad. That's what I was hoping for. That's usually what happens when people announce they are going to get married."

No such luck......He then we on to explain about how for his generation this kinda stuff is just wrong and not to expect any kind of acceptance or happiness over it. Inside, I kicked myself because I felt I should have known. I went home defeated and more disappointed than I wanted to even admit to myself. Now...my dad was in my wedding and he voted against prop 8. But he made it clear to me that he was doing it as a favor to me...not because he believed it was right. He was trying to be their for his son in the only way he could and I recognize that.

Then we got involved in the struggle against Prop 8 and we learned that we could not be silent anymore. But....the courage we learned from speaking out in YouTube did not always extend to family. Talking to them about the Prop 8 vote in order to encourage them to vote against it is were my father had some heated verbal altercations. For a kid who learned never to fight with his parents it was tough....I was so scared to put my views out there at all but I had to...my life and marriage were on the line and for them it was just a moral issue. It was infuriating. In order to talk to my family about anything you have to fist work your way past the FOX news talking points...then you get down to the real reasons for why they believe what they do and it's almost always a "Because that's what the Bible says", or a, "That's the way it's always been." answer. Convincing them that their are other points of view is looked on with suspicion. It's almost as if they feel that I am trying to wrest away from them something precious that defines who they are as good people. And what does that make me then?

And there is why I don't talk to them about gay issues in a nutshell...doing so further defines me as different. And I don't want to feel like an outsider in my own family. And everytime I have to hold my tongue I am paying a price...not only to keep the peace...but to not further highlight how I am different from my father who I see so much of myself in...my Grandmother who is my spiritual rock...my brother who I want to be my friend...and all my uncles and cousins...and my mom who I still can not talk to. That fear of not being different has kept me from doing many things I should have long ago....like the fact that our wedding was the very first time my family had ever seen me hold my husbands hand, share a dance, or a kiss...and while I was doing those things with him, I couldn't stop thinking about that. I had to stop myself from trying to protect their sensibilities and remember that this was our day...and that we may never get to have day like that one again. They were just going to have to live with the shock of seeing their son kiss and dance with another man. How lame I feel that those things are what I was thinking about on my wedding day.

And here we are on the cusp of the release of our documentary movie project The Right To Love: An American Family....a movie in which my family agreed to be interviewed for. And the producers of the movie let me know that my family was very frank in their opinions...as I knew they would be. The movie is almost ready for release and we have to opportunity to invite friends and relatives to Skywalker Ranch to preview it. And I don't even want to tell them about it. I don't even want them to see it until I have had a chance to see it and to know what was said. Why am I doing this?...am I protecting them from looking bad? After all, they are grown ups and able to own their opinions. Yet here it will be...my awkward conversations with my family played out on a giant screen for thousands of strangers to see. And here I am just hoping I will even be invited to the next family holiday. They don't read my blog or watch any of our youtube videos so maybe I'm worrying for nothing.

While it has been a very difficult lesson...I can not keep silent anymore. I don't want to hurt them. And worse, I just want to be a who I always was to them before the wall of "gay" came down between us. But the journey of fighting for gay rights has taught me how to speak up and hopefully how to do that with some respect and dignity for others. I know what I need to say, I know how to say it,...and I know when I need to say it. When It comes to gay issues I can no longer work so hard to protect my families sensibilities in order to fit in. Too much is at stake now and sometimes our boats need to be rocked a little.

So Maggie might be the etiquette maven for how to deliver anti-gay talking points over pumpkin pie but I am not.....and nor do I think many other people are. Talking to our parents about our lives can often be stressful enough that talking about gay issues is just one step beyond possible for many of us, even though we need to have these conversations desperately or we will never learn to see each other eye Sometimes those conversations are had over mashed potatoes and gravy...and sometimes they can be had just by letting them see you dance at your wedding.

Until next time dear readers...........