Tag: LGBTQA

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A Picture to Remember by Nicholas

Picture this. Jamie and I are decked out in our tuxedos with purple silk bow ties and purple cummerbund, standing near to each other—he a head taller than me. We have boutonnieres of white carnations in our lapels and we are smiling. We look like two grooms because we are two grooms, celebrating our wedding in 2008.

Now, picture this. We are in a hospital room. Jamie, in a hospital gown, is in bed and has a nasal-gastric tube in his nose. I’m standing next to him wearing a polo shirt and khaki slacks. The minister who officiated at our ceremony is signing our marriage license as our witnesses—my sister, Jamie’s sister-in-law, my nephew, and Jamie’s mom—watch. Just married. Our smiles are trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Which picture is true? Which picture do we really remember? The answer is: both. We have the official picture of our wedding, as it was supposed to have happened. And we have the actual picture of our wedding, as it did happen in Stanford University Hospital. The official photo, which is actually from a reception we held months later, sits proudly on our mantel. The other rests indelibly in our memories of that August day in 2008 when the grand celebration we’d planned all summer turned into a desperate rush to the nearest ER. It sits in a box on a closet shelf.

Early on the morning of our wedding day, Jamie complained of a stomach ache that seemed more than a case of wedding day nerves. At 6 a.m., we went to the Emergency Room at Stanford Hospital where doctors quickly diagnosed that they didn’t know exactly what was going on but Jamie had to stay in the hospital until they could figure it out. Sorry, said the doctors, no wedding that day.

Then someone, I don’t recall who, asked about having our wedding in the hospital. The docs were surprised but said, sure, if the nurses were OK with it. The nurses were thrilled to have a wedding in their hospital and they set about making Jamie look presentable.

We hastily arranged for just family to squeeze into Stanford’s tiny chapel where we recited our vows and were pronounced married. The reception with catered dinner and fancy cake with two grooms on top went on as scheduled since we had 80 people gathered—some travelling from far away—to help us celebrate this momentous day. Jamie, of course, had to remain in the hospital while I, so tired I could hardly think, had to play host—alone. Yes, I received countless good wishes that day but I barely remember that.

A few days later, Jamie was operated on to relieve a bowel obstruction and began a long, slow recovery that kept us both in California for over a month but not for the honeymoon we’d planned.

So, we have our pictures—the one we happily remember and the one we can’t forget.

© March 2015

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

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Homophobia Hell by Gillian

I used that title because I firmly believe that homophobes inhabit a Hell on Earth. They are consumed by anger and hatred, all driven by fear. They fear a wrathful God. They fear the unknown. And, perhaps the greatest, they fear that deeply-hidden part of themselves which they absolutely dare not acknowledge.

It must be nothing short of terrifying to be a Fundamentalist Christian. (Or probably any kind of Fundamentalist but that’s another discussion.) If I truly believe that every word of The Bible is true, and my church tells me that according to that Good Book, homosexuality is a sin, you’d better believe I’m going to condemn it. With that Vengeful God watching my every move, waiting to pounce on my slightest miss-step and fling me into the Fiery Furnace for Eternity, what else would I do? It’s easy to poke fun at such extreme beliefs, but I sincerely am not. I cannot imagine living in that kind of fear every day of my life. We cannot save them. It is impossible to have any logical discussion with someone who’s answer to every question or comment is, it says so in The Bible. I would like to save them from their life of fear, but I cannot, any more than they can save me from my life of sin. I don’t hate them for all that they rail against us. To return their words to them – I hate the sin, but not the sinner.

No phobias are rational, that is their very essence. I have been, from as far back as I can remember, an arachnophobe. I hate to deprive any living creature of life, but I had flattened every poor innocent spider I ever encountered with great energy and little compunction. Then, many years ago, I was ill for quite some time after being bitten by a Brown Recluse which I never even saw. I had to laugh at the irony. But the result was surprising. No, it didn’t cure me of my spider-frights, but it did decrease their strength and hold over me. I still call to Betsy to deal with any I find in the house, but reasonably calmly; not curled in a gibbering heap on the chair.

I suppose that is what encountering the object of our phobias does. That is what exposure therapists would have us believe, anyway, though I don’t see myself hugging a tarantula any time soon.

Not so long ago, most people didn’t know anyone Gay; or didn’t know they did. Most Straights feared us because they didn’t know us. We were just these weirdos out there they didn’t understand and sure as hell didn’t want to. Then those closet doors started creaking open.

At first it was oh well, yeah, Jimmy’s OK. It’s the rest of ’em.

Then the rest of ’em came out. It wasn’t just your nephew. It was your high school sweetheart and your best friend from college and your neighbor down the street. And you know what? Surprise, surprise! They live very much like we do.

Homophobia began to dissipate.

But it hung on.

Most of us remember the battle over Amendment 2.

Everything was going fine. It had little support. Then, suddenly, in the last two weeks of the campaign, the ad. blitz was on. I can see those ads as clearly as if they were on a TV in front of me right now.

Picture it.

A serene, middle aged, white woman appears on the screen; middle America’s perfect mother. She smiles slightly as she looks into the camera. She speaks in a gentle tone with a well-modulated voice.

“Of course I don’t hate homosexuals!” she says, implying something close to horror at the very thought. “I have nothing at all against them,” with complete sincerity.

She leans in towards the camera a little, a slightly worried look appears on her face.

“But special rights,” and she shakes her head sadly, regretfully. “That’s just going too far.”

God, they were good, those ads. I was almost talked into voting for Amendment 2 myself. They were so reasonable. So sorry that they just couldn’t go that far for us; much as they’d like to, they implied. This attack-ad fest turned the campaign around and the amendment passed.

There’s an interesting article in the online archives of publiceye.org, part of which details this buildup of frenzy around Amendment 2. For the sake of history, I am glad it is so well documented, but I find myself at odds with it’s title, Constructing Homophobia. Much as the opposition tried, I don’t believe that is actually what they succeeded in doing. Via misinformation, manipulation, and downright lies, enough people were convinced that a no vote equalled a vote granting homosexuals in Colorado special, rather than equal, rights. It was that which changed the minds of many otherwise accepting, middle-of-the-road, voters. And my bet is that many of the same people who voted for Amendment 2 are now greeting the State’s legal acceptance of gay marriage with equanimity.

Try as they might, those real homophobes, too many people just don’t care. Young people, especially, just don’t get it. What’s the big deal?

So who are they, these real homophobes? The ones who lead the campaigns against us? Some are those truly led, or misled, by religion, some possibly still fall into the category of fear of the unknown. But most, I believe, are those who are terrified by what they feel within themselves.

In recent years, Ted Haggard, the evangelical leader who preached endlessly and fervently against homosexuality, resigned after a scandal involving a former male prostitute. Larry Craig, a United States senator who opposed including sexual orientation in hate-crime legislation, was arrested on a charge of lewd conduct in a men’s bathroom. Glenn Murphy Jr., a leader of the Young Republican National Convention and vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, was accused of sexually assaulting another man. Haggard himself actually said,

“I think I was partially so vehement because of my own war.”

A New York Times article from 2012, actually entitled, Homophobic? Maybe You’re Gay,* cites an April 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in which researchers claim to provide empirical evidence that homophobia can result from the suppression of same-sex desire.

Given my original premise, that homophobia is driven by essentially three basic types of fear, I see strong reason for hope that it is rapidly decreasing, as those fears dissipate. But let’s not fool ourselves. It will never go away. Even if it becomes politically incorrect and lies largely dormant, it will remain a smoldering coal to be re-ignited at the slightest breeze. Prejudices live on. We have seen, recently, the fanning of the flames, in the attacks, both physical and political, on people of color. No minority group can ever rest on it’s laurels of equality gained; rather we must live a life of collective eternal vigilance. We need to maintain positive images of ourselves in the public eye; and I have a plan!

Did you know that we are awash with National Days? In the first week of January alone, we had sixteen of them, not even counting New Year’s Day. And I bet you missed them all. Today, by the way, is National Pharmacist Day, National Curried Chicken Day and National Marzipan Day.

Who knew? Tomorrow, incredibly, (honest, I’m not making this stuff up,) is National Rubber Duckie Day. And January 31st is national Backward Day, so be careful out there. The whole crazy thing has even gone international. For example, January 17th is International Hug a Tree Day, so get it on your calendars.

Now, hugging is very in, these days. And we of the GLBT community are so very huggable. So I think we need a National – oh what the Hell, let’s think big – International Hug a Gay Day. I can see bumperstickers (which we found out last week we all love so much) saying,

HAVE YOU HUGGED A GAY TODAY?

I was really getting into this idea when my thoughts got crazy, as in, we could even have a National Hug a Homophobe Day, so I had to stop. In the words of that Amendment 2 ad., that’s just going too far!

* http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/homophobic-maybe-youre-gay.html?

© January 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Angels and Archangels by Phillip E. Hoyle

Save me from angels! They’re too fiercesome. Why even in the ancient Hebrew book Tobit, young Tobias’s guardian angel Raphael carried a sword. That angel was no sentimental Europeanized childhood protector but rather the leader of the angelic host, the army that surrounded the throne of the great Lord, God of Israel. Raphael served the one that no one could look upon and live. And then someone said of me that I was an angel—this after I’d lost my lover Michael to an AIDS related cancer. Of course, somewhat like Raphael did with Tobias I walked with Michael on his way to test after test at Denver Health, accompanied him during his chemotherapy sessions, picked him up from the floor when he fell, helped him to the restroom, cleaned up after him, loved him mightily during his rapid decline in health. I also sat with him while he died. Many things actually. That seemed simple love proffered to a beloved, not something magical or mystical; simple love mixed with profound responsibility.

When Michael’s friend told someone I was an angel, I’m sure the man meant something very sentimental. But mythological? I don’t know. At the time I was in no mood to be either kind of angel. I was angry at my loss and all too aware that my late arrival in Michael’s life journey saved his closest friends many, many hours of care giving. I was not going to be consoled by anyone’s guilty feelings or sincere intentions. And besides, I knew my journey into this love and my imperfect execution of love’s demands. I knew myself all too well. Spare me the blather.

Now we’re talking mythology here, but it always seems to get mixed up with sentimentality. I abhor that! Still I don’t know how to get beyond it to something more constructive. It’s always easier to criticize than to create something new.

A couple of years later I again got called an angel this time after the HIV-related death of my Rafael. His Mexican mom told his Puerto Rican social worker that I had been his angel in his last months. I’m sure he had dramatized for her just what we had going—probably with too many details for her comfort. He insisted that she understand our love. The case manager told me what she expressed. Somehow since the ascription occurred cross-culturally and from a devout Roman Catholic person, I could more easily accept it being assigned to me. For her to say so was a breakthrough of acceptance, one I knew her dying son demanded of her. She was strong in her love and although she didn’t say it directly to me, she did convey it through a third-party, a way of communicating much more Mexican than American. I realized I did serve somehow as a messenger of the divine love, acceptance, and care to a young man who had meant no harm, who had experienced too little love, and who had broken too many Mexican taboos in his too short life. My love for him, whom I found somehow beautiful enough to assign godly terms, made me happy to provide the divine service however it was perceived and interpreted by others.

Our affair was in so many ways perfectly divine—even in the ancient Judeo-Christian sense with the fearful God who sent fearful angelic troops to announce to freaked out shepherds that they were to receive a great joy, one for all humankind! Whatever my role, whether angel or shepherd, I was finally pleased—oh so pleased—to be in the middle of such a divine drama.

Some months after Rafael’s death I told the man who had irked me with his angelic name calling that I would not care to meet another man named for an archangel—no more Michaels or Raphaels for me. He smiled and with an arched eyebrow and sly grin asked, “Well, what if his name was, say, Lucifer? Could that get your attention?”

“Probably,” I admitted.

© 15 December 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

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Doc Susie, Pioneer Doctor by Betsy

So many women, so little time. This is what I have discovered while exploring the idea of exploring famous women–women in history who were explorers of a sort in their own fields.

There are hundreds of women of whom I have a bit of knowledge, but some I particularly admire; and for varying reasons, women in whom I have a bit more interest than others. One is Susan Anderson otherwise known as Doc Susie. Susan Anderson was a pioneer in the field of medicine. She made no great discoveries nor did she posses any extraordinary medical skills. But still she was truly a noteworthy practitioner and certainly a remarkable woman.

Susan Anderson was born in 1870 in Indiana. She attended medical school at the University of Michigan and graduated in 1897. From there she settled in Cripple Creek, Colorado where her family was living at the time. She had planned to have a practice there, however, women were generally not accepted as capable doctors then so she moved to Greeley, Colorado where she practiced nursing for 6 years.

Meantime she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and her condition grew worse while in Greeley. So she decided to move to Fraser, Colorado, a very cold and dry area where she could have an advantage against her condition.

In the early twentieth century there was nothing in Fraser but a sawmill and a few shacks.

Many who knew her wondered why a woman would want to go to such a cold, lifeless place. Just getting there in winter was daunting. The train trip over Rollins Pass was treacherous and unbelievably cold in the passenger car.

But she arrived there safely and settled in a small shack. Susan knew better than to announce upon her arrival that she was an M.D. She was there to cure her health condition not to confront prejudice. However, it was not long before the town folks learned that she was, in fact, a doctor. There were no other doctors in the area. What health care there was was provided by the local veterinarian. She found herself providing veterinarian services and doing so with great success. So it was not long before people realized the lady doctor in town was a skilled physician and soon she had built a practice. Her reputation spread and she was soon treating injuries and illnesses of the men and their families in the remote logging camps as well as the folks in town. In winter she would often trek on foot through deep snow to reach her patients.

“Once, Doc Susie escorted a small boy by rail to Colorado General Hospital in Denver. She announced to the intern on duty that the child needed an appendectomy. The intern was about to throw them both out when a doctor intervened. Once examining the boy they found he truly needed the operation. The hospital doctor turned to the intern and announced, ‘Meet Doctor Susan Anderson, the finest rural physician in Western Colorado…the best diagnostician west of the divide.’

“During construction of the 6 mile long Moffat Tunnel, designed to replace the treacherous Moffat Road line over Rollins Pass, Doc Susie was asked to become the Coroner for Grand County.

“They needed a ‘real’ doctor that was able to confront the Tunnel Commission about the accidents and working conditions that faced workers on a daily basis in this dangerous tunnel. It is estimated that 19 men were killed and hundreds injured during its construction. At times, Susie would have to go into the tunnel to care for the injured and retrieve bodies.”*

The Moffat Tunnel opened in 1928. Doc Susie continued practicing in Fraser and Grand County until 1956. She died in April, 1960 at the age of 90. Apparently her efforts to improve her health were effective.

Susan Anderson, M.D. was inducted into the Colorado Woman’s Hall of Fame in 1997.

Exploring the lives of extraordinary women is always an uplifting and inspiring experience. Ahhhhh! So many women, so little time.

*ellensplace.net

© 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Drifting by Phillip Hoyle

In a very important sense I was drifting through life back then. Oh I had goals in my career and a highly structured schedule, but I was living into the common cultural expectation of marriage with children. I appreciated that my ministerial work afforded me the luxury of reading, researching, teaching, and the like. I easily tolerated the work conditions. In regard to family, I lived with a wonderful woman and by then two very interesting and creative children. I floated my way downstream keeping in the current but letting it move me along well-worn channels.

Then Mike A drifted into my life. He showed up one afternoon at the church where I worked, out on Camp Bowie Boulevard in west Fort Worth, Texas. I didn’t know what he expected, but there he stood looking a little beat down yet clean in cowboy boots, western shirt, Levis, and sporting a tooled leather belt with a big metal buckle that announced in all caps STUD. I was amused as well as concerned. We talked. He wanted help getting his life back together.

I don’t remember if Mike had his equipment with him but he told me he was a welder and needed to get a job. He may have had his welding mask and gloves and probably a suitcase or a box of clothes. He did have a rather pleasant manner and spoke working-class Texan with a distinct twang, drawn-out syllables, and what seemed to me, strange pronunciations. He also had a sense of humor and a charming smile. He was down on his luck but he wasn’t done with life or with living it.

Mike assured me he would be able to get work if he could just get to a particular place to apply. Realizing he’d have to rely on me for a few days, I drove him to a fabrication shop way out in east Fort Worth where he secured a job. Maybe he’d worked there before; I didn’t know. In fact I knew nothing about this world, but Mike did start work at that shop the next day.

Mike knew his trade. While returning to our apartment, he said my car was “arkin’” and asked me to pull into the grocery store and give him a dollar. He’d fix it. I knew there was something draining the power from my car and had wasted quite a bit of money paying mechanics who didn’t repair it. I had no idea what was wrong, nor had I ever heard the word “arkin’.” For 89 cents Mike bought electricians tape and wrapped the places where the insulation had worn off a couple of spark plug wires. He knew the sound of an electric arc; after all he was a welder. And his fix held for many years!

Mike went home with me to my wife and two kids and stayed for a week. I gave him a ride to work and picked him up at the end of his shift—what in the church office I called my paper route. One parishioner overheard the reference and asked the secretary if the church wasn’t paying me enough to live on. That week as we traveled back and forth across the city, I picked up random details about his life, his loss of job, his estrangement from his wife, their two girls who lived with her. I felt like I’d gone down this road before; assisting someone, wondering if my efforts would really help.

Within a week Mike arranged two-way transportation for work. It didn’t occur to me that he was probably back into a network of relationships he had known for years; I was too busy with my life to worry over his details. Mike met church people at our apartment. For him being around educated folk may have seemed odd. One of them perceived Mike’s alcoholism. I knew he drank; she knew of his disease. Her insight made sense of some things I had observed.

One night Mike called me. He had burned his eyes at work—a common hazard for welders. “Could you get some eye drops and bring them to me?” he asked. “Of course,” I answered inquiring just what kind he needed. I drove over to his by-the-week motel, knocked on his door, and administered the eye drops. That’s when Mike gave me one of the most precious gifts I’d ever received. As the sting was abating from his eyes he looked up and said, “I love you, Phillip.”

“I’m happy to help,” was my defended reply to this rather crass, beer-guzzling, Texas cowboy stud. But I was stunned. No man had ever said those words to me, not even in my family.

I knew about love. In college years I had learned to speak words of love to my girlfriend, who became my wife. Actually she taught me how. Saying such words seemed a requirement to get married. I’d said “I love you” many times to her, to my son, to my daughter, and I meant it. A couple of years before Mike drifted into my life I realized that I had fallen in love with a male seminary classmate. I refrained from saying “I love you” to him lest it seem manipulative or, worse, scare him away. Now this drunk said “I love you” to me. I took it to mean he deeply appreciated my help. At the same time I realized I was not interested to explore any further dimensions of its potential with him. My heart was already elsewhere—way too committed to my family and to the one male friend I adored.

I also came to realize my patient and caring help to this man who may have been starved for any kind of love—that along with his lowered threshold of defenses due to his drinking—left him open to say whatever he felt. I received his drifting expression with deep appreciation and realized how much I wanted, even needed to be loved deeply by a man, especially one who might open his non-alcoholic heart to me.

It took twenty more years of maturing for me to do what my heart of hearts desired: to live with a man I loved and who loved me. But I wonder how many more years may have passed if I had not heard those words from my Texas cowboy STUD. His gift to me far exceeded mine to him, and I continue to appreciate that Mike A. had drifted my way.© Denver, 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Lonely Places by Phillip Hoyle

The young man who came into my office that afternoon seemed restless as well as earnest. He had stopped by the church, asking to talk with a priest I suppose. I don’t recall the specifics—perhaps the two ordained ministers were out making calls or attending meetings—but like most odd cases not involving members, he ended up in my office. I shook his hand and invited him to be seated. He was shorter than average, a lightweight, dressed in slacks and a summer shirt, his light brown hair buzzed short.

I asked him, “How can I help you?”

He replied, “I need to make a confession.”

My mind rushed through spontaneous although unexpressed thoughts, “Oh they do that at the Cathedral just a block away,” “He doesn’t know much about churches,” “I need to hear this from his point of view,” “I hope he doesn’t think I’m a priest.” I said, “What happened?”

As he hesitated, I realized that whatever the problem was, he thought of it as a sin.

He spoke the unmentionable quickly, “I was with a man last night. We had sex. I didn’t like it.”

I heard his choked out words. He was nearly shaking, ready to cry. I wondered just how old he was, not because I was thinking of the legality of the act or of who initiated it, or why it had taken place. I didn’t assume he was asking for council. He had used the word confession. I felt sorry that whatever happened made him feel so badly. Also I didn’t know if he was playing me for financial support, but I did know he was upset.

I engaged him in further conversation, the content of which I do not recall. Perhaps we prayed together. I’m sure I gave no sacramental words of absolution (we just didn’t do that in our church), but I may have prayed with him in such a way that he could open himself to a sense of forgiveness and self-acceptance through an idea of God’s infinite love. The office was getting ready to close. I asked him if he had transportation home. I offered a ride.

We engaged in more talk during the ride to the south end of the city. Although I have no memory of the conversation, I do recall my feelings and thoughts. I didn’t find myself attracted to him. I wondered at his family life. I realized he might not be asking me for anything but simply needed to tell another human being about the upsetting event. I didn’t know what he thought.

Really I was not much older than he: I twenty-four or five, he nineteen or twenty I supposed. I thought of him as being younger. I was a college graduate; I didn’t know if he had finished high school but thought he may have dropped out.

We must have talked about his need for a job, something I’m sure he brought up. I told him if he needed a ride to a job interview to give me a call. He did so a day or two later. That’s when I met his mom and was in their house. He was not waiting for me so I went to the door and knocked. He came to the door shirtless and invited me inside. He was in the front room ironing a shirt in preparation for the interview while talking to his mom who was in the kitchen. I put myself in neutral, so to speak, listening and watching. While he wasn’t handsome, he did have an attractive body and fine enough verbal skills. I could see he lived in a family with few resources. The new thing for me was their conversation about relatives and friends who were in and out of jail. I was surprised. This was no movie script, and there seemed to be no consciousness of their topic being strange. I concluded that this distraught young man faced more problems than simply his sexual crisis I heard about in my office. In fact, in the weeks I knew him, he too, was in and out of jail. I know because he called me to give him a ride home when he got out. We talked about the experience for him. I don’t recall why he was in jail, perhaps just following in his familial footsteps. He didn’t seem too upset by it except for the boredom of life in jail with nothing to do all day except play cards with other prisoners incarcerated there. I had listened, accepted, talked, and in our brief time offered him transportation. I never heard from him again.

I wondered how conflicted he might be over his homosexuality, but for me his needs seemed more basic: to get and keep a job, build a life, and have a goal. With all my middleclass assumptions, I was unable to touch him in his lonely place or even approach the events that pushed him to show up for confession at the wrong kind of church.

Of course, now I know his lonely place met mine. My work at an upper-middle class church of professionals often left me feeling alone. I fit in but only because of my sense of ministry, my work in music and education. I told another minister of my contacts with the young man without the detail of what he was initially upset about. I told him about how strange I found the conversation between him and his mom when talking about uncle so and so who had just got out of jail or just went back in. I had never been exposed directly to such a world and saw how disadvantaged a youngster in a family with that as daily conversation could be. The minister responded, “O, I bet he was probably as surprised by your world as you were by his.”

That seemed a good perspective. At least I thought it helpful especially as no lines were inappropriately crossed by me or the young man. Yet his voice that appealed across experiential boundaries spoke powerfully to me. I was learning much more about myself. With more knowledge I then saw in our church indications of young people who were conflicted homosexuals and felt a kind of heart for them during those years. I knew adults, too, about whom I wondered, especially when they would tell gay-deriding jokes that I learned gently to counter. But in so doing I realized I was walking a dangerous, lonely edge. I hoped they’d see my appeal as pastoral rather than self-revealing. That fear left me in the most lonely place of my life.

Denver, © 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

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Breaking into Gay Culture by Phillip Hoyle

I didn’t break into Gay Culture but rather carefully walked in prepared for my entrance by my good friend Ted. Over many years he had coached me, revealed the ins and outs of much of the culture by taking me to gay bars, introducing me to gay people, teaching me the language both spoken and unspoken, introducing me to gay novels, showing me more of his life than I really asked to see, and talking endlessly with me about gay experience. His tutoring took on a different seriousness when in my mid-thirties I told him I’d made it with another man, a friend of mine he’d met years before. From that point on, Ted simply assumed I was gay whatever non-gay decisions I made. His assumption led him to open even more of himself to me rather than shield me from realities that would certainly become important should I leave my marriage and go gay full time! Ted was my effective educator.

About two months after my wife and I separated I made my entry into a world I had only studied. Three blocks from my apartment I entered a bar named The New Age Revolution, a bar I had seen while walking with my wife and had wondered if it could be gay. Why else would it have such a name in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I had thought about when I would be ready to go alone to such a place, thought about when I’d go there as a gay man. Would I be courageous enough to do so? Of course, I would. After all, I didn’t separate from a twenty-nine-year-long, perfectly fine marriage to an understanding and lively woman whom I adored without intending to live a fully open gay life. I had already begun preparing to leave my profession of thirty-two years, one in which I realized I would not be able to live openly gay. So I glanced in the mirror, took off my tie, straightened my clothes, walked out the apartment, descended sixteen floors in the elevator, waved at the security guard, exited the building, and walked those three blocks down to the bar. I went early, way too early according to Ted’s instruction. He taught me never to show up before ten. I’m sure I was there at nine. I suppose it was a weeknight; I had to work the next day. The place was nearly deserted. There was music. A few people stood around talking to one another. I went up to the bartender, said “Hi,” and ordered a beer; I don’t recall what kind of beer but it was in a bottle. While I slowly sipped at my drink, I looked around at the decorations. This place just had to be gay. I couldn’t imagine any other saloon that would display a decorated dildo on the wall behind the bar. I was pretty sure I had made it to the right place.

This was not only the first time I had been alone in a gay bar; I’m sure it was the first time I’d been alone in any bar. I grew up in a dry state with a prohibitionist mother and had married a tea totaler. I had drunk beers on occasion, but had never gone to a bar before I was in my thirties and living away from Kansas. I had rarely even paid for a drink. I thought about a gay friend of mine who said he sometimes went to gay bars simply for the spiritual aspect of it, as a point of identity, participation, and presence. I stood in the bar that night not talking to anyone, thinking about how being there certainly was a kind of spiritual experience, one of great importance to me. I was finally present publically as a gay man. There I was beginning my future life as openly gay.

I drank another beer. Finally I nodded to the bartender, left a generous tip (changes must be commemorated with great generosity), and exited the door. I walked thoughtfully up the hill all the time watching peripherally for anyone that might have seen me leave the place; after all I was in Oklahoma. I entered the apartment building and returned to my home. I suspect I played music and messed around with some art project. I thought about making gay saints for my next series of mixed media works. Would I become one I wondered?

That evening I walked into a bar but wasn’t breaking into gay culture. Actually I was breaking out of several important, long-standing straight relationships. My entering gay culture passed as quietly as that first night in a gay bar by myself, and I’ve never regretted that short walk some fifteen years ago.© Denver, 2012

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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A Few Words about Sex and Relationships by Phillip Hoyle

At times I am a thinker. So here is a summary of “I used to think…, but now I think…” although it really is “I used to do…, and then I thought…, and then I did a lot more, and then I thought some more, and now I think….”

As a child I was open to sex with my friends. I never had it with my siblings and was unaware of any of my friends having sex with their siblings. Nor was I aware that any friend or acquaintance was having sex with an adult. The play happened occasionally over several years, with a number of kids around my age.

When I was fourteen, an older man molested me as it is defined by law. I wasn’t upset. What he did felt good, but I was not interested to spend time with him and within a year my family moved to another town.

Then at age fifteen I had quite a lot of sex with a friend a year younger than I. With him, the sex came complete with all the pleasures afforded by increasing hormones—that double testosterone fix as it were—and some things the other guy had learned somewhere else. His family moved away the following summer, just before I turned sixteen. I didn’t have another boyfriend for years.

What did I think of all this? I wasn’t bothered by it and since I also had girlfriends, I reasoned it might be a sort of phase I was going through. I did not have sex with my girlfriends although we did dance and hug and kiss on occasion.

Upon graduation from high school I went to college and applied myself to my studies but found no girlfriend or boyfriend. As a sophomore I met and started dating the young woman who would become my wife. Unlike some other students in our church-related school, we were conventional in our expectation to wait until the wedding before having sex. At the same time I read books on the matter. I learned about hymens and pain and how men and women often have quite differing relationships with sex and differing expectations related to the interactions. I found helpful the ideas about how to have sex and how to sustain the loving relationship for years and years. I paid attention. I taught my wife what I had learned and we commenced our marriage with gently-approached, though vigorous, sex. We continued that exploration for twenty-eight years and the sex was an important feature of the way we communicated and loved one another.

At the same time during these years that were characterized in our nation by the sexual revolution, I evaluated ideas of sex and relationship. Not being very ceremonial, I came to think that if a man and woman get together sexually, they become married—at least in terms of the religious universe in which I lived and, of course, state statutes of common-law marriage. I was not at all concerned about premarital sex assuming it was just that. When one of my sisters and her boyfriend talked with me about their pregnancy, I was accepting and reassuring, a fact that surprised her ROTC boyfriend who was sure I’d beat him up. I laughed when he said it. He was the soldier and quite a bit bigger and stronger than I. I had no judgment against them for I was aware that I had been sexually active as a child and teen. In fact, co-habitation followed by marriage after pregnancy seemed to become the norm in American society around that time.

When at age thirty I fell in love with a man, I realized I had a few more things to consider. I had no idea of leaving my marriage and family. My only fear related to what the other man might think or desire. I would have loved having sex with him but he, too, was married, and I valued marriage. So that relationship didn’t go sexual for several years. By the time it did, I knew him well enough to hope he’d never want to leave his marriage. While I was somewhat crazy for him, I didn’t want his debt or his expectations regarding what he owed his offspring. By that time—in my mid-30s—I knew about men getting it on and sometimes living together in committed love relationships. (I had kept reading!) I knew about lesbian relationships also. I started wondering about even more complicated relationships.

The churches I worked in often had more conservative views than I. As clergy I conducted weddings—rituals with simple Hollywood-like vows—ones I found realistic given what I had learned over the years. Still I wasn’t interested in counseling couples and some years later felt relieved when I was out of the marriage business altogether. Perhaps that’s why I argue for the adequacy of civil union services for all kinds of marriage. For me it’s kind of like this: People who willingly make babies together must shoulder the responsibilities. But I know well that a union or marriage certificate has little correlation with folks’ behaviors or their ability to shoulder the burdens. I have become more European in my assumptions about marriage and extra marital affairs and have let go of all fairy tale assumptions about romance and royalty and marriage. No man’s house is his castle. No woman dolled up in a long dress adorned with flowers is Eve or a princes or a queen, and the man she is marrying is not prince charming however good looking. For me, the same sorts of things apply to all marital-type pairings, with or without children.

Oh—I remember—we live in a democracy. I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to see laws change toward more tolerance and equal rights for all citizens. I’m happy to define my own relationships. I’m happy to work out my relationships in ways that to me seem moral, helpful, and loving. That’s what I think now about sex and relationships.

Denver, © 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Gay Music by Gillian

What the hell is that? I don’t even know what it means! A so-called “gay movie” or “gay book” is identified as such because of it’s GLBT content; it’s characters and/or subject matter. But the vast majority of music, even most music with words, is androgynous, unisex. A couple of weeks ago our topic was, “All My Exes Live in Texas.” In my short piece I also referred to that beautiful song, “Could I Have This Dance For the Rest of My Life?” Different as those two pieces are, they can both be taken to be heterosexual or homosexual, depending on the preference of the listener, as is the case with most songs. I am wiling to bet that many of us in this room listened to those old love songs of the forties and fifties and, when performed by a singer of our own sex, turned them into songs of love directed at us. Certainly there are, these days, a few songs that are unmistakably GLBT; amusing lyrics performed by drag groups, Lady Gaga singing about coming out, more recently even a collection of songs about gay marriage, but the total of all this specifically GLBT-themed music together would not add up to a single drop in the ocean of music in it’s entirety.

Is “Gay Music,” then, that which is written and/or performed by someone of the GLBT family?

If so we could talk about Tchaikovsky and Elton John and a vast number of others in between.

But what sense would that make? We don’t call a book a “gay book,” because it’s author happens to be gay; usually we don’t even know, although that kind of information is much more readily available these days. If J.K. Rowling unexpectedly revealed that she was a lesbian, would the Harry Potter tales suddenly become lesbian books and movies? K.D Lang is openly lesbian, but I would not call her songs “lesbian music.” Many movie producers and actors are GLBT but that doesn’t make their movies “queer.” No-one refers to “A Farewell to Arms,” as a gay movie just because Rock Hudson starred in it.

Maybe because, at least until recently, we of the GLBT community had little we could call our own, we would like to claim significance to “gay music,” but personally I find it a bit of a reach.

But wait! As I typed that last sentence, with one eye on the Winter Olympics on TV, I caught a few bars of our very own National Anthem. Perhaps I’m just missing it. When we strive to hit the high notes of the “land of the free,” could we be celebrating our freedom? Well, yes, we could, but I’m afraid I’m much too cynical to accept that phrase at face value. But, now I’m trawling through National Anthems, perhaps I really have stumbled onto something. After all, how many times in the first twenty years of my life did I sing out, in the British National Anthem,

“God save our gracious Queen

Long live our noble Queen

God Save the Queen!”

February, 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Forbidden Fruits by Phillip Hoyle

I asked myself a silly question about this topic “Forbidden Fruits.” Am I a fruit? I answered it easily. Of course I am, but I still didn’t have a story to tell. I wrote a very long paper exploring different approaches but found myself arguing with an ancient story of origins way back there in the old book. I kept telling myself to write a personal story that in some way connected. If what follows fills the bill, good. If it doesn’t, enjoy it anyway.

I didn’t need a prohibition to make the fruit attractive. No one slithered my way to tempt me, at least not anyone I was very interested in.

As a child I liked sexual games with friends, especially those with other boys. As a teen I was open to the advances of an acquaintance, a boy a year younger than I. When the ensuing months of sexual play ended (he moved away) I didn’t find anyone to relate to in what I was discovering was an experience with social sanctions against it. I went on living my life, realizing more and more about difference (sexual, social, racial, and cultural) and grew more fascinated by the array of perspectives related not only to my sexual desires but also concerning common habits (for example, eating), pallets (such as favorite colors), sounds (like in musical styles), even reality (including visions cultural, philosophical, theological and anthropological). I came to know the great variety of religious values held sacred and true by peoples around the world and even in a single country town. I learned about prejudice and grew to appreciate my parents’ values as they were demonstrated with other people, society, and the world.

Although my mother was a prohibitionist as relates to alcohol, she still taught an open attitude toward life and allowed great freedom for her children. Both she and my dad had personal standards that they chose to teach through their consistent practice rather than judgmental and manipulative badgering. Although we kids really liked each other, we bickered a lot. Some activity might be judged inappropriate by one of us prompting a pointed finger and the words ‘shame on you’ just like a national politico may do today over a personal misbehavior of someone in the opposing party. I realized that the very voice that said ‘shame on you’ one minute in the next chanted ‘finders keepers; losers weepers.’ Oh the world I discovered and loved revealed itself in ways quiet varied and often inconsistent.

Of course, my parents and siblings were not the only teachers. The culture with its lore and assumptions, history and laws taught much more and powerfully. I keep thinking about the dynamics of the second Genesis creation story, that ‘just so’ tale that still defines so many peoples’ attitudes toward men and women, toward animals and earth, toward sin and salvation, toward action and consequence—that truly ethos forming mythos (Genesis 2:4b-3:24). The word temptation seems defined by that story, but the temptation is impossible without the forbidding. The story’s power comes from its heavenly array of a very human god, his angels, his creations, his prohibitions, his curse which focused only on the snake, and his explanations of consequences related to behaviors he as the assumed creator made possible in his plants, animals, and new people. It’s a story of guilt mongering. To say so may sound cheeky. So be it.

What eventually gets to me is the misogyny of the whole scene. The god Yahweh is too human meaning way too male with too much power. He, this desert god, is too egotistical. Of course, this was eons before Moses and other prophets started training him for international diplomacy, eons before the Greeks insisted he be consistent and perfect, before they demanded that if he was going to insist on a purity code for his creatures, he act that way himself. By the time I met whatever was left of that footloose deity, he’d become so pure and abstract as to seem missing. Eventually I learned more about how the prophet Jesus undid purity laws and taught a justice based on consistent standards that sought a dynamic goodness honoring the spirit of law rather than a legalistic adherence to wooden rules.

AND so much more had occurred that I would never know of but that still informs the cultural understanding around and even within me. One thing I escaped in all this was the feeling of guilt. I don’t know if such a proclivity in me was related to the home and circumstance in which I was reared or arose genetically or developed for some other undefinable reason. I did see the beauty of some men, an unconventional male beauty not based on Greek-like muscles or shape of face, not based on the accrual of power and influence and money, but something more elusive and simple. I liked that attraction and wondered when it would become consequential for me. I knew I could not resist it out of some feeling of prohibition or guilt. It would be like my experience of finally finding a piano teacher who succeeded in establishing a technical approach to the keyboard, or a voice teacher who actually helped focus my voice away from the throat tension that had compromised its fluidity, or finding myself in my best job of a lifetime, or working in a church I actually loved—all these what I call do-not-expect-a-repeat experiences. So at age thirty I fell in love with an unlikely man. At fifty-five I had another such experience that went far beyond the one a quarter of a century earlier. I tended these relationships both against convention and as acts of love. Of course, in conventional sin-and-redemption, prohibition-and-disobedience terms, I am just hopeless.

But where in all this was I in line with the powerful Hebrew story? It seems to me it was in the VERY IMPORTANT FACT that I was not egotistical in my acts. I was not trying to have the same powers as God. I was not vaunting my own importance. And in the desires and acts of love with these other fruits in God’s great garden, I was discovering new aspects of the ultimately loving God—trained as he was by generations of prophets and philosophers. I found so much love as to transform me into a useful vessel of the eternal and lively divinity. Surely there’s no shame that.

Denver, 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot