Tag: Marriage

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Marriage, by Ricky

I was married once.  It lasted for 27-years and 9-months until she passed away from complications of breast cancer on 15 September 2001.  During the years we had together, we found peace, joy, love, companionship, comforting, support, advice, acceptance, hope, security, solutions, and problems to overcome.  In other words, we were best friends.
We had four children, three girls, and one boy all of whom turned out to be decent people.  During their growing up years, our family did many things together.  My military work schedule did not always make it easy to plan for family outings, but we made it work.  We took weekday or weekend trips to nearby tourist sites wherever we lived.  Included in the activities were trips to children themed museums, movie theaters, parks, bowling alleys, camping, and ShowBiz Pizza.  When I had my annual 30-day leave, we would go to “exotic” places like Disney World, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Lettuce Lake, Lake Tahoe, Tucson, Gulf Coast Beaches, the Redwood Forest along US Highway 1, The Donut Store, Fjords Ice Cream Store, Storybook Island, and Waterton National Park in Canada.
Deborah and I always supported the children in whatever appropriate activities they wanted to try.  Before we even had our first child, we decided that our home would always be open to their friends and available for use for parties and other activities.  (That way we would always know where they were and what they were up to.)
Deborah and I came from family situations that were not optimal and dysfunctional to one degree or another.  Thus, we were committed to having a home where life was supportive of children through all ages of growth so our kids would not have our issues.  It worked out well.  They all have their own issues not even remotely similar to ours but perhaps still, a result of our efforts not to make the same mistakes our parents made.
Sadly, due to my early childhood and adolescent traumas, I cannot say that I was “happy” in the marriage.  I have experienced joy when each of my children were born, but “happiness,” I’m not sure I’ve ever truly experienced it from age 8 onward.  Beginning about a year before Deborah’s death, I even began to question myself as to whether I had even really loved her.  Her death provided me with the answer, “Yes.  I loved her then and still do.”  However, true happiness still eludes me I think.  On the bright side, I am over the 10-years of major depression that followed her death.
Nonetheless, I believe that my married life was good for her and me, my sexual identity notwithstanding.  Raising four children from infancy to adulthood is an experience every decent person should experience for there are many opportunities for happiness (or very pleasant feelings at least).  Certainly, there are too many emotionally damaged people, for which parenthood would result in disaster for the children.
Some gay men have never been inclined to marry a woman or to become fathers and are quite satisfied with their lack of offspring.  I respect everyone’s decision not to marry or procreate, just as I hope they respect mine.  I have heard that many gay men “look down upon” married or ex-married gay men for being “cowards” and living in the closet of a “straight” society and culture.  I have only two things to say to them.  First, I repeat that I enjoyed every minute of my marriage and children and I’m glad for the experience.  The second thing is, “Get over it.”  We are all free to pursue our own visions of “happiness” and one does not negate the other.
Genesis chapter 2, verse 24 describes God’s joining Adam and Eve in what is considered marriage.  Except, the way it is worded and punctuated it appears that it is Adam who is “speaking” the words not God.  And recall that the King James version, which I am referencing, was not written directly by God, but by a group of scholars who argued over the interpretations and the meaning of the words (from the original sources) that were being translated.  Consequently, opinions of people with egos, theories, religious training, and “agendas” may have distorted the facts recorded in the original documents and then placed in the Bible.  So, what is true?
I do know this; before Deborah and I could be married, we had to obtain permission from the State of Utah to be joined in matrimony by an authorized minister of a religion recognized by the State.  In other words, the marriage ceremony was religious in nature but authorized by a Civil Government—in effect, a civil union with a religious ceremony.
Our nation’s Declaration of Independence proclaims to the world the reasons we are no longer British citizens and our land is no longer British colonies.  It also proclaims that all “men” are created equal and have the inalienable right to pursue happiness.  Our Constitution prohibits discrimination and one of its purposes is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.  Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeal affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it denies rights to legally married same-sex couples that legally married opposite-sex couples have.  Of course, all of the gay and lesbian community and many in the heterosexual community already knew that, but the bigoted religious extremists continue to spew lies and hatred (anti-Christian behavior).  Isn’t that exactly what we should expect from religions whose preachers are paid by the congregations and who must, therefore, preach what the congregation wants to hear in order to keep their jobs.  After all, no one wants to pay a minister to tell them each week that they are vile sinners and religious bigots.  Jesus never taught a Gospel of hatred, so why do the (so called Christian) extremists?
Preaching a Gospel of hate is not a Christ-like behavior; and when taught to children, constitutes child abuse.  So, why isn’t the government prosecuting for a child abuse hate crime?  When preachers use the pulpit to teach hatred and tell lies about political candidates to influence the votes of their congregations (which is against the law), why isn’t the government revoking their tax-exempt status?  Persecution of gays and lesbians by religious extremists reminds me of the WW2 Nazis of Germany.  Is that where America is heading?  Are the Jews next?
Perhaps Stonewall should not remain just “history.”  Perhaps there should be protest marches on those congregations of “non-Christian” believers who profess Christian values, beliefs, and lifestyle but are, in reality, self-righteous bigots.  If they actually read and understood the Bible’s teachings, they should understand that it condemns their behavior and makes plain their “sins.”  The Book of Matthew, chapter 23, verses 27 & 28 describes and condemns them perfectly; Jesus says,  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees [the religious bigots/extremists of their time], hypocrites!  For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.  Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”  I believe we can locate them mostly in the South or in the GOP, but march on them wherever they are found.
That fruitcake preacher who wants to put all gays and lesbians behind a 100-mile electric fence and feed us until we all die natural deaths has the right idea but the wrong target group.  All the preachers and teachers of hate and their supporters and followers should be behind that fence until they all die out.  The world has seen enough hate and it is time for all hate to cease to exist once and for all.  Then, as the song says, maybe everyone can “Sleep in Heavenly peace.”
© 3 June 2012 
About the Author 
I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.
My story blog is: TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com
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When Things Don’t Work, by Phillip Hoyle

My marriage to Myrna Kay Vance Hoyle worked very well for
many years. I am sure Myrna was trying to have the world’s best marriage, to
live the dream of being the princess with her prince charming to fulfill the
purpose of her mother’s rather unrelenting discipline that focused on making
her a housewife so she could rear and educate children and care for her
husband. So Myrna approached her life as a wife with enthusiasm and talent and
a wonderful attitude.
I was living into the cultural fantasy of the straight life
even though from an early age I was far from straight. I wanted a family not as
the fulfillment of a dream but as a matter of course. How else could anyone
live? I wanted the pleasures and security of family life and so worked in my
way with good humor, consideration, kindness, and reliability to make it
possible. I liked family life with its endless variety—Myrna’s and my family life
spiced up with children, foster children, unusual friendships, and great
tolerance.
Myrna was interested in home economy and observed I had
little interest in keeping up with domestic bookkeeping. “Would it help you if
I kept the books?” she asked. “Sure,” I replied. I wasn’t into some stereotype.
Perhaps she was since her mother kept the books for the family farm where she was
reared.
My focus was outside the home although I loved my wife and
our children and the other denizens of our house on Volutsia Street or our
apartment on Las Vegas Boulevard or our rental on Bald Hill Road or the
apartment on Ellis Boulevard or our townhouse on Morris Street or the apartment
at Sixth and Lead or our residence in the basement of her parent’s farm home or
the apartment on Boulder Blvd. I came home every night, twice a month happily
turned over my paycheck, occasionally helped solve domestic conflicts, all this
with joy, calm, commitment, and laughter.
My wife and I respected and loved each other. Although we
both worked to lessen or avoid conflict, we certainly could talk through, even
argue our different perspectives and come to a mutually agreeable solution.
Neither of us was selfish although I had a much greater capacity for being so
than she. And I had this longtime nurtured gay self that I appreciated and
loved. I didn’t repress my homosexuality but realized that in order to live my life
as a minister in a church I had to sublimate any number of my urges. Still I
found ways to respect this part of myself, and even satisfy some of it without
hurting other people or myself. I was skilled in my duplicity. I was also
always aware that what was gay about me was certainly not hidden. I knew myself
and I knew that others—at least some others—surely perceived this other part of
me.
Myrna and I had a great marriage, and we reared two most
interesting kids and nurtured many friends and inspired other couples to do
likewise. So why the separation? Why the eventually divorce?
When the children left home and Myrna and I were back at the
one-on-one life all the distractions and responsibilities of rearing children
lessened. Oh we still had others living with us from time to time, but I finally
could satisfy other needs, and without the children present, I did so. I did
worse than break one clause in our marriage vows: “and keep yourself only for
her.” I broke that vow with other men whom I liked intensely. Feeling the
emotional change in me, Myrna finally let herself see what she’d long known.
Finally we talked, but rushing the matter we were unable to resolve the problem.
Emotion can cause such failure, but the real failure was the institution of
marriage itself.
When we divorced some years later, a longtime friend said, “I
wish you wouldn’t. Yours was the only marriage I ever thought was worth all
problems.” I thought about her kind words and finally realized the problem was
that no one had ever developed marriage for bisexual folk. Drat.
Still, Myrna’s and my friendship survived the conflict and
pain, as did our commitment to our children, grandchildren, and many
friendships from our married days. Marriage as a reified institution with a
long history of mythology and law to bolster it eventually didn’t work for us. No
matter how hard we both tried. Still what brought us together in the first
place—friendship and love—continues to flourish between us.
© 8 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.com
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When I Decided by Gillian

Well, y’know what? If I’m
perfectly honest with myself, (if that is even a possibility for me or for
anyone, but I do my best,) I fear that there are few, if any statements, at
least with reference to my earlier years, that I could make beginning with those
words. At least if I did, they would all end up like this; “When I decided ….
whatever …. I didn’t
really decide at all but just drifted along due to inertia.  Or, was swept away by emotion.  Or, Let someone else decide for me.”
Really! And this came as a surprise to me! I
always thought I made decisions, but looking back I’m not so sure. Much of the time they certainly
did not add up to what I truly consider to be active decision-making; weighing
the odds, listing the choices, analyzing the figures. At best they were passive
decisions, if decisions at all. In my own defense I must say that I never
simply tossed a coin, but maybe even that would have been more pro-active. At
least the coin toss acknowledges that there is in fact a decision to be made. With
me it was often as if I spaced out the necessary decision completely, and, as
if sleepwalking suddenly woke up in a new situation. And to top off this sad
tale of inadequate thinking, it appears to me that sometimes when I did
actually decide something; it was for the wrong reasons. I have been mighty
lucky, then, that most changes I have drifted or been dragged into, have been
very positive.
Take, for example, my decision to go to
college. A good decision made, admittedly subliminally, in order to fix this
queerness I did not even acknowledge having. The men there would be different
from the farm boys at home. I would fall madly in love and live happily forever
after without this unidentified thing eating away at me. A great
decision, my college days were among the happiest in my life, but made for
completely the wrong reason. I hadn’t
been there a week before I fell madly in love with a woman in my class.
After college I fell into deep infatuation
with another woman, who one day casually tossed out the suggestion that we go
to the United States for a year. “OK,” I shrugged, and that was the extent of my
decision-making. Had she suggested an excursion to the South Pole I would have
responded in the same way. Talk about decisions for the wrong reasons! And
letting someone else make them for you.
My “decision” to come to Denver was mighty
casual, as well. I had trailed my ineffectual self around the U.S. in my
inamorata’s
wake, ending up in Houston where she married a very rich and mighty cute Texan,
which put an end to me as her shadow. I might as well start saving the money to
return to England, I thought, gloomily. The new unwanted man in my life had a
friends in Denver and said I should see Colorado before leaving the U.S.
“O.K.”
Another shrug decision. “Why not?”
I cannot even remember really deciding
to go to work for IBM, where I remained for 30 mostly very happy years. I
was working at Shwayder Brothers, later to become Samsonite, when the guy
working next to me said that if I wanted some quick bucks to get myself home, I
should apply at IBM, which at that time was rapidly filling it’s new plant in Boulder with just about anyone
walking in off the street. What an opportunity. It’s difficult in this day and age even to
imagine such a thing, never mind remember the actuality of it. But I don’t recall finding the prospect exciting at all.
“Yeah, O.K.” I responded, “Thanks. Why not”
I never did return to England
permanently, but again I have little recollection of actually making a
conscious decision to stay in Colorado, for all that I recognized I had found
God’s country. It was more a case of
drifting: allowing nothing to happen. In the absence of decisions, the status
quo remains.
My marriage was most definitely a
product of non-decision. (Which is, by the way, nothing like indecision,
which implies at least some attempt to make a decision.) I simply
drifted effortlessly into the vacuum created by my future husband’s needs.
As for coming out, to myself, that
is, there was no decision involved at all. I was picked up by the cowcatcher of
a runaway train and away I went. I couldn’t stop it and I couldn’t
get off.
When that train arrived and dumped
me firmly on the ground at it’s
destination, I of course had to leave my marriage. And it was as a result of a
very conscious decision that I left. Not long after that, I came out to
everyone else in my life; another conscious decision. When I asked Betsy if she
would consider actually, really, legally, marrying me last year, that again was
a serious decision.
You see, before I came out at least
to myself, in my early 40’s,
I wasn’t myself. I was an actor plugging
along on the stage of life, playing me. But I was not me. At some
deeply-buried intuitional level, I always knew this. So what did I care what
that person playing me did; where she went or how she lived? Why bother making
decisions about what moves this person, in some ways almost a stranger to me,
makes?
Then I came out and I was me. The
real me. The actor was gone. From then on, of course it mattered what happened
to me. ME. MYSELF. The original. The one and only. You talk about being born
again! Suddenly, in middle age, the real me was born. And I am important to me.
I care for me. I make decisions very carefully for me. I most emphatically do
care what I do and where I go and how I live. Finally and forever, I am me.
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one
alive who is Youer than You.”
―
Dr. Seuss
© 15 August 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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Do I Have Your Number…. ?? by Gillian

Do I have your number? No, I do not mean your phone number! I use the phrase in the way we say, or just think to ourselves, ‘Oh yes, I’ve got your number!’ meaning ‘Oh yes, I know what you are after, I know what is going on here, I know what you think and what you want; I know what you are about. I know who you are.

So, in that sense, do I have your number? Do all or any of you have mine? We have shared many of our most heartfelt emotions, thoughts, and ideas, over the last two or three years. We have held nothing back. We have laughed and cried together. We have hidden nothing from each other.

Still, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. It makes me wonder if really deeply knowing someone, completely understanding them, is actually possible. Surely very few, if any, family members truly know each other, even those who consider themselves to be very close. After twenty-six years together, and with considerable help and spiritual guidance from such people as Eckhart Tolle, do Betsy and I really really know each other? Of course not. We still struggle to understand each other every single day, with mixed results.

But how can I even dream of a deep and flawless understanding of any other person when I still don’t know my own self? I try. I look deeply inside myself and try to interpret correctly what I find there, but I don’t always get it right. After all these years, I can still surprise, perhaps even shock, myself.

Some time ago our group’s topic for the week was Marriage. Some of you remember that my piece had the recurring theme: “marriage doesn’t freakin’ work!” I questioned why we, the GLBT community, are so determined to jump onto this faltering band-wagon.

Last week came the staggering announcement that the IRS now recognizes same-sex marriages. Perhaps Betsy and I should consider marriage, after all. But only, I firmly lectured my inner self, for purely fiscal reasons. After all, I insisted, we had no emotional need for any such thing. We are as committed to each other and our relationship as any two people could ever be, and we don’t need any official sanction to help us along.

So why on earth did I find myself, close to tears, asking Betsy if she would consider marrying me? In fact, I became so obsessed with the idea that I kept on asking. I guess I couldn’t quite believe the answer. Finally the poor beleaguered woman laughed,

“You’ve asked me three times and I’ve told you ‘yes’ three times. OK?”

Not the most romantic response, but I’ve finally got it; the answer is YES!

I am completely taken by surprise to find myself so thrilled at this that I feel almost sick with excitement, something we do not experience too frequently once we leave the uninhibited emotions of childhood behind us. Suddenly this is all about love and nothing about money; much more peering inside myself to be done!

No, I don’t have your number. I don’t even have my own!

September 2013

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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Marriage by Will Stanton

“Ah am again’ a man marrying a man or a
woman marrying a woman.  It ain’t right;
it ain’t natural.  Marriage should be
between one man and one woman, just as it always has been for thousands of
years!  Ah believe in traditional
marriage!”    

At least those people who hold such beliefs and who make such statements are consistent : they generally are ignorant of the facts concerning most things.  Facts mean nothing to them.  Throughout history, so-called “traditional marriage” has not been anything like what these people say.  On the contrary, usually marriage has been quite different.

In most early societies, marriage was a private agreement between two families.  Neither the Church nor the State had any say in the matter. Of course now-days, a bride’s family is shirking its duty if they do not provide the groom’s family with a number of sheep or horses.

Often, not even family-consent was necessary for marriage. Two people who simply regarded themselves as being married were viewed by the Church as having a valid marriage, provided neither one was a slave of course.  It was not until 1754 that England preferred to have couples obtain a marriage license, although that was not regularly enforced. Even in socially backward countries such as America, authorities initially simply inferred marriage from a couple’s behavior rather than requiring either a license or a church wedding.  Just living together was all that was needed.

Considering that so many “good Christians” would like to alter civil law to conform to their religion, they would be upset to learn that the type of marriage most often mentioned in the first five books of the Old Testament was not one-man, one-woman, but instead was one-man, several-women.  So, in today’s “traditional marriage,” how many women should a man be allowed to marry?

If a man chooses only one woman to marry, then he is allowed to either divorce his first wife or add another wife or concubine if the first wife does not produce a child.  After all, producing offspring is the only reason to marry; no one else should want to marry.  

Early Christian records document some same-sex marriages.  It is said that, in the 4th century, Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus were united in a church service.  They even are portrayed close, side-by-side in a religious icon.  

When the Church later promoted two-person marriages, the Church would nullify a marriage if the man was impotent, but not if one of the spouses was sterile.  One wonders to what extent the Church went to determine which was which.  In 18th-century Ireland, one aristocratic lass insisted upon marrying the great castrato singer Tenducci, only to employ the law of the time to divorce him when she discovered the greater pleasures of a fully intact man.  The New York Court ruled in 1898, however, “It cannot be held, as a matter of law, that the possession of the organs necessary to conception are essential to entrance to the married state, so long as there is no impediment to the indulgence of the passion incident to this state.”  So apparently, two guys who are partners don’t have to keep trying to make babies.

Only in more recent times have American legislatures and courts felt obliged to intrude upon what has been, in truth, real traditional marriage.  Black slaves in America could marry, but only with the permission of the slave owner.  By the 1920s, thirty-eight states had laws prohibiting marriage between whites and blacks, Mulattos, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Mongolians, Malays, or Filipinos.  Twelve states prohibited marriage to a “drunk” or “mental defective.”  There even was a prohibition to marrying any  (quote) “drunkard, habitual criminal, imbecile, feeble-minded person, idiot, or insane person.”  If we adhered to this “traditional” concept of marriage today, that would eliminate the right to marry to most members of the GOP and all of Fox News.

In conclusion, and to paraphrase conservative pundit George Will, what is the cost / benefit of so many Americans believing in, and subscribing to, the hate-filled, irrational rantings of so many so-called “good–Christian” politicians, voters, and  preachers?  The cost to American society, and especially to the civil rights of GLBT citizens, is clear.  But, I see no true benefit from having millions of Americans standing foursquare with bloviating ignoramuses. The recent statement  by  a  North-Carolina,  Baptist  minister who said, “Ah could just puke!  Can you imagine kissin’ a man?” is redundant proof that high authority allows for someone of extremely low IQ to insert himself into the debate concerning human civil rights.

© 01 June 2012 


About the Author 


I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life
stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me
particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at
times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived
pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some
thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.





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Life After Truth by Carlos

I have been outed!

My partner, Ron, and I solidified our relationship on May 1st, entering into a civil union within hours after Colorado enacted them. In preparation for the historical event, we had our tuxedos dry cleaned, purchased new wristwatches to signal a new dawning, and planned a private celebration. I found myself strangely calm, that is until hours before the ceremony when I couldn’t cinch my cummerbund or tie my shoelaces. Suddenly, I understood why some people metamorphose into terrors just before their big day. It was becoming real. After all, I was committing to one man for a continued lifetime of discoveries…in real time.

Upon been ushered into the Wellington Webb Building, I inexplicably unleashed all fears, all doubts, all anxieties, and I became child-like with anticipation. Dignitaries congratulated the couples; families and supporters whooped it up; even tired agents at the Clerk and Recorder’s Office maintained genuine smiles of inclusiveness, conveying this was our day to declare that we in the LGBT community were taking another step closer toward full-fledged citizenship. I realized this was a victory in spite of it not offering full marriage rights.

Being so dapper, and hopefully so cute, every reporter wanted to photograph and interview us. Though we have never been in the closet, admittedly neither have we worn our relationship on our sleeves. That morning, we kicked the closet door open and agreed to every photograph, every interview. Only one reporter was ingenuous, an interviewer who forgot to mention she represented a conservative religious publication. Initially, her questions were innocent enough, perhaps to lull us into complacency. However, my suspicions were aroused when she queried us about whether the legalization of civil unions could in time lead to marital contracts by blood relatives or parties of three or more, arguments that have been used by homophobic institutions to prevent our forming legal families. I caught a whiff of the dankness from the rock from which she had crawled. Upon learning of the organization she represented, I unleashed a diatribe of impunities, informing her in no uncertain terms that as a former believer, I had long ago rejected its patriarchal, sanctimonious, we-are-the-chosen-of-God attitudes. To her credit she stayed in place as I defined the difference between those of us who embrace our spirituality and those of her belief who cater to their religiosity. I informed her that my unconditionally-loving God, was present and, no doubt, was at that moment dancing an Irish jig to a Mexican marimba band while singing in key of his sons and daughters whom He loved and validated and in whom He was well-pleased. I felt victorious as she slithered away, although I doubt that anything within her doxology had changed. After all, oppressors never see themselves in need of transformation, never realizing that bigotry wrapped in prayer is still bigotry. It is for us, the former oppressed, to raise our voices and our fists and repudiate their canons. Only when they feel the ire and the tension of our convictions, do they relinquish their self-appointed power…and then only grudgingly.

When Ron and I were finally ushered into the magistrate’s arena, my stalwart, stoic bravado betrayed me as tears bubbled up in the corner of my eyes, and we solemnly repeated our vows and exchanged rings. It was finally real; it was now official. Reflecting over the last few days, I feel different. For some reason that I am only now beginning to understand, I feel so much closer to my beloved. Our union bonded us as though we were enveloped in a lotus of love.

The next morning I was awakened by the ringing of the phone. Groggily, I answered. Friends were calling to inform us that our pictures of the night before were posted on the internet. My initial reaction was one of nothing-good-can-come-from-this, much like Howard Brackett’s reaction when outed in the romantic comedy In and Out. Apparently, people we have influenced throughout the years were heralding our exodus from behind the closet door. We had been fully outed, no ifs, ands or buts. Therefore, we accepted the inevitable, recognizing that in spite of ourselves a new chapter was opening up in our lives. There was little to do except be grateful for an act of synchronicity. Anonymity was no longer an option. Thus, we accepted our outing with courage, knowing honesty and love can never be wrong.

A new sun has truly arisen, and something good has emerged from it. Therefore, let us live our lives as though we have been outed. Let us finally be free, free, free. Let the echoes resonate in every nook and cranny as we slam the closet door behind us and build a new foundation for a brave new world.

© 20 May 2013

About the Author



Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.


Posted on

Three Little Words by Phillip

Love and marriage
Love and marriage
Go  together  like  a
Horse and carriage

     So we heard in the fifties; archaic expressions to bolster old-fashioned values. We didn’t think how the song was a commercial jingle rather than a poetic and musical reflection on human activity. It was show music for comedy. The simplicity of the words belied the complexity of the relationships, even the ones being portrayed on the screen. But this fanciful appeal to the medieval literary tradition of romantic love with its Lords and Ladies, royalty and riches, princes and princesses, troubadours and trouveres, lutes and loyalties, knights in shining armor riding trusty steeds and hoping to win the attention of the most important Lady of the realm; scenes from movies with white dresses, tiaras, and happily ever afters. It’s a dream of Edenic idealism based on the combination of three little words: I love you.

     Back when I was nineteen, my girlfriend manipulated me into saying those words to her. Of course I had heard the words in movies, but not in the house in which I grew up. I had no doubt I was loved appropriately by my parents and that they loved one another. Their actions showed these truths. Still, they didn’t go around saying it. In fact, few people I knew said the words which were were groan words for us boys watching movies. We so hated that romantic syrup, and thus I was unprepared to say it to my girlfriend. With great difficulty I played my part in the fantasy and finally stuttered out, “I love you.”

     Analytical logic demands that I was unprepared because what I felt for her was something other than love. Oh to understand the relationship between words and feelings, something that’s always been difficult for me. Anyway, I did learn to say the three words in combination to my girlfriend. I believed them although the feelings I had were more related to sexual hopes than falling in love.

     So I married the woman who taught me to say “I love you.” I practiced and practiced. I loved her in practical ways that made for a fine marriage. We liked and respected one another. We treated one another with kindness and love. I didn’t use the words to manipulate, but I did employ them daily. I taught them to my children. I was judicious in their use, and when I fell in love with a man, I didn’t use them with him for quite a few years. Eventually, I signed my letters to him, “Love, Phillip.” He never fell into line with my practice; so I noted. We never talked about love. I came to love other people as well—women and men. I said the words to a few. One young man said them to me. I explained my perspective, that these words can never mean the same thing to two people. Feeling meets feeling. What fantasies arise from such feelings need to be handled with caution should a couple of people want their sexual attraction and deeper affection to grow into a lasting relationship.

     Gay male romance may focus more on “Harder, deeper, faster,” than on pledges of “love and marriage”, yet even “Harder, deeper, faster,” is a convention not original to gay men. It surely became a focus due to the combination of two testosterone-laden individuals getting together sexually. These days modern gay experience does play with hopes of love and marriage in a growing movement for equality before the law. Perhaps American gay men want to say to one another “I love you harder, deeper, and faster.” Still love, words of love, and that potent combination of I, love, and you have a long history, and most American relationships want it to become personal.

     Words have creative potential. It’s an old tradition from any number of cultures. The ancient Hebrews believed in such creativity. For them, Yahweh called into existence the moon and stars, earth and innumerable varieties of life forms. God spoke. It’s a metaphor with great power in the imagination.

     Shall we not sing the possibility of creative love? After all St. Valentine’s Day falls tomorrow and creative love is a romance, one to pursue in both feelings and thoughts. Perhaps we need to approach “I love you” with the realism of my late mother-in-law who advised her daughter about sex in marriage: “You’ll get used to it.” Yet even this practicality didn’t mitigate her daughter’s fairy tale fantasy about marriage. The advice probably did help her survive the separation and the divorce that ended it.

Denver, 2012

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends
his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage
practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers
and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he
now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice.
He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

Read more at Phillip’s blog: artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Posted on

Till Death Us Do Part by Nicholas

Jamie and I never thought we would get
married. Through all the debate over gay marriage, we never felt really drawn
to it. We never thought about going to Massachusetts or to Canada as friends of
ours had to get hitched. We didn’t jump onto an airplane in February 2004 and
head to San Francisco when Mayor Gavin Newsum started issuing marriage licenses
and Jamie’s mom inquired as to whether or not we would—as I’m sure she deeply
wished. Long active in the struggle for gay marriage, she had flung herself
into that fray by driving up to the city from Menlo Park to volunteer as a
witness for couples who showed up at San Francisco City Hall. Her fondest hope
was to see her gay son married someday.
Jamie and I always said that, yes, we would
like to marry but only when it became immediately and practically real where we
live—in Colorado—and that did not look too likely in our lifetimes. We knew who
we were and we were confident about our love for and commitment to one another
so until legal realities caught up with our reality, we stayed home.
We did take care to put in place any legal
arrangements available to protect our relationship. We had our last wills and
testaments, legal powers of attorney, medical directives, medical powers of
attorney, house ownership agreement, and even, our official certificate of
domestic partnership from the City and County of Denver. We even carry these
documents with us in our cars should we ever need them in an emergency without
time to go home and retrieve them. We were set.
Of course, it all depended on the whim of whomever
might challenge us as to whether any of our documents and legal constructions
would work. Because, of course, we weren’t married.
Married couples don’t ever have to produce legal documents to justify
themselves.
Then May 15, 2008 happened. The California
Supreme Court ruled that the State of California had no justification to
prohibit the marriage of two people of the same gender. It amounted to
discrimination. California was liberated.
When I heard the news flash on the radio, my
instant response was: Let’s go home to California, where we used to live and
still had family and friends, and get married.
That day, Jamie was with his mom in Minnesota
visiting friends and relatives and my big worry was that she, with her activism
for marriage equality, would start lobbying for her son and prospective
son-in-law to do the wedding march ASAP. That, I feared, would only spark
Jamie’s resistance—we had so often said that marriage was not for us until some
unspecifiable time in the future, i.e., probably never. And there’s nothing
like a nagging mother to produce a quick “No.”

I hastily phoned him on his cell hoping to
short circuit what I imagined to be my mother-in-law’s certain campaign. Yes,
he and mom had heard the news and talked about it, he said. But, no, she hadn’t
been urging him/us to wed. She must really want this to happen, I thought;
she’s laying low. The motherly artillery was for now quiet.
I had my opening. I asked Jamie if he wanted
to go to California and get married, the closest to a proposal I’d ever make.
And he replied, to my surprise, that, yea, he would, the closest to a yes, I’d
ever hear.
I can’t explain this sudden turn about in
feelings toward getting married. We still would gain nothing in the state where
we lived. In fact, marriage was still as legally empty for us as it ever was.
Nothing would change. Maybe because we met and lived together in San Francisco
before moving to Denver and still had family and friends there and are always
going there that California is still was kind of home. It just felt like the
right thing for us to do. And that’s how we entered the dazzling world of
wedding planning. We were going all the way—a church wedding and catered
reception. Mom was paying.
From indifferent to ardent believers in 30
seconds. I’ve heard all the jokes—and told them—about marriage being a
wonderful institution but who wants to live in an institution. I guess we just
gave into the romance of the idea. Isn’t that why people get married
everywhere? It’s the romance, never mind the legal goodies, which, after all,
we now qualified for in at least 6 states and the District of Columbia. Of
course, we were also entering a legal Alice in Wonderland as to which rights we
had depending on which geographical location we were in. We could get bigger
and then we could get smaller.
We’ve never regretted our marriage. In fact,
we were both kind of surprised that it did seem to make a difference. We began
to think of ourselves in different terms as more than a couple, but a
recognized and sanctioned couple. It isn’t just straight people who have to
adjust their idea of marriage to include gay and lesbian couples. Now that we
have something we never in our wildest imaginations thought we would ever have,
we too wonder what this means. Are we changing the definition of marriage, like
the gay-haters say? Well, I hope so.
What, for example, do we call ourselves?
Spouses? Husbands? I don’t like the term “husband”—it implies there’s a “wife”
somewhere—but it does spell it all out in just one word and we’ve come to use
it. We love each other, we’re committed to each other, we share property, we
can make decisions for each other, and we have sex. No explanations are needed
as to who my “friend” is.



There’s a catch, though, Here’s the catch. We can’t get divorced. Anyone can go to California and get married. Only legal residents of California can use divorce court. We’re not residents. So, we are stuck. Stuck with each other for life. But that’s just where we want to be.

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.
Posted on

Marriage by Gillian

Hey, you only have to look around my family to see.

IT  …  DOESN’T  
…   FREEKIN’ …     WORK!!

My paternal grandfather was what we would call these days a
recovering alcoholic. In his day he was just one of several local drunks. The
fact that he no longer touched the booze seemed to be ignored and he was still
thought of as a drunk by neighbors and family alike. Certainly my grandmother
never gave him any credit, or even acknowledgement, for having quit.

He had drunk his way out of a good job, lost the lovely old house
that they had owned when my dad was a little boy, and had to settle for moving
to the cold dark damp dreary dwelling I lived in as a child.

My grandfather rarely spoke, or moved for that matter. He sat in
his armchair beside the fireplace which rarely had a fire in it, hour after
hour, doing nothing.

For all the attention he paid us, we all might as well not have
been there.

At least he was harmless; unlike my grandmother.

She never spoke a civil word to anyone, but droned on with an
endless litany of complaints about my grandfather.

In some circumstances two negatives equal a positive but alas not
in human relationships.

MARRIAGE  …  DOESN’T  
…   FREEKIN’ …     WORK!!

My mother’s parents were very different.

Her mother actually did approach the storybook grandma image;
endless hours in the kitchen in a faded flowered apron, and my Irish maternal
grandpa was one of the delights of my youth. He was a stonemason, creating
gravestones from the local marble. I loved to sit and watch him, and
occasionally I was even allowed to help. He sang or whistled while he worked,
or regaled my juvenile ears with endless fantastical tales in which I doubt
there was an ounce of truth.

They lived in a gorgeous rambling old house, built in 1742. It
was light and warm with welcome, and different in every way from that of my
other grandparents.

But I can’t recall a single time when they talked to each other.

They lived separate lives, I think, and so survived.

MARRIAGE DOESN’T FREEKIN’ WORK!!
My mother hated my father.

It took me many years to understand why; he had done nothing as
far as I could tell.

A therapist friend explained it to me many years after I left
home.

My parents had two children who died of meningitis within a week
of each other, before I was born.

Under such circumstances it is apparently not uncommon for one
parent, more frequently the mother, to blame the other, not from any logical
reason but because they have a huge need to hate someone for the dreadful thing
that has happened, and raving at God or a disease is just not personal enough,
not close enough, not cathartic enough.

At least, right or wrong, it’s an explanation that works for me
as I remember my mother’s inexplicable seething hatred constantly simmering
just beneath the surface, and frequently erupting, ostensibly over minor
things.

These days they would have divorced, I’m sure, but in those days
you just soldiered on.

MARRIAGE DOESN’T FREEKIN’ WORK!!

My aunts’ and uncles’ marriages were little better and would, I
believe, also have ended in divorce had that been the ready option it is today.
I did have one uncle whose fifty years with the same woman seemed to be
mutually rewarding, but ironically we discovered, after his death, that they
were in fact never married at all.

Needless to say, my family history did nothing to foster a
particularly positive view of marriage.

I knew
that MARRIAGE DOESN’T FREEKIN’ WORK!!
But I got married anyway. How else was I to prove to myself that
I was NOT gay?

My ex-husband and I have personalities that were born to clash,
so even without that teensy wee
detail of my suppressed homosexuality, our marriage was doomed.

My cousin, who lives in London is on her third marriage so there
you go…

MARRIAGE DOESN’T FREEKIN’ WORK!!

And it sure as Hell isn’t just my family.

Statistically, over fifty percent of marriages now end in
divorce.

So what do we, the GLBT Community, seem to want most in the
world????

Would we fight to get a surgical procedure that has a less than
fifty percent success rate?

Would we rush to get on a flight with a less than fifty percent
chance of ever reaching its destination?

Why are we rushing like some pack of crazed lemmings towards the
sea, when …

MARRIAGE DOESN’T FREEKIN’ WORK!!
Of course I do understand; and agree.

We should have the opportunity, the right, to accept or refuse that seat on the doomed flight.

Yet, if it were freely offered, would we really want it?

Betsy and I sometimes mull over the question of whether we would
in fact marry if the opportunity arose. (Not a question we are likely to have
to answer in our lifetime, I think, though I do believe it’s coming.)

The answer is probably in the affirmative simply for practical
fiscal considerations, but certainly not for spiritual reasons.

I have two dreams for Gay Marriage.

The first is that when it finally becomes legal nobody does it!

They give a party and nobody comes!

How great would that be?

Thanks but no thanks, folks, we are above your failed
institutions.

I can see them now, the huge rainbow banners saying …..
MARRIAGE DOESN’T FREEKIN’ WORK!!
My second, serious dream, is that we can indeed be better than
our hetero brethren

and perhaps even help them out of the marriage doldrums into
relationships that actually work.

That should be our goal, way above and beyond getting that legal
sanction.

What if we had such successful relationships ourselves that we
could shine a light to guide the het-set out of the darkness they have created?

They would envy us, and copy us, and just maybe the world would
become a better place.

I can see the banners now, all those straight folks coming over
from the Dark Side, marching down Broadway.
GAY MARRIAGE FREEKIN’ WORKS!!!!!

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.