While listening to the oral arguments at the Supreme Court this week, I noticed that all the liberal justices are rather mild and soft spoken, but Antonin Scalia could be overtly rude, and apparently he fancies himself as something of a comedian. So I was thinking it would be great if there was someone like the late Christopher Hitchens on the court who would be bold enough to talk back to Scalia and make it less fun for him to be an asshole.

Western Civilization has been steeped in heterosexism for two thousand years. In the nineteenth century, a few people began to think about sexuality in an objective way, and the concept of sexual orientation was introduced to the world. When I was born, homosexuality was still a crime and still thought of as a disease. But things began to change in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. 

Finally we arrive at the Supreme Court. And the cases presented aren’t limited to our constitutional right to do that “nasty thing” in the privacy of our own homes. Those petitioning the court are asking that we be recognized as valued and equal members of society. Many of us have been anticipating this event for years, decades. And all the justices seem to want to talk about is standing and some obscure case from the past called Chadha.

 A few times the justices showed some true concern for the actual matter at hand. Kennedy talked about the children whose parents aren’t allowed to marry. Ginsburg talked about how our relationships are devalued and treated as inferior because of DOMA. Sotomayor didn’t let anyone forget that DOMA is rooted in homophobia.

But on the other hand, you had Roberts suggesting that a deaf octogenarian widow should leave the court and go persuade the American people and their representatives to treat her fairly.

 I’ve not given up hope. I believe that there’s a good chance we may soon see the last of DOMA and Prop 8. But listening to the audio and reflecting on what was actually said in the highest court in the land on Tuesday and Wednesday left a sour taste in my mouth.

After Chief Justice Roberts voted to uphold Obamacare, some thought this was a sign that he was not always ideologically motivated and that he might approach the DOMA and the Prop 8 cases with an open mind. But given that he made profoundly stupid comments both yesterday and today that display a kind of mental process that we’re all familiar with--the tendency of bigots to try to justify their prejudices with specious arguments--I’m afraid that we can’t count on Roberts being fair-minded. Yesterday he claimed recognizing that same-sex couples have a right to get married would be like forcing a child to call someone he or she doesn’t like a friend, thus changing the definition of friendship. And today he suggested that LGBT people are so political powerful that they don’t need protection from the courts. And this is supposed to be someone with a great legal mind?

If a restricted country club decides not to be restricted anymore, that’s not going to change how longtime members use the place. They can go on playing golf, enjoying cocktails at the bar, having dinner in the dining room, playing tennis and swimming in the pool. It won’t change anyone’s fundamental definition of a country club…unless you’re a bigot who thinks a country club is a place to get away from black people and Jews. If that’s the case, then I guess you’re just shit out of luck.

And apropos of nothing, I wanted to add that I really don’t know why Eugene’s mom insisted that he call that awful Johnny person his friend, but that didn’t change how I felt about my own friends. I don’t think it changed how Eugene felt about his real friends. Eugene’s mom was just weird. She got marriage equality mixed up with forcing people to do stuff they don’t want to do.

I think it’s perfectly obvious that cell phones and the internet have changed our society more than marriage equality ever will, but I don’t recall anyone hitting the pause button on that shit.

Beauty

I think beauty is important. The physical beauty of other people. The type of physical beauty that excites us sexually. The beauty of cars and trains. Architecture. Art. Music. Dance. Landscapes. Fashion. Interior design. Gardens. Animals. Poetry. Literature. Drama. Ideas.

We all have different concepts of beauty, different tastes. We all have our own priorities. And our tastes and priorities can shift and change over time. But I think whatever we find beautiful and worth pursuing is important to us. And I suspect that if you attack someone else’s concept of beauty, belittle them or berate them for finding beauty where you don’t, or devoting themselves to something they find beautiful when you think they shouldn’t, you are, in some fundamental way, attacking them…attacking their core, attempting to erase them.

I don’t let myself off the hook on this because I know that I sometimes judge people by what they like, too. Sometimes I do it and I’m not even aware I’m doing it. Months or even years later, I’ll reflect on my attitude, and I’ll wonder why I cared so much about what kind of shoes a friend wore, or what music they listened to, or what kind of people they were interested in romantically.

Maybe it’s all part of some strange human instinct to gain control, to establish dominance. I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t like it much when people tell me that there’s something wrong with my tastes. And I sometimes wish I lived in a world were we weren’t so nasty about what others plant in their window boxes. Maybe that flower we’re so intent on pissing on is helping someone get through the day.

The Reckoning by Gary Cottle

     The man was lying in bed. His breathing was steady but loud and distinctly labored, and he was clearly too weak to move or speak. It was late afternoon, and the room was growing dim.
 
      The woman stood at the end of the bed and studied the man for a moment, and then she retrieved a ladder back chair from a corner and placed it beside the bed. She sat down. Her movements were quiet and calm. She seemed determined in some way, resolute.

      “When I was a girl, Randle, I had such faith. I believed Jesus loved me. I believed he loved everybody, and that somehow he would make everything work out in the end.” Her voice cracked as if she was about to cry. “My faith gave me so much comfort. It may have been simple and naïve, but it was mine. It was what I felt in my heart.”

      She shifted in her chair, and her tone hardened. “Living with you these past forty years has robbed me of my faith. I tried to hold on to it. I did. But it slowly slipped away until there was nothing left.”

      “If your god is real, Randle, the merciless god you demanded I believe in, the one you preached to me about, then he’ll probably punish me for what I’m about to do. But I don’t care. I don’t care.”

                  The woman paused for a minute and then said, “I’m not calling the ambulance this time, Randle. The doctors may be able to bring you back from the brink of death again this time if I did, but I don’t want them to. I want to be through with you.

     “You’re a hard man, Randle. And we both know you can be cruel. Hateful and mean. And no matter what you do, you still think of yourself as righteous. Every day you told me what was right and wrong. You were always preaching to me. And sometimes you hit me while you were preaching to me.

    “I don’t know what the hell happened to you, Randle, but I’ve not seen any love or kindness in you since our children were babies. I think it was that church. I think you changed when you claimed you were called. You started judging everybody, including me and our kids. But you never judged yourself.

    “I was a fool for taking your abuse, but even if I didn’t respect myself enough to leave you for my own sake, I should have done it for our children.

            “You drove Jennifer from our home. So what if she fooled around with a few boys and smoked dope? What did she do that was so different from what we did? You called our baby girl a ‘whore’ and told her God was going to throw her in a lake of fire. …you beat on her, and tore her room apart. Ruined everything that meant something to her…including that antique porcelain carousel horse you gave her when she was ten. And you said you were saving her when you did that.

   “I was her mother. I should have protected her from a jackal like you. Even if it meant putting you in your grave back then.

   “And you started in on little Terry before he even started school. You browbeat that boy every chance you got. You made him feel small and worthless by telling him what a man was supposed to be, and how he would never measure up. As if you knew anything about being a man. Then when he was twelve, you caught him kissing that boy named Jeffrey.

   “The awful things you said to our Terry… All the time. Every chance you got. Even five years later when he stood in our kitchen and told us he was leaving our house for good and that he’d never be back, you were still saying those things to him. I could never figure out what you hated more, the fact that Terry liked boys or the fact that Jeffrey was black.

           “And when they called to tell us he’d hanged himself in his apartment out there in Los Angeles, you wouldn’t even bring him back here and give him a proper funeral and burial. You told them to let the county dispose of his body. You said he was an unrepentant sinner and didn’t deserve a Christian funeral.

   “He was our son, Randle. That’s when I gave up hope.

   “And I know you’re a hypocrite, too. I know what happened between you and that girl. I know, Randle. I didn’t confront you then because I was a coward, but that girl’s mother confronted me. She told me what a wicked woman I was for staying with you, and letting you pass yourself off as some kind of family man. I didn’t argue with her because she was right.

   The woman stopped and bowed her head as if in prayer. The sudden cessation of her voice left a void that was filled by the sound of the man’s heavy breathing. The man had not moved. He couldn’t move or speak, but there was recognition in his eyes.

           After a long moment, the woman sat up, sighed and continued. “I want you to know, Randle, that no one on this earth loves you. Your children didn’t love you. I don’t love you. Your family doesn’t love you. The scripture chirping vultures in your congregation don’t love you. I want you to know that. I want you to die knowing that.

   “I want you to know that every time you got on top of me for the last thirty years, I thought of somebody else. Some of the men in the congregation. Your brother a few times. Even your father once. It was the only way I could get through it. I couldn’t stand you touching me.

   “I’m going to bury you in your family’s cemetery, up in the woods. No one ever goes up there anymore. I’d put you in a hole in the backyard like a dog if the law would let me. I’m not going to mark your grave either. And I won’t let the church put up a stone. I’m going to use your insurance money to bring Terry back here. I’m going to bury him in the town cemetery, and I’m going to buy him the biggest God damn monument…

   “I’m going to tell people about you, too, Randle, the things you done. Then I’m going to try to find our daughter, and I’m going to beg her to forgive me. …I don’t care what happens to me after that.

   “So you just lie in here and die alone. I have no pity for you. And I will be glad to be rid of you.” With apocalyptic anger, the woman added, “You reap what you sow, you sorry son of a bitch.”

   The woman stood and slowly but deliberately went over to the window and pulled the curtains. She then crossed the darkened room, went out into the hall and closed the door behind her.

My Indian Boy

I had the most amazing wet dream the night after I learned my head surgery had been postponed for two weeks. I was scared to death, and I thought I was going under the knife the next morning, but when I was told I had two more weeks, I was so greatly relieved. That night in my dream I was walking by myself in an untamed landscape. I was in a grassy meadow with woods all around. It was a warm, sunny summer day. There was no indication of civilization anywhere. No signs that people were anywhere around. It felt good to be there, peaceful. I felt free. Then I saw a nearly naked, slim, slightly toned young man coming toward me. He only wore a headband and a loincloth. He was Native American with brown skin and long black hair. We began walking toward one another. It seemed we knew each other. And when we were close enough to touch, he put his arms around me and lifted me into the air. I felt so loved by him, so totally accepted. That’s when I experienced the most powerful sense of release in my life. I’ll never forget that dream. I don’t know who the Indian boy was, but I think he was a representation of early ancestors reminding me of the simple joys of being alive, of having a body and living on this planet. For so long I had been depressed, so distracted by questions of meaning and self-worth. The Indian boy was telling me I didn’t have to understand life to appreciate it and enjoy it.

This world can be a very dangerous place for women. I think nearly all of us have known women who have been raped and brutalized. Many of them have been harmed by men who are supposed to love them--fathers, brothers, boyfriends, husbands. There are so-called honor killings, girls are shot for wanting an education, women’s bodies are mutilated to prevent them from enjoying sex, women are subjected to corrective and punitive rape. It’s horrific and frightening, and we should pay attention to these things. We should try to prevent them if possible. Understanding the dynamics involved may help.

But I’ve noticed that sometimes our concern for the safety of women is expressed in such a way that we subtly and sometimes overtly imply that we need not concern ourselves with the safety of men. And yet every day men are regularly assaulted, raped, brutalized, and murdered. Every day. All the time. All around the world. The world can be a very dangerous place for women, to be sure, but it’s often no cakewalk for men either.

When I was young, I regularly heard people say that it is wrong for a man to hit a woman. But rarely did I hear anyone say it was wrong it hit a man or a boy, and yet I regularly saw men and boys beaten up and threatened. I was regularly threatened, intimidated and bullied myself. I remember being terrified of going into the boys room and locker room at school because those places were totally unsupervised. School in general was a very scary place for me. And I got of easy compared to some.

I’ve noticed how many act differently when a boy is attacked. People show sympathy when a girl is hit. But when I was young, boys were asked if they held their own or if they hit back. When I was bullied, few defended me. And when the incident was over, people would come up to me and tell me how I should have punched that guy. Well, that just wasn’t in me. Did that make the bullying, the threats, the name calling, the shoves, the smacks, the intimidation okay? When I was in middle school, a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy came up to me while I was waiting on the school bus and punched me hard in the middle of my chest for no reason. I was told I should have hit him back. I was twelve, and I wasn’t a fighter. A sixteen-year-old girl kicked me in the nuts at that same bus stop and everyone laughed.

I thought when I went away to college, I could finally put all that behind me. But I soon found out that gay boys were regularly assaulted when they left the local gay bar. Luckily, no one every physically attacked me, but I was threatened and intimidated several times. Several boys on my dorm floor that year were beaten up. They’d show up for dinner with black eyes, and they’d tell everyone how they were jumped for no reason at all while walking back to the dorm after a night class.

Right before finals my freshman year, I went home with a boy I met at the gay bar. Even though he was drunk and sullen, I actually thought of myself as lucky because I thought he was sexy. I let him top me even though he was rather large. He wasn’t careful, and he began to hurt me. I told him to stop, and he did stop for a minute. He looked down at me and asked me if it was because his dick was so big. I said yes. That’s when an evil smile appeared on his face and he started fucking me again, only harder. He had me pinned. My knees were up beside my ears. I couldn’t throw him off. I just had to endure it until he was finished. While I was getting dressed, he actually had the nerve to ask me to come back the next night.

I was very sore for days, and I also bled. That really scared me because I was afraid I would have to go to the doctor and explain that I had allowed a boy to fuck me. I was afraid my parents would find out. And because men aren’t supposed to allow themselves to be victims, it was years before I put what happened in the proper framework inside my head. That man sexually assaulted me. And I was in my thirties before I told anyone what happened. No means no even when the person saying it is a man. And it’s never okay to force someone to have sex with you. I cringe when I hear people joke about men being raped in prison or claim that it’s okay because they’re criminals. I sometimes think about how awful it would be to be a prisoner, to be subjected to physical and sexual abuse and to have virtually no one care.

The summer after my freshman year, I went home and I got my old job back at McDonald’s. I often worked in the kitchen with a homophobe who was openly hostile toward me. He would point out young men who were waiting in line at the counter and say things like, “Hey, Cottle, why don’t you go ask that guy if you can suck his dick. You know you want to.” He would say these things in front of coworkers and even in front of managers sometimes, and no one ever told him to stop.

I went to the restroom once, and while I was peeing at the urinal, he came out of one of the stalls. When he saw me, he grinned, pulled his dick out of his pants and told me I should do him a favor before he started his shift. I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.

He was fired not long after that. He was allowed to treat me any way he wanted, but showing up late and not working fast enough wasn’t tolerated. I assumed I would never have to deal with him again. But one night I was asked to clean up the dinning room. We were about to close and no one was around, and when I went over to the area that was out of sight of the counter and the kitchen, my former coworker came in with a friend. When he saw me, he came right up to me, and before I could think of what to do, he grabbed me and shoved my face into his crotch. He called me all kinds of homophobic names as he held my face between his legs. And his friend laughed. I wasn’t strong enough to push him off. I just had to wait until he was tired of humiliating me.

I didn’t have a car, so my father came to get me when I worked at night. Thankfully, he had not arrived yet. If he had, he would have seen everything. He always parked right outside those windows on that side of the building. I seriously doubt he would have tried to stop those boys. Instead he would have asked me why I hadn’t defended myself.

That’s the way they got you when I was young. If you were a boy, you were fair game. And if you couldn’t defend yourself, that meant you deserved it.

I know that I didn’t have it as bad as some. I know a lot of people, male and female, have gotten it a lot worse than I ever did. A lot worse. But I don’t think it’s any more okay to brutalize men and boys than it’s okay to brutalize girls and women. And I think in a world where it’s okay in threaten and inflict violence on men, women aren’t going to be safe either. I don’t think you can protect one sex and not the other. 

These past few days have been interesting. A Republican United States senator announced his support for marriage equality. The Republicans released a report advising candidates to not be so vocal about their homophobia. A new poll shows that 58% of Americans now support marriage equality. That’s more than a slight majority. In senatorial terms, that’s almost a super majority. And a well known pastor said that evangelists needed to repent for the way they’ve handled the LGBT rights issue. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, I know the Supreme Court could throw us a curveball and set us back decades, but I’m sensing a significant shift in the culture. I could almost say I’m optimistic.

I was looking for answers when I went to college. I studied Christianity, various other religions, and I read a number of philosophers. I came away thinking that there are a lot of interesting ideas out there, but no one really has the answers. We all have to come to our own conclusions. We can try to hitch a ride on someone else’s ideas, but if we do that, we’re still making a choice to believe something that hasn’t been proven. That’s why fanatics really get under my skin. They speak with such great authority. They’re so sure they’re right. They know their dogma backwards and forwards. But when you peel back the layers, you always get down to basic beliefs that are based on unproven assumptions.

My mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The paranoid part caused her to demonize certain individuals. It would sometimes come out of the blue. For instance, one morning she suddenly accused the woman who lived across the street of plotting to kill us. Of course it made no sense. The reasons why she believed this were not based in reality. But it was useless to argue with her. In her mind, she knew the truth. It’s like that with Christianists such as Perkins, LaBarbera, Brown, Fischer… We are “the other” to them, the evil stranger who has come to destroy their world. You can’t reason with them because they’re crazy. They don’t have a mental illness that clouds their thought processes, but they’re crazy nonetheless. They choose to be crazy. They choose to live in a fantasy world where they are the unappreciated heroes down for the count, and we are the villains. They imagine they will vanquish us at the last minute and win the praise of all the world. Reality just can’t compete with that.

This is in regards to Sen. Bob Portman, the first Republican United States senator to support marriage equality. He said in an interview with CNN that he opposed marriage equality because of his religious beliefs, and after his son came out, he started to rethink the issue. He said he then consulted his pastor and other religious leaders before deciding to support marriage equality in his official capacity as a United States senator. He states that talking to them was part of that "process". I’m glad that he now supports marriage equality, but his reasoning “process” troubles me. Imagine the number of bricks that would be shat all across this country if a United States senator said he had consulted his imam about what is and isn’t halal before voting for an agricultural bill.

He'll Never Know How Much I Love Him

“He’ll never know how much I love him because I’m not allowed to say. We probably won’t even be friends anymore in a few months. In the future, he’ll think of me as that strange kid he knew in eighth grade. That is if he remembers me at all. In twenty years I’ll come back home for the funeral of my aunt, and I’ll run into him at the grocery store. He won’t mention his recent divorce, or the six months he spent in the county jail for passing bad checks, or that he’s not allowed to see his daughter. I’ll introduce him to my boyfriend. He’ll act cool, but the moment will be awkward. When my boyfriend and I get back to my parents’ house, I’ll tell him that he just met my first love. He won’t understand what I saw in a lout like that. I won’t be able to explain it, but I’ll remember that I loved him, and that my feelings were and are important. I’ll remember that I wanted more than anything for him to kiss me on that park bench. I’ll know that I would have gladly lived with him in that trailer park. I would have visited him when he was in jail. And I would have defended him when people put him down for drinking too much. But he’ll never know any of that.” 

Artist unknown.
Little fictional short story by Gary Cottle.



Haters use any excuse they can find.

This week homophobic Christianist hate group leader Peter LaBarbera launched something he calls the “Pedo-files”. It’s basically the same nonsense we’ve been getting from homophobic Christianists for decades. He claims that many if not most gay men are out to get into the pants of young boys, and that these experiences somehow causes boys to later identify as gay. LaBarbera is desperate for us to see the connection, and he warns that the media, and I suppose law enforcement and the medical establishment are involved in a giant conspiracy to hide this connection.

His first “pedo-file” focuses on something Larry Kramer once wrote. Something about how not every instance of someone over the age of 18 having sex with someone under the age of 18 is traumatic and abusive. Larry Kramer is certainly entitled to his opinion, and he’s entitled to share his thoughts and experiences. But it should be noted that even though he might be “celebrated” as an “advocate” for LGBT rights, he does not speak for all LGBT people, and his celebrity status certainly doesn’t rest on his understanding of teenage sexuality. I don’t think even he would try to pass himself off as an expert in this area. He was just sharing his thoughts.

I’m sure it won’t be long before LaBarbera reminds us that Harvey Milk once had a romantic relationship with a sixteen-year-old young man, and that Milk used to sneak off to the city to have sexual encounters with men when he was a teenager. Never mind that Milk’s sixteen-year-old boyfriend came to New York City because it would have been impossible for him to admit to and pursue his sexual and romantic feelings if he had remained in the hick southern town were he was raised. Never mind that Milk probably wouldn’t have been messing around in the bushes with strangers when he was in high school if he had been allowed to date with the full knowledge, support and understanding of his peers and family.

People like LaBarbera don’t really see us as human. As long as we identify as gay, they’re going to assume that we’re some kind of dangerous, scary subspecies that adheres to a cartoonish, ridiculous modus operandi that only exists inside of their heads. They will comb through TV programs, movies, books, public statements, and police records looking for bits of information that might arguably lend credence to their preconceived notions, and when they find something, they will hold it up as proof that they were right about us all along. But their efforts only prove how desperate they are to justify their ignorance, bigotry and hate.

If their methods were valid, what group could withstand such scrutiny? What if all Christians were judged by what Christianists say and do? What if all men were judged by those who rape and murder? What if our Founding Fathers were judged and dismissed as completely and utterly evil, and everything they did viewed as wicked because some of them owned slaves? What if we refused to listen to any piece of music created by anyone ever arrested on a DUI charge?

If we started throwing people away because they make mistakes or if they fail to accept every jot and tittle of our personal moral code, who would be left? What group would be acceptable to us if every member was expected to be perfect in our eyes?

The next time Huffington Post runs a story about a hot female teacher diddling a teenage football player, scroll down to the comments section and you’ll find dozens and dozens of comments made by presumably heterosexual men who boldly claim no abuse took place and that the hot female teacher shouldn’t be punished.

What do these stories say about heterosexual female teachers in general? What do their defenders’ comments say about heterosexual men in general? Nothing really. It just goes to show that people have a wide variety of experiences, beliefs, attitudes and opinions. Why should gay people be any different?



　

　

Psycho Twink

When I got to the party, I noticed him immediately. Of course I was attracted to him, but even if I had been twenty years younger, I assumed I wouldn’t have a chance. He was dressed in expensive clothes, and he was surrounded by young, hip friends. This kid was obviously used to fast cars and cocktails in the bars of posh hotels.

We crossed paths about a half hour later. He caught me looking at him, so I had to say something. I didn’t want him to think I was so far out of the game that I was afraid to even speak to him.

“Shouldn’t you be home in bed with your teddy bear?”

One side of his mouth turned up, and he tilted his head slightly. I had wanted to make him laugh, but instead I had succeeded in annoying him.

“Ah, you’re being condescending about my age. You’re the fifth one this evening.”

“Sorry about that.”

He shook his head in a way that suggested it didn’t really matter, that I didn’t really matter, and walked off.

Much to my surprise, he came back and handed me a drink. I said, “Thank you.” I did it in an over the top, groveling way that probably made me sound desperate, which I was, but I didn’t want him to know that.

He laughed at me a little and said, “Drink that fast.”

“Why?”

He sighed and said, “Because I’m bored with this party. I want to go home. And I was thinking, if you’re amenable, you could come with me. You could be my teddy bear tonight.”

“Really?” Again, I sounded much too desperate and incredulous.

“Drink up,” he said with a smile. “And stop being a goof, or I might change my mind.”

I swallowed the tall rum and Coke in about three gulps.

My head was spinning a little by the time we got to the street. I thought it was because of the alcohol, but when I got in his car, I passed out.

The next morning, I came to and found I was hogtied and gagged. And I was on the floor of the old factory building outside of town. I bucked against the ropes and yelled, but it was no use.

The young man was close by. When he heard me struggling, he looked down at me in a curious way and said, “Good, you’re awake. Now the real fun begins.” 

Model: Konstantin Vesnin
Photographer: Alexander Deviatchenko

Fictional short story by Gary Cottle

　

　

　



Fawlty Towers: Season 1, Episode 5 | Gourmet Night (17 Oct. 1975)

Fawlty Towers: Season 1, Episode 5 | Gourmet Night (17 Oct. 1975)

 

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This past week, I’ve been revisiting Fawlty Towers which is available for instant play on Netflix. Yesterday I watched the fifth episode of season one titled Gourmet Night, which, according to IMDb, originally aired on Oct. 17, 1975. I didn’t remember this episode at all, and I was quite surprised to find out it has a funny little gay subplot. Kurt the cook falls in love with Manuel the waiter, and when Manuel rejects him, Kurt gets stinking drunk and is unable to prepare a special gourmet feast that’s been planned. Hilarity ensues. It was all played for laughs, of course, but I was struck by how they didn’t dwell on the fact that Kurt had fallen for a man. They didn’t make him out to be strange or perverted. And Manuel rejected him simply because he didn’t have those kinds of feelings for Kurt, not because he was horrified by the idea of a man being in love with him.



The Illusion of Certainty

I think most of us want to believe that our lives have meaning and purpose. And I think this desire is what motivates us to keep going. We reach out to others. We make friends. We create families. We establish roots in our communities. We devote our time and energy to things that we hope will make a difference: art, picking up litter along the highway, baking cookies, trying to find a cure for cancer.

But doing it all without proof, making the investment without assurance takes a lot of courage. For some, mere optimism isn’t enough. For them dreams aren’t enough. So they cling to certainty even if it’s an illusion. Their beliefs become concretized. Wise leaders become anointed lawgivers who must be obeyed. Inspirational stories become literal fact. Those who don’t share their vision become evildoer who must be destroyed.

I think it’s a trap any of us can fall into.