home, my home

I lived my life in secret for about 45 years. I permitted information regarding who I was to flow as freely as I wished, but like a Communist State, I withheld any and all facts that might dissuade my public from not liking me. Or so I thought.I was fearful, mean, angry and resentful that this lie I had burning inside of me was a fire I could never ever put out. I was a good guy to everyone else but me. And all of this turmoil, tedium and duress because of the many things about me I was Gay.For many reasons learned from the world around the place I called home, all I heard was anything but Gay was good.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again

It's so far and out of sight

I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else

Knows how to comfort me tonight (‘Home Again’, Carole King)

Disturbing footage of what appears to be a young child's choral performance is going viral in the blogosphere.

The congregation in the church, which has been identified as the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle Church in Greensburg, Ind., gives a standing ovation after the child sings, "I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong...ain't no homos gonna make it to heaven."

I remember the moment I finally fought my fear, and self loathing and admitted out loud to those I loved that among the many facets of who I am I am Gay. I remember how in an instant, all of those I loved said, ‘so what’. For 45 years I never expected a ‘so what’ from this terrible tirade of personal angst, and almost found my self saying, did you hear me, I SAID I AM GAY.

When I think of home

I think of a place where there's love overflowing

I wish I was home

I wish I was back there with the things I been knowing (‘Home’, Charlie Smalls)

Yet another Christian pastor's anti-gay rant has come to light in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) blogosphere. Curtis Knapp, pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kan., appears to call for the death of gays in this disturbing audio.

"They should be put to death -- that's what happened in Israel," Knapp proclaims. "That's why homosexuality wouldn't have grown in Israel."

At first I kept the secret of being Gay to close friends and family. I seemed so cocky about the fact that I am Gay and if you don’t like it too bad. But all that cockiness subsided like the waters of a tsunami whenever I was in the public. I tried to act like a heterosexual male (whatever the fuck that was), I never displayed affection to the man of the moment, and I tried hard to stop any conversation that might end up talking about homosexuals. I was once again trapped in a jail of my own making. Free at last, free at last in the cozy comfort of home, but scared in the light of day.

From the mountains high

To the wave-crashed coast

There’s a way to find better days I know

It’s been a long hard ride

Got a ways to go

But this is still the place

That we all call home ( ‘Home’, Dierks Bently)

Nine couples filed a lawsuit in Illinois on Wednesday to challenge the constitutionality of a state law that denies same-sex couples the right to marry.

The lawsuit, filed in state court, comes a year after Illinois implemented civil unions for same-sex couples, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.

I have paid taxes, raised a family, paid my bills been employed, saluted the flag, voted since I was 21,volunteered to feed the poor, tutor the uneducated, signed up for the Draft, and been a citizen of the United States for 62 years, going on 63 and have called the USA my home. Yet, in the year 2012, suddenly all I am as a Gay man is coming into question. Suddenly, a law of a church can usurp the law of the land. Suddenly people who base their bigotry on a Bible rather then find the truth in the Constitution are in charge of my freedoms. Suddenly it is the ignorant who seem to have free passage in this nation with no regard for anything really red, white, and blue.

I am so tired of being told NO. This election may be about the economy, about jobs, about the deficit at first glance, but anyone with keen insight, and sharp senses of fair better worry that the cost of worrying only about the economy is rotting the rights and freedoms of the citizens of this great nation.

This iS my HOME and I will be damned if the Devil and his worshipers will drag me to hell. We must fight for our home, a place of equality for all.

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam

And the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day (“Home on the Range”, Brewster Highly”)