Concerning the Idea of Coming Out

Anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows that I've tried to remain anonymous. I want my blog to remain a place where I can freely voice my thoughts without worrying about some acquaintance or family member outing me. I also stay anonymous to avoid any possible persecution or discrimination in the event that a customer of my employer or a co-worker find this site and pin it to my identity.

Perhaps I'm worried about nothing. But, I don't really want to take that chance. So, I seriously doubt I will ever disclose my full identity on this blog.

However, I do feel that I need to start making steps to come out of the closet in the real world-- apart from cyber space.

Recently, two bloggers that I follow were outed in different ways-- only days apart from each other. Both seemed very displeased about the whole ordeal, but found that their world didn't totally crumble once the smoke cleared. Yes, they must make adjustments now that important relationships have become strained and stretched. But a bit of relief seems to have come as a result of taking off the mask.

And another benefit may come from being outed.

According to a recent talk given by Greta Christian entitled "What Atheists Can Learn from the LGBT Movement", she states that the number one phenomena that generated more tolerance for the LGBT community was the coming out of members.

Coming out of the closet, according to Greta Christina, causes people who would normally be intolerant of the LGBT community realize they personally know someone from that community. Potential opponents are forced to put the human face of a friend or loved one up against their intolerance. As a result, tolerance slowly displaces prejudice because the members of the LGBT movement are no longer "them". Rather, they are now our brothers, cousins, sisters, fathers, mothers, friends, and children.

As it should be.

The people who were outed by their blogs may wished it never happened, but these outings may actually serve as two more important steps forward for the atheist community as a whole.

In light of Greta Christina's talk coupled with the outing of the two bloggers I've mentioned, I now have a much stronger desire to come out of the closet myself.

Again, not here on this site. Although, I think I might start sharing a few details about myself that I would normally keep private. I'm mulling it over for the moment.

But as for life outside of the blogsphere, I have decided to slowly take baby steps towards coming out to the people from which I've hidden for several years now.

In my next post, I'll share my very first baby step towards coming out of the closet.

My Niece is in a Cult

I have a niece on my wife's side that came out as a lesbian.

A few weeks later, her deadbeat parents handed her over to live with her older cousin who is the paster of a really small congregation.

Funny thing is, people used to speculate that he was gay years ago. Though he's married now, we hear that he doesn't even sleep in the same bed as his wife.

Actually, our niece tells us that she sleeps in the same room with the pastor's (her cousin's) wife. The pastor sleeps in different room all to himself.

My wife called her niece today wanting to give her a gift. But she couldn't give us a time where she would meet us.

She didn't want us to come to her pastor's house where she lives. She didn't want us to meet her in some public place somewhere.

It looks like we'll have to crash one of their church services to see her, apparently.

The goal of this pastor is to "de-gay" her. That was the whole purpose of her parents sending her to this church in the first place.

But my niece was perfectly fine before they came along. She seemed happy and was living out her life. She was making friends, had a girlfriend, and seemed brave about her sexuality.

Now she's in this bizarre stupor and acts very submissive. She has not friends and is cut off from the every day world.

My wife and I are making plans to confront the pastor. Not in a belligerent way, though. We just want to raise some concerns and find out why our niece is behaving in such an odd manner. Why can't our own niece tell us a time that we can meet her to give her a card with a little money in it?! That's all we wanted to do. Why is that so hard?

Why do people treat homosexuality as though it is some evil? People do more evil trying to eradicate homosexuality from people's lives as opposed to letting people simply be themselves.

I believe homosexuality threatens the modern Church because accepting it implies the Bible is wrong. To admit that homosexuality should be regarded as normal means that the Bible is wrong or God made a mistake.

Or that maybe God made people gay on purpose even though the Bible calls homosexuality an abomination. And if the Bible doesn't say this, a great number of Christians certainly think that the Bible says this.

People don't realize that if a baby boy is born and has a high level of estrogen, he can squirt breast milk out of his nipple. On occasion, single fathers have lactated in the extended absence of the mother of their new born child.

Hormones control so much of what we become. Our genes do as well.

That's just the way biology is.

And now my lesbian niece is sleeping in the same room with a heterosexual woman, trying to rid herself of homosexual desires while her so called pastor might be entertaining his own possible homosexual tenancies with his homosexual assistant pastor behind closed doors.

And they call this holiness?

No. This is madness!

Not that she is lesbian or that her pastor is gay-- that's not what makes this maddening. But the madness comes because they run and hide from who they truly are. They lie to themselves and make their lives miserable in an attempt to be something the were not meant to be-- heterosexual. Nothing is wrong with them being gay. Absolutely nothing.

My niece is wrapped up in a cult.

I hope we can rescue her before it's too late.

The Poo-Poo of Our Children

The movement against homosexuals in Uganda is growing worse, despite the fact that the Uganda Parliament still has not passed that horrid anti-homosexuality bill which still remains in limbo.

I used to hear in church a lot, "Love the sinner, but hate the sin".

This is just plain hate.

I had embedded a video here at one time from the former Current TV where an evangelist stated that the homosexuals eat the "Poo-Poo of our children". I thought at the time that was such an outrageous statement and somehow embodied the ugliness of hate mindless hate that people sometimes harbor towards others for no good reason.

Close to Home

Constance McMillen is a teenager from Jesusland, USA. She gained the help of the American Civil Liberties Union to file a law suit that would allow her to bring her girlfriend to the school prom as her date.

As a parent, I can sympathize with the discomfort one may have about gay and lesbian couples together openly at your child's prom.

While I support the rights of homosexuals, I must admit feeling a little uneasy when I contemplate my children going to a prom where homosexuals may show public displays of affection.

But on the date that I'm posting this my kids are now five and eight years old.

I believe I feel a slight uneasiness mainly because I'm still thinking of them in these terms when I imagine them at their senior prom. I don't want them to be overly exposed to the public display of affection by heterosexuals and homosexuals alike.

But I figure that by the time my kids are teenagers, they will be thoroughly exposed to homosexuality and will have their own opinions about it.

I mean-- my son has already seen two men kiss on television (we didn't see it coming). But you know what? He didn't seem to become suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to kiss other men all of a sudden.

So, I figure they will probably have discovered their own sexuality the time they've reached the prom. After all, puberty usually hits before the prom happens. They will know something about sex whether I like it or not-- even if they do abstain from sex and remain "straight".

I have to realize that they may even go through an exploratory phase (somebody shoot me) and try things that I might not feel comfortable with as their parent. But they will be turning into adults. These things cannot be totally avoided.

In light of that, I suppose I shouldn't get my boxers in a wad about homosexuals dancing together when my children finally attend their high school prom. This is a time when they are about to graduate and (hopefully) start their own lives soon afterwards.

All that, however, is really just a side note.

What I really want to say is that I tip my hat to Constance McMillen. She has done something brave in my opinion. She stood up for her sexual orientation in a politically hostile environment. Constance exposed herself to potential discrimination and the threat of assault for the sake of exercising freedom.

She's not in the closet about her lesbianism like I'm in the closet about my atheism.

I greatly respect that about her. To me, she should be commended.

Like Constance, I also live in Jesusland; I know this is not easy for her. Homosexuals and atheists are hardly viewed any differently by the fundamentalist citizens of Jesusland. The mentioning of homosexuals and atheists both draw funny faces from fundamentalists.

Eewww! They're both just so nasty and unholy!

To the fundamentalists, homosexuals and atheists are both headed straight for hell.

And we will bust (no, not burst--bust!) the bottom out.

Although . . . I thought the lake of fire was a bottomless pit. Who knows? Maybe atheists and homosexuals are the reason why hell has no bottom.

*shrug*

And while I say that Constance lives in Jesusland like I do-- I don't live in Fulton, Mississippi.

But, I bet I live closer to Fulton that you.

Except for you Mac. You probably have me beat by about 30 miles or so. But that makes sense. You live in Jesusland, too.

Why Can't I Own a Canadian?

A member posted an interesting link on a message board that I follow. I felt that the link would nicely follow my previous post concerning Uganda.

The piece seems anecdotal, and I tend to shy away from anecdotes as proof of anything. But the point made is quite worth considering.

Here's the link below:


Why Can't I Own a Canadian?

Uganda

Much of Africa is plagued by the ramped spread of AIDS. World Bank data indicates that Uganda has seen the best improvements in the fight against AIDS within much of Africa.

This improvement in Uganda has been credited towards a mixed effort of promoting condom use and abstinence.

But worse than when the Pope went to Africa and discouraged condom use, a bill in Uganda has been introduced back in November which will turn homosexuality into a crime punishable by life imprisonment. Furthermore, a homosexual with HIV could be given the death penalty if caught having sexual relations with other homosexuals.

Can you imagine what would happen with the HIV situation in Uganda if every homosexual was targeted by the government?

The claim is to protect the traditional family. The traditional family is not in danger. I have a traditional family. It stays together because we work at it. Homosexuals aren't tearing my family apart. My family unit isn't in danger of anything. People just want to enforce their religious beliefs with punishment of death-- and that's a shame.

The logic behind the bill also seems to conclude that punishing homosexuality will curb the AIDS epidemic.

A few religious radicals in the United States and within Uganda urge the parliament to accept the bill into law. Hopefully the Ugandan parliament is too progressive to make such a despotic decision.

I wonder if supporters of the bill even realize that Uganda is one of the few places in Africa that seems to be doing the right things to bring HIV infections down in their country.


Yeah, that's right. Threaten homosexuals with the death penalty. Then watch the HIV infections go down with the homosexual population as they all turn straight again.

Ridiculous!

They will either leave the country or stay in the closet. Then, they won't be open about their sexuality. They won't go to the doctor to be tested. And AIDS, in my view, will spread worse than ever in Uganda.

Even Some Penguins Oppose Proposition 8

Okay, so you won't see penguins marching around with picket signs protesting California's Proposition 8, but apparently penguins have been observed exhibiting homosexual behavior for some time now.

Interestingly, German zookeepers were monitoring a specific male couple that made attempts to mate with each other. This 'gay' couple also tried to take rocks and attempted to hatch them as though they were eggs.

Boy, they really wanted to start a family.

And even more interestingly, a heterosexual penguin couple abandoned their egg for whatever reason. The egg was given to the homosexual penguin couple. They cared for it until it hatched.

Now the male couple cares for their brand new little chick.

A happy family.

So is nature trying to teach us something?

Read the story for yourself here: 'Gay Penguins' Rear Adopted Chick