Sunday, July 1, 2012
Saturday, June 30, 2012
But what if I don't know how to make Jell-O?
The jot and tittle religious folk give me a headache. They love quoting from this verse and that, hemming it together and claiming that somehow the exercise proves they are right. “If you read verse 6 of chapter 9 of Matthew and verse 4 of chapter 14 of Ruth, you will see why you are doomed to burn in hell if you use your house key to pick your teeth on Thursday afternoons. Doing such a thing is offensive to the Father.”
A large percentage of the human race would have difficulty following the directions on the side of a box of Jell-O, so I find it particularly odd that if there is a god, that god would expect us to make sense of a huge hodgepodge collection of literature written centuries ago in a foreign language, and if we slip up that god will punish us forever.
A large percentage of the human race would have difficulty following the directions on the side of a box of Jell-O, so I find it particularly odd that if there is a god, that god would expect us to make sense of a huge hodgepodge collection of literature written centuries ago in a foreign language, and if we slip up that god will punish us forever.
Should everything be different?
I rejected the dogma I was raised with a very long time ago. And even though I never cut myself off from the concept of faith and reflecting on what exactly it means to have faith, I have been fairly skeptical for most of my adult life, and I would say even most of my teen years. But the idea that we live in a fallen world has been so ingrained in me that I believed it without ever really thinking about it until just a few years ago. I don’t mean I literally believed the story of the Fall from Genesis, but I did accept the basic idea that there was something fundamentally wrong with existence. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “Life is something that should not have been.” I think that statement is a crystallization of an idea that has permeated Western Civilization for centuries. I think it’s one of those things people accept without ever really reflecting on it, even people who aren’t particularly religious or spiritual. In the film Grand Canyon, the character Simon says, “Everything is supposed to be different from what it is.”
This idea can’t be blamed entirely on our Judeo-Christian heritage because you can find it in Plato, too. It may be a natural assumption considering what life is like for human beings. For most of human history, up to half of all children died before reaching the age of maturity. Many women died while giving birth. Life is filled with suffering and pain, and then we die. We live our lives knowing we’re going to die, too. That often casts a pall over our brightest days. We know the storm is coming. And if the natural process of disease and decline weren’t bad enough, human beings make it even worse for themselves by fighting and killing one another. It’s easy for us to imagine that things weren’t supposed to be like this.
But I reject the idea that life as we experience it is some kind of divine punishment. If there is some kind of reason or purpose for suffering and death, I don’t think it’s because we live in a fallen world. And I question the idea that everything should be different from what it is. I don’t mean to suggest the problems we experience in life aren’t problems for us, but either existence is what it is or if there’s some kind of purpose or meaning to existence, then maybe there’s some kind of essential quality of existence that gives rise to our problems. I think it’s arrogant for us to assume we have some way of knowing what a better world would be like.
This idea can’t be blamed entirely on our Judeo-Christian heritage because you can find it in Plato, too. It may be a natural assumption considering what life is like for human beings. For most of human history, up to half of all children died before reaching the age of maturity. Many women died while giving birth. Life is filled with suffering and pain, and then we die. We live our lives knowing we’re going to die, too. That often casts a pall over our brightest days. We know the storm is coming. And if the natural process of disease and decline weren’t bad enough, human beings make it even worse for themselves by fighting and killing one another. It’s easy for us to imagine that things weren’t supposed to be like this.
But I reject the idea that life as we experience it is some kind of divine punishment. If there is some kind of reason or purpose for suffering and death, I don’t think it’s because we live in a fallen world. And I question the idea that everything should be different from what it is. I don’t mean to suggest the problems we experience in life aren’t problems for us, but either existence is what it is or if there’s some kind of purpose or meaning to existence, then maybe there’s some kind of essential quality of existence that gives rise to our problems. I think it’s arrogant for us to assume we have some way of knowing what a better world would be like.
Micahel Brown and company are lost in their vicious delusions of hate
Because my mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, I became accustomed to delusional thought processes. Delusions have their own internal “logic”, and the “logic” is designed to sustain the delusion. My mother couldn’t help but get lost in the fog because she had a serious brain disorder, but Michael Brown’s insanity is voluntary. He chooses his bigotry, and he chooses to reinforce it at the expense of LGBT people.
A few months ago I saw a clip of a conversation he had with Cindy Jacobs and her husband. (Cindy Jacobs is the so-called prophet who claimed the mysterious bird deaths in Arkansas was the result of the repeal of DADT.) Brown told the Jacobs that LGBT people are very sensitive to any kind of criticism and the reason for this is because they are outside the grace of God. I recognized this for the clever mental trick that it was. He gives himself permission to say the meanest, nastiest things about LGBT people, and if they dare complain, then he sees this as proof that he’s right. Anyone with any sense can see this self-serving “logic” for what it is, but he’s chosen to lose himself in his bigotry delusion. And there are just enough fools out there to make that delusion profitable for him. He plays the hero fighting the evil gays, and his followers give him unconditional praise…and money. And if an LGBT person fights back, he plays the victim. If an LGBT person tries to talk with him calmly, he becomes arrogant and pretends anyone who disagrees with him rejects truth. The man is a piece of work.
There was no reasoning with my mother when she was psychotic. In fact her doctor warned us against it. He said you can not beat psychosis with reason. When people have mixed up ideas, it’s only natural for us to want to try to explain to them why they’re wrong, but when a person is psychotic, you’ll only end up frustrating yourself if you try. The doctor advised us to not engage Mother about her delusions whenever possible. An d when it was necessary to say something about them--because we needed her to stop doing something disruptive or dangerous--we weren’t supposed to argue, but state firmly, “I don’t believe that.” “I don’t believe that your nephew Tommy who died three years ago told you to put that tube of toothpaste you’ve not paid for in your purse. Now put it back. If you don’t, you could be arrested and I won’t be able to stop that from happening. Put it back, now.”
My mother couldn’t help it, and she really did hear voices. It’s just that the voices weren’t real. She was a very sweet and gentle person when she was stable and medicated. And most of the time the things she said and did when she was psychotic were simply annoying and silly. And sometimes the things she did were funny. There’s nothing like getting up in the morning and finding three loafs of toast on the table. It can be exhausting when you have to deal with that kind of thing day after day, but sometimes you just had to laugh.
The things Michael Brown and company say and do are often vicious and not funny or merely annoying and silly, but there’s a lot of craziness in what they say and do. And because of that, I think it’s generally useless to try to engage them. That’s because there’re not merely confused, or mistaken, or ill informed. They don’t merely have a different opinion. They’re lost in their hate delusion, and they’re going to sustain that delusion for as long as they decide to live in a world of make believe where they are the heroes and LGBT people are the dragons they must destroy for their god. Not all homophobic people are like this, but I think a lot of the extreme cases like Michael Brown are. I don’t think we can hope to change them because they would have to be willing to give up their delusions, and they like their delusions. We can only expose them for the liars and manipulators they are and try to minimize the damage they do.
A few months ago I saw a clip of a conversation he had with Cindy Jacobs and her husband. (Cindy Jacobs is the so-called prophet who claimed the mysterious bird deaths in Arkansas was the result of the repeal of DADT.) Brown told the Jacobs that LGBT people are very sensitive to any kind of criticism and the reason for this is because they are outside the grace of God. I recognized this for the clever mental trick that it was. He gives himself permission to say the meanest, nastiest things about LGBT people, and if they dare complain, then he sees this as proof that he’s right. Anyone with any sense can see this self-serving “logic” for what it is, but he’s chosen to lose himself in his bigotry delusion. And there are just enough fools out there to make that delusion profitable for him. He plays the hero fighting the evil gays, and his followers give him unconditional praise…and money. And if an LGBT person fights back, he plays the victim. If an LGBT person tries to talk with him calmly, he becomes arrogant and pretends anyone who disagrees with him rejects truth. The man is a piece of work.
There was no reasoning with my mother when she was psychotic. In fact her doctor warned us against it. He said you can not beat psychosis with reason. When people have mixed up ideas, it’s only natural for us to want to try to explain to them why they’re wrong, but when a person is psychotic, you’ll only end up frustrating yourself if you try. The doctor advised us to not engage Mother about her delusions whenever possible. An d when it was necessary to say something about them--because we needed her to stop doing something disruptive or dangerous--we weren’t supposed to argue, but state firmly, “I don’t believe that.” “I don’t believe that your nephew Tommy who died three years ago told you to put that tube of toothpaste you’ve not paid for in your purse. Now put it back. If you don’t, you could be arrested and I won’t be able to stop that from happening. Put it back, now.”
My mother couldn’t help it, and she really did hear voices. It’s just that the voices weren’t real. She was a very sweet and gentle person when she was stable and medicated. And most of the time the things she said and did when she was psychotic were simply annoying and silly. And sometimes the things she did were funny. There’s nothing like getting up in the morning and finding three loafs of toast on the table. It can be exhausting when you have to deal with that kind of thing day after day, but sometimes you just had to laugh.
The things Michael Brown and company say and do are often vicious and not funny or merely annoying and silly, but there’s a lot of craziness in what they say and do. And because of that, I think it’s generally useless to try to engage them. That’s because there’re not merely confused, or mistaken, or ill informed. They don’t merely have a different opinion. They’re lost in their hate delusion, and they’re going to sustain that delusion for as long as they decide to live in a world of make believe where they are the heroes and LGBT people are the dragons they must destroy for their god. Not all homophobic people are like this, but I think a lot of the extreme cases like Michael Brown are. I don’t think we can hope to change them because they would have to be willing to give up their delusions, and they like their delusions. We can only expose them for the liars and manipulators they are and try to minimize the damage they do.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Is Michael Brown A Pedophile, Drug Abusing, Counterfeiting Thief From Albania?
Michael Brown admits that very few LGBT people condone predatory sexual behavior, especially against children, so I’m wondering what exactly was his purpose in conflating homosexuality and pedophilia in his blog post JERRY SANDUSKY, GAY ACTIVISTS, AND “CONSENSUAL” PEDERASTY. And why would he subject LGBT heroes and role models of the past to a kind of scrutiny that celebrated and well known heterosexuals aren’t generally subjected to?
Brown talks about Harvey Milk exploring the secret gay life of NYC starting when he was 11, and how he became sexually active at the age of 14. But Brown refuses to even consider what life must have been like for a gay kid going through puberty and adolescence in the 1940s. Would Milk have been interested in the shadowy underworld of quick sex with men if he could have openly admitted to his homosexual attractions and talked about his feelings with family and friends? Would he have elected to have anonymous sex in the bushes of a city park if he had been permitted to date boys from school openly and without shame? Brown also slams Milk for having a 16-year-old boyfriend when he was in his early 30s. What Brown fails to mention is that the 16-year-old ran away and traveled to NYC because it was impossible for him to express and explore his sexuality in his hometown in the south. Milk did not molest the young man. For a time they were in love, and they lived together. And they remained friends even after they broke up. Having a committed relationship with a 16-year-old who took it upon himself to leave home in search of a relationship with a man is hardly the same thing as raping a 12-year-old.
And so what if Walt Whitman admired young men? So what if he wrote poems about their beauty. Did he rape any? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
I wouldn’t care if school kids learned that Oscar Wilde employed the services of teenage male prostitutes if they also learned about the huge number of heterosexual men who employed female prostitutes in England at the time. Educators could have a discussion about how the prostitution problem was the result of prudish Victorian England suppressing and compartmentalizing open expressions of sexuality and how the poor and the marginalized were exploited as a result. And who were these teenage boy prostitutes? Gay boys who were thrown away by their Christian families?
Very few people are saints, and if you start looking for reasons to dismiss and criticize someone, you’ll quickly hit pay dirt. It may be true that very few of our LGBT heroes of the past led chaste lives. But then again very few of our heterosexual heroes led chaste lives. We don’t celebrate them for their misdeeds, and taking isolated incidents out of context isn’t fair.
What if we looked at celebrated heterosexual men of the past in the same way Brown is looking at gay men? John Adams was 29 when he married his wife Abigail who was 17. Edger Allen Poe was 26 when he married his 13-year-old cousin. It is widely believed that Thomas Jefferson had a relationship with Sally Hemings who was his slave, and she may have been as young as 14 when he took her to his bed.
As for Jerry Sandusky, I have no way of getting inside the man’s head, so I have no idea of what his sexual orientation is, but Jerry Sandusky has never identified as a gay man. He has been married to a woman for a number of years, and he claims he’s straight. He’s also a churchgoing Christian. Psychologists tell us that we can’t determine the sexual orientation of a sexual predator who victimizes minors by the sex of his victims. They say that a man can be heterosexual and still have the urge to rape and molest young boys. I don’t pretend to understand how that works, but Sandusky may very well be an example of that pattern. In any event, one could argue that Michael Brown has far more in common with Jerry Sandusky than most gay men, even gay heroes like Walt Whitman, so if we’re going to use Sandusky as an excuse to foment paranoia and distrust of certain individuals and groups, then maybe Michael Brown and those like Michael Brown should be at the top of our watch list.
Brown talks about Harvey Milk exploring the secret gay life of NYC starting when he was 11, and how he became sexually active at the age of 14. But Brown refuses to even consider what life must have been like for a gay kid going through puberty and adolescence in the 1940s. Would Milk have been interested in the shadowy underworld of quick sex with men if he could have openly admitted to his homosexual attractions and talked about his feelings with family and friends? Would he have elected to have anonymous sex in the bushes of a city park if he had been permitted to date boys from school openly and without shame? Brown also slams Milk for having a 16-year-old boyfriend when he was in his early 30s. What Brown fails to mention is that the 16-year-old ran away and traveled to NYC because it was impossible for him to express and explore his sexuality in his hometown in the south. Milk did not molest the young man. For a time they were in love, and they lived together. And they remained friends even after they broke up. Having a committed relationship with a 16-year-old who took it upon himself to leave home in search of a relationship with a man is hardly the same thing as raping a 12-year-old.
And so what if Walt Whitman admired young men? So what if he wrote poems about their beauty. Did he rape any? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
I wouldn’t care if school kids learned that Oscar Wilde employed the services of teenage male prostitutes if they also learned about the huge number of heterosexual men who employed female prostitutes in England at the time. Educators could have a discussion about how the prostitution problem was the result of prudish Victorian England suppressing and compartmentalizing open expressions of sexuality and how the poor and the marginalized were exploited as a result. And who were these teenage boy prostitutes? Gay boys who were thrown away by their Christian families?
Very few people are saints, and if you start looking for reasons to dismiss and criticize someone, you’ll quickly hit pay dirt. It may be true that very few of our LGBT heroes of the past led chaste lives. But then again very few of our heterosexual heroes led chaste lives. We don’t celebrate them for their misdeeds, and taking isolated incidents out of context isn’t fair.
What if we looked at celebrated heterosexual men of the past in the same way Brown is looking at gay men? John Adams was 29 when he married his wife Abigail who was 17. Edger Allen Poe was 26 when he married his 13-year-old cousin. It is widely believed that Thomas Jefferson had a relationship with Sally Hemings who was his slave, and she may have been as young as 14 when he took her to his bed.
As for Jerry Sandusky, I have no way of getting inside the man’s head, so I have no idea of what his sexual orientation is, but Jerry Sandusky has never identified as a gay man. He has been married to a woman for a number of years, and he claims he’s straight. He’s also a churchgoing Christian. Psychologists tell us that we can’t determine the sexual orientation of a sexual predator who victimizes minors by the sex of his victims. They say that a man can be heterosexual and still have the urge to rape and molest young boys. I don’t pretend to understand how that works, but Sandusky may very well be an example of that pattern. In any event, one could argue that Michael Brown has far more in common with Jerry Sandusky than most gay men, even gay heroes like Walt Whitman, so if we’re going to use Sandusky as an excuse to foment paranoia and distrust of certain individuals and groups, then maybe Michael Brown and those like Michael Brown should be at the top of our watch list.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
My Summer With Jay
"Jay only touches me when his friends are around to see it happen, and when we’re alone he talks about his friends a lot, especially Blake. My father paid for this trip, and when I told him that I wanted to bring Jay, he said that I was old enough now to make those kinds of decisions for myself. I appreciated his confidence in me, but when I realized this wasn’t going to be the romantic adventure I thought it was, I wondered if I had actually earned my father’s trust.
After we arrived and settled in at the cottage, Jay casually mentioned that several of his fraternity brothers had rented a cottage not far from ours. He tried to make it sound as if turning the summer into a group trip wasn’t a significant departure from our plans. It broke my heart. We talked about this trip all last spring, and he never said anything about bringing friends. It was supposed to be just the two of us.
I’ve decided to make the best of it. This is a beautiful place, and I know I’m lucky to be here, so I’m not going to act like a spoiled brat and pout the whole time. …but some nights when we go to our separate bedrooms, I cry.
I’m going to break up with Jay when we go back to school in August. I’m also going to tell him that it’s not fair for him to play games with the people in his life. I’ll be nice about it. Of course I was mad when I figured out what was going on, but I still care about him. He needs to grow up is all. If the friends he has now won’t accept him for who he is, then he needs to find new ones who will. And if Blake doesn’t want him, there are plenty of other men who would jump at the chance to be with him.
Maybe some day we can both laugh at what happened here."
Photographer unknown
Models unknown
Little fictional story by Gary Cottle
Monday, June 25, 2012
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