Coming Out Day: Dialogue with a Fundamentalist

After a lifetime of struggle, I began Coming Out to myself in earnest around 2004. By the end of 2005 I had told some people close in my life, and during 2006 "the conversation" took place almost every day with everyone else. And so, today, National Coming Out Day, I helped staff a table at work to assist those struggling as I did a decade ago.

I was reminded of a conversation that I will attempt to reconstruct...a conversation with a lovely woman, a long-time friend (I'll call her Diana), whose religious convictions were making it very hard for her to accept my coming out. It is worth remembering simply because it contained all of the usual cliches and plattitudes that the religious right uses as verbal weaponry against those of us who have struggled. As she sat with her husband, she began with a very direct question:

Diana: So, when did you choose to go gay? I mean, it’s a choice….people choose to do this.

Me: Really? And so, when you have a physiological response in your genitals to seeing a naked person of the opposite sex, is that “a choice?” Do men choose to have their penis get hard upon seeing a hot woman, or do you choose to get horny when seeing a hot guy? If you didn’t choose those physical reactions, what makes you think that I chose mine?

Diana: Well, you might be born that way, or it might be environmental, I don't know, and that’s not your fault, but it *IS* a choice to actually act on it!

Me:I see. So, masturbation is one of those things that men “act on,” especially in the years during which their testosterone is running high. In fact, I've heard it said that ‘99% of men masturbate, and the other 1% lie about it.' So, is that a choice? I mean, if virtually *everyone* does it, does it make sense to call it a choice? To divide all actions in the world into “choices” and “non-choices?” How can something be a “choice” between two alternatives, if everyone across the globe and across the centuries has made the same “choice?” Don't you think our sexuality is a little more complicated than just being a “choice?”

Diana: Well, what about monks, who pledge themselves to chastity? If they do it, why can’t you?

Me: Well, first off, because I don't want to...I've done that for half a lifetime and it's killing me. But are you realistically suggesting that 100% of gay men should be ‘required’ to live in a way that 99.995% of straight men can not? Those monks will tell you that the overwhelming majority of men, of any orientation, should never even try it.

Diana: But…what will happen to society? Heterosexual marriage, within the context of a family, has always been the foundation of this country!

Me: Actually, it hasn’t. Up through the civil war, the majority of people in the United States lived in what we would call ‘non-traditional’ families: grandparents with grandchildren, aunts and uncles and sisters with nephews or nieces, with neighbor’s kids thrown in and common-law marriage arrangements. It wasn’t until after the 1880s that the majority of households in the US even had an actual ‘church’ wedding…and the ‘nuclear family’ did not predominate until a brief period starting in the 1950s.

Diana: But if we accept homosexuality, what’s next? Polygamy?!

Me: Actually, we don’t need to discuss hypotheticals when it comes to this issue. We can talk observable, objective history. There is only one period in American history when polygamy flourished – and that was in Utah under Mormonism. And it was HETEROsexual polygamy. If you believe that acknowledging some type of sexual unions will lead to polygamy, than it is actually heterosexuality, not homosexuality, that has lead to this in the past. You sure you want to continue down this road?

Diana: But the Bible says its wrong!!! Don't you believe anything any more?!

Me: Yes, it does say homosexuality is wrong, and yes, I actually do have a very strong faith. But the Bible is NOT the basis for law or civil rights in this country. The Bible also tells us to dash our enemies babies heads against rocks, stone our daughters who have sex before marriage, avoid eating shellfish and wearing clothes of two cloths, to monocrop our fields (which we know is a dangerous practice), and to require women to wear head coverings and keep their mouths shut in public. The problem here is that the Bible is not a timeless rulebook handed down from God, full of unchangeable Instructions and dictates from on high, even though many American Christians think so.

Diana: That's Blasphemy! The Bible is the Word of God!

Me: No, actually YOU just blasphemed. The “Word” of God, would be Jesus, the uncreated Second Person of the Trinity, not a created book.

Diana: Yes, but the Bible is the Written Word of God!

Me: Oh, so the Bible is Perfect? Since only God is perfect, that would change the Holy Trinity into a Holy Quadrilateral: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Book.

Diana: No! The Book is not God! It’s His word! And it's Inspired and perfect!

Me: If the book is not God, and only God is Perfect…then the Bible can not be perfect.

Diana's Head Explodes. Conversation Over.

Happy Coming Out Day! May the next generations' struggle be easier!

Stand up to Bank of America: Move Your Money Project.

The Bank of America, the second largest corporation in the United States, has been in overdrive when it comes to stealing America's wealth.

In 2008, it received 20 billion dollars in taxpayer-funded bailouts and 118 billion in government guarentees after it voluntarily chose to acquire the failing Merrill Lynch brokerage. Within months after receiving this bailout, the bank agreed to pay a $33 million fine to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its non-disclosure of an agreement to turn around and pay $5.8 billion in bonuses to Merrill Lynch Executives.

It purchased Countrywide Mortgage after it learned that the FBI had launched a fraud investigation on them. Then, in August of this year, Bank of America asked for and received $500 million in taxpayer funds from Fannie Mae for a sale of the bad mortgage debts it acquired from Countrywide.

This month, the Bank of America announced its intention of charging its debit card customers $5 per month for the 'privilege' of using their own money. At 57 million customers and a potential of $60 annually from each of them, I'll let you do the math.

And it gets worse.

My daughter goes to school U Mass-Amherst, where the sole on-campus bank is Bank of America. She was short funds, and asked me to run to our local Keene branch and make a deposit for her. As I made a mere $50 deposit, the following conversation ensued between the teller and me:

"You know, there's an $8.95 fee for this."

"What?! To deposit money in your bank?! Why?"

"Because it's a checking account that should be used online only"

"So how do you add money to it?!"

"Direct Deposit by your employer"

"But she's a full-time student, this is the only bank at her school, and this is the account they recommended she get!"

"I'm sorry...it's only a one-time fee."

"Oh, so once I pay this $8.95, I can make as many deposits as needed without additonal fees?"

"No, it's a one-time fee each time a deposit is made."

"Then it's not a one-time fee, it's an every-time fee!"

I felt like Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole.

Fed up? There is an alternative: The Move Your Money Project

From their website:

The Move Your Money project is a nonprofit campaign that encourages individuals and institutions to divest from the nation's largest Wall Street banks and move to local financial institutions. Little has changed to prevent another financial crisis or to end 'Too Big To Fail,' and with Congress unwilling to act, we are encouraging individuals to take power into their own hands by voting with their dollars and no longer contributing to a financial system that has lead our country astray. We are a campaign that gives people real, concrete actions they can take to create a more sane, stable and localized banking system.

The site contains a serachable database of credit unions and places to bank locally.

Fed up with Wall Street screwing you? Do something specific about it. MOVE YOUR MONEY.