Coming Out Day 2018

Coming Out

Today is National Coming Out Day.

 

I've been thinking a lot about coming out in the past week or so.  I got a call from a young man I hardly knew.  I had only met him a couple of times over the years but found him to be so energetic, full of life and promise.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew this call would come.  I think I hoped it would.

 

From the moment we met, I knew something about him without being told.  I guess you could say, "It takes one to know one."  And I have impeccable gaydar.  And no, I don't think everyone is gay.

 

So, he called and we've talked and talked for the past ten days.  And we've laughed, cried and compared notes on growing up gay in similar, while at the same time very different, circumstances.  My friend is on his journey of coming out.

 

Coming out was a most terrifying prospect for me.  When you've hidden a part of yourself since childhood, the fear grows with the years.  I remember coming home on the school bus and putting in my Barry Manilow cassette and playing All the Time, over and over.

 

All the time I thought, "there's only me,

Crazy in a way that no one else could be”

I would have given everything I own

If someone would have said "you're not alone"

 

All the time I thought that I was wrong

Wanting to be me but needing to belong

If I'd've just believed in all I had

If someone would have said "you're not so bad"

 

I didn't come out until my early 30s.  I started with the people whose potential rejection mattered the least to me.  Close family came last.  My parents were the last to know.  I listened to the advice of a wise therapist and tried to believe him when he told me that for most people coming out as gay to family quickly becomes no big deal.  He was right.  Sure there was an awkward time of learning and adjustment but soon everybody realized that I was still me.  Except I am a much better me.  I stopped living in fear.  I was no longer constantly sick. as I had often been with chronic sore throats and stomach troubles.  I wasn't hiding behind the closet door anymore.

 

There are well-known maladies that often share the closet space with its inhabitant:  Self-disgust, self-hatred, low self-esteem, negative self-view, chronic depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, alcohol/drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts.  The closet can be a dangerous and even deadly place.

 

I was constantly restless, never staying in one place.  Looking back at those last four or five years in the closet.  I think I moved to a different country or state every year.  Since coming out, I've lived in the same zip code for almost 20 years.  I've worked for the same firm for 18 years.

 

My fears about coming out were mostly unfounded.  I can't say that I've lost any friends.  Well, maybe two.  And those two are a blip.  And those two are toxic people who were not really my friends.

 

Coming out just doesn't change the person coming out.  It changes the person's friends and family.  As Harvey Milk said, by coming out we "break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions" that are believed about gay people.  I've marveled at what advocates my family has become for all marginalized people.

 

It can also help others who are closeted watching.  The young man who called me didn't know me well but he knew I'd come out and survived and more than survived.  Thrived.

 

I've seen tragic results of not coming out.  I had a friend that I'd known since we were both teenagers.  My gaydar was right about him.  We never talked about it until we were both into our 40s.  We didn't have much contact after college.  FaceBook brought us back into contact with each other.  He was living a miserable life.

 

I invited him to spend the weekend with me in New York.  We did all the things he wanted to do in NYC.  We saw Broadway shows, ate the biggest steak at Peter Luger’s, and just enjoyed a renewed friendship.  He went to church with me and was shocked that they actually had me, an out, gay man, leading parts of worship.

 

When he left, he cried really hard and said it was the best weekend he'd ever had.  He didn't know how he was going to go back.

 

But he just knew his family wouldn't accept him if he came out.  He may have been right.  About a year later, he was found dead at home.  He drank himself to death.  It appears that he did come out to one family member.  He was not accepted as he was.

 

Most of the people reading this don't need to come out.  But you may have someone in your life that does need to come out to you.  You can be vital to a loved one who is coming out.  You can be the kind of person someone would feel safe coming out to.  Are you? Do you make jokes and derogatory gay jokes?  Do you talk about "that lifestyle?"  Just stop.  There may be a good reason someone is reluctant to bare his or her soul to you.  A little self-examination goes a long way.

 

Coming out doesn't solve everything.  My young friend has some hurdles to jump over as a result of living in the closet, as he goes through the process of living authentically.  But he's finally not living in fear and he's found that he has so many people who love him on his side.  I'm so honored to have received that call.  And my friend is going to be great.

But, um, who is my neighbor?

Governments make and enforce cold-hearted laws. They do it all the time. All of them. It is what they do.

But if you call yourself a Christian and you cross your arms and defiantly say, “Well, they broke the law so they have to pay the price,” and you have no compassion for people fleeing to save their lives and especially the lives of their children, then I call bullshit on you and your alleged faith. If you can look at children in detention centers and just casually accept it as the way things are and so, that’s just how it is, then you need to re-examine who you think you are.

Don’t take Bible verses about obeying laws out of their context. The same Bible that says, “Obey your government rulers,” also says, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

Maybe you need to read the Gospels and see what Jesus did. Because your Jesus is on one side of this issue and I promise you it is the side of the children.

Don’t ask, “Who is my neighbor?” You know good and well who your neighbor. The question is will you love your neighbor?

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Make sure you’re not being polluted by your Party (and they both pollute).

We will never know what would have happened if German Christians had put Hitler on notice in 1933 that they would not stand for injustice. (And please don’t talk to me about Bonhoeffer. I know all about him but not enough Christians listened, did they?) They were happy to let what they hoped were the ends justify the means and so could peep through the curtains while this neighbors were first dehumanized then carted off to “detention centers.”

I hope it isn’t too late for America. But when people use their Bible to justify evil, ill treatment of the neediest and we don’t defy them, then I’m afraid it is too late.

I'm mad as hell

I’m as angry as I have ever been.  I just balled my eyes walking home for ten blocks.  I’m must have seemed like a lunatic to the early-Puerto Rican day revelers.  I probably just seemed like a morose drunk, which I would be if I were drunk.

I wish I were drunk.

I just talked to my Mexican friend who just this year got his green card. That seems like something to celebrate. But then he told me about the experience.

It wasn’t just the fear of leaving his wife, his five year-old son and two year-old son here in the States while he went back to Mexico so that he could come back with a green card.  That process in itself seems a bit cruel and barbaric. Hearing him tell how his son held to his leg begging him not to go and begging him to take him with him belies the fear that has been created in the process. Even a five year-old can tell that something is not right.

But the thing that made me boil was what he told me about the reentry process as his wife and sons waited for him at the airport. The agents made him wait for 30 minutes while he heard them cruelly talk (as if he couldn’t understand; his English is exceptional) about perhaps not letting him enter. Of course, they didn’t have a legal foot to stand on. His papers were in order. But in the current climate, they could afford to entertain cruelty.

And his experience is mild compared to what is happening on our border to the south.

I’m ashamed of America. Merely kneeling during the national anthem is not enough. I stopped the pledge of allegiance years ago. Yet, a sentimental tear would often find its way out of my eyes during the Star Spangled Banner. No more. Not now. It may sound cliché but if this is what we’ve come to, they let’s tear down the Statue of Liberty and especially the Emma Lazarus poem at her feet. It is, to be blunt, BULLSHIT.

There is no conscience in the White House or Justice Department.  It is trickle-down cruelty.

I have offered some assistance where I can. I think it is time for more. I don’t’ know what yet. I will find out.

Speak English! This is America!

In the past few days I’ve had conversations with a few people about the ugly incident with the New York attorney, an absolutely horrible person by all accounts, who complained obnoxiously about two workers in a restaurant who were speaking Spanish to each other.  He threatened to call immigration authorities on them because they were not speaking English.

“People who come to America should learn English,” a couple of people said to me while we were on the subject.

I agree.  But probably not for the reason they think people should learn English.  People who live in this country should learn English because it makes their life here much easier than if they don’t.  Speaking English doesn’t make you a better American or a smarter person.  A lot of very stupid people speak English (and nothing else).  And no, English is not the official language of the United States.  There isn’t one.

I’d like to point out that NOT ONE of the people who said to me, “People who come to America should learn English,” speaks another language besides English.  And they don’t have to.  They live in America where they can get by just fine in English.  And to a person, NOT ONE of these people has lived outside the USA.  And they don’t have to do that either.

A couple of things you need to remember.  Just because you hear two people speaking Spanish or Chinese or Swahili, doesn't mean they can't speak English.  They may just be more comfortable speaking their native language, just like you would be.  And I've never met an immigrant to this country who didn't want to learn English

BUT what all of thes "they must learn English" people probably fail to realize is how difficult it is to learn another language.  I know.  I've tried.  Twice, seriously.  It is hard.  So hard.  It is gut wrenching.  If you want to see a grown man cry, go to a language school where is seriously trying to learn a new language.  I've seen it happen many times.  I might have even been the grown man crying more than once.

 But even more than hard work of learning and memorizing new words and rules, it takes daily, meaningful interaction with people who speak the language you’re trying to learn.  Without that it will never happen.  And that's where empathy and compassion should come into the picture.

Has anyone thought about how hard that is?  You’re in a new place and you just really need people to talk to in your new language.  Been there.  Done there.  Hated it.  Most people don’t have time and don’t want to make the time to talk to you.

So if you’re one of those people who says, “Well, I DO think they need to learn English,” then how about this?  Find some of them.  It won’t be hard to do.  I promise.  If you look, you’ll find an immigrant longing to become more a part of the community but with no idea how to start.  Invite them to your house for a meal.  They will probably bring something to eat that will change your life.  Invite them to a party, to church, to a ballgame.

It will enrich your world and change someone’s life forever.