Boy George, Troye Sivan, and Me

I spend a lot of time puttering around on the internet.  Every morning I get up and start googling random crap and cruising through YouTube subscriptions and trendings.  It inevitably happens.  At some point a search for one specific thing will lead me to something completely different and it will be that something completely different that will unexpectedly educate and inspire me.

Today I ended up on this video on YouTube.  It’s an interview from 1984 between Johnny Carson and Boy George. 

History lesson time.  Before James Corden rode around in a car singing with superstars and Stephen Colbert lampooned newsmakers with mock earnestness, there was an old white guy who sat behind a desk and did some interviews and cracked some jokes.  In the interest of full disclosure I wasn’t a fan.  But a lot of folks tuned in because, really, he was the only game in town until folks like Joan Rivers and Arsenio Hall brought life and variety to the late night talk show arena.  But Carson was kind of the godfather of it all. 

So, picture it.  1984.  The AIDS crisis is evolving.  Ronald Reagan is president and neither he nor his First Lady, Nancy, will acknowledge the crisis because they don’t even want to be associated with the dirty word “homosexual.”  That doesn’t stop religious leaders and conservative politicians from making hay on the suffering of others by demonizing the victims of the disease while declaring “God’s judgment” on “sinful and deviant lifestyles.”

In the midst of this ignorant morass of silence and blame and fear comes…Boy George.

That picture is a screen capture of Boy George from the Johnny Carson interview.  It was the second time he had appeared on Carson’s show but the first time with Carson.  The first time he had appeared the iconic Joan Rivers was hosting.  This is a fact that Boy George jokes about in the interview with Carson by commenting, “The last time I was here you were in drag.”  Carson quickly distanced himself from the joke, clarifying that it had been Joan Rivers and not Carson with whom he had appeared.  If I’m right, this is a picture of Boy George and Joan Rivers from that first appearance. 

So, back to the video of Carson, the old White guy with his sense of humor that seems to ignore other people’s senses of humor, and Boy George sitting on the opposite side of the desk in all of his Boy George glory.  In 1984.  Amidst fear and ignorance.  And remembering that the culture of the UK is usually about 20 years ahead of culture in the US.  So, for Boy George, the smallest things he said or did at home were met with raised brows and anxiety here in the United States. 

Carson introduced Boy George, who comes in and makes the joke about Carson being in drag that Carson finds so repugnant, and then the interview begins.  It’s clear where Carson wants to go with the interview. 

Not long before this appearance Boy George attended the Grammies and made a joke about wondering when they music industry would see a real queen dressed as a drag queen.  Carson brings up the controversy his comment caused and Boy George brushes it aside, pointing out that in the UK you can say things like that and people laugh but in the US it’s basically a big scandal.  This brings up a conversation about “all of the stupid questions” Boy George had been answering since his arrival in LA from LA radio personalities. 

“What are some of the dumb questions they ask so I know which ones to avoid.  I mean, the first one has got to be,” and Johnny Carson makes sweeping gestures with his hands.  “Why do you dress like that?”

You can hear Boy George’s eyes rolling in his answer.  “I’ve answered that one so many times I’m going to avoid that one.”

“Okay, so what are the other questions?”

“Well, basic things like ‘How long does it take to do my makeup?’ you know and just boring things about my childhood.  Which was just the same as anybody else’s really.  Pretty dull.  Pretty boring.  So, Father Christmas, you know, and grazed knees, that kind of stuff.” 

“Yeah, but you can’t blame them, can you, Boy George, for asking those kinds of questions.  Because you are rather controversial.  It is something new that—“

“But after like three years of seeing me you would think people would be a bit used to me by now, you know.  I mean, in a country that has Liberace, I am hardly revolutionary, am I?

And the audience cheers.  But see the difference between Boy George and Liberace is that Liberace’s glam was still masculine.  He still wore tuxes and suits while performing.  So what if they were covered it glitter and sequence?

Johnny Carson continues.  “I’m trying not to be square you see.  I come from the middle of the United States.  State called Nebraska, which is right out in the middle of the country.  Rather conservative.  Now if I was your dad and you came home one day and I didn’t know it and I walked in and saw you as a young man—I guess you were about fifteen or sixteen when you started actually….wearing the make up and the costumes—I wouldn’t know how to react myself.  I think I would be adult enough myself to try to handle it but—“

“What do you got to handle?”

“Well, the effect that you walk in and you see your son dressing with makeup on.  The average person….”

“Okay, well, you’re going to have Halloween in a couple of weeks, you know.  What’s the difference between somebody dressing up for Halloween?  It’s only because people think it’s serious that they get frightened.  They look at me and they say, ‘Well, it’s not a Halloween party.’  So you have to have a reason to dress up.  There is nothing wrong with being different.  Why do you have to have an excuse to enjoy yourself?  You know there are people out there taking drugs, killing each other, fighting.  And like I just don’t see that you have to wait once a year, Christmas or Halloween, to enjoy yourself.  I think it’s a load of rubbish.  I think there is nothing wrong with dressing up and enjoying yourself if you want.”

“I think you’re right.  I think what you said before though…people are probably uncomfortable though with some things they don’t quite understand or something that’s different from them and they get uptight about it.”

I’ll leave the transcript there because it speaks to the points I want to make. [Go and watch the video, though.  It’s fascinating. ]

In 1984, when Boy George was being interviewed by Johnny Carson, I was in the sixth grade.  I remember my class’s Halloween party.  We still dressed up “back in the day” and spent the afternoon munching candy and watching movies.  One of my classmates dressed up as Boy George.  I knew it was a Boy George costume because she had obviously done the makeup and hair thing but she had written “Boy George” on her t-shirt.  My teacher, who was about the age of Johnny Carson, had a conniption.  He ranted about the costume being inappropriate and offensive.  And it was a female classmate dressed up as Boy George.

Of course this was the same teacher who demanded a male student remove his earring.

This was the mentality of the time.  It’s gotten better, to be sure, but we still have such a long way to go.  Someone I follow on social media just tweeted today that if people fought as hard for the poor as they fight against equal rights and protections, poverty would be history. 

But Johnny Carson, in this interview, actually makes a point.  He pointed out that people are uncomfortable with things they don’t understand or things that are different from them.  And make no mistake about it—Johnny Carson and Boy George and a significant segment of the audience knew that this conversation had nothing to do with make-up and clothes.  This was about identifying as something other than straight (on Boy George’s side) and the fear of validating something that not even the president would even speak about (on Johnny Carson’s side). 

I don’t know what the conversation was like in the UK or other parts of the world, but in the United States, at this time, coming out wasn’t an option for many artists and actors.  For example, George Michael at this same time was making it big with Wham!.  And speculation was just as bad.  If I had a dime for every time I heard a story about the members of New Kids on the Block having their stomach pumped to find gallons of bodily fluids, I could have retired at age 20.  I even remember watching some awards show with my folks one time and hearing my mother comment about how masculine Grace Slick from Jefferson Starship was trying to be while performing “We Built This City.” 

More and more I find myself stopping in my tracks to take stock of how far we’ve come, not just in the LGBTQ community but as a society.  Sharing our stories, when we can and how much we can and in whatever overt or veiled language we can, changes things.  It started somewhere.  It didn’t begin with Boy George on Johnny Carson and it’s certainly not going to end with marriage equality or the overturning of North Carolina’s disgusting law.  We all play our parts, when we can, how we can.  We show our faces with courage.  We move in small circles for our own safety.  We speak from behind the curtain of the internet to protect the people who love us. 

I’ve written before about Troye Sivan.  Last week Troye Sivan tweeted, “I am forever indebted and so so so grateful for the LGBTQ+ people who have come before me.”   This hit me for a variety of reasons but the truth of it is so poignant.  Troye Sivan, global recording superstar, gay, out at 20, changing the world.  But not just him.  Jordan Gray (@TallDarkFriend), trans contestant on The Voice UK, sharing her powerful story.  Noah Galvin on TV—a gay man playing a gay teen on The Real O’Neals.  YouTuber stars from all over the world, out and proud and sharing their stories, continuing the fight for equality so that the next generation of LGBTQ people won’t have to struggle so hard.

Just as Troye Sivan, still fighting with his beautiful spirit and his powerful words (“Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven?”), doesn’t have to fight as hard as Boy George did. 

But here’s the flip side of Troye Sivan’s grateful statement.  My response:  “The ones who came before are grateful to the ones who come after; you’re still changing the world & us.”

You see, this is the reality in which I live.  The world has yet to open for me.  The light of peace and acceptance (of the world toward me and me toward the world, for that matter) hasn’t reached the dark recesses of my “closet.”  But I celebrate these rewards that have been hard won and the ability of those who can live in that light.  I am thrilled when I see Troye Sivan changing the world with his music.  I am thrilled when I read about Cole Ledford’s “Fifty States of Gay” project.  I am thrilled when I see someone like Jordan Gray on a national/international platform like The Voice, not only sharing her gift and her story, but doing it with Boy George himself watching and tearing up for each of her performances.

And all of these and more give me hope that maybe the world will change enough for me and this light will break open my prison door.  You see, in a place where teachers flipped out over girls dressing like Boy George and students assaulting other students just because they might be gay all with the blessing and support of a Church that loves Jesus but not enough to actually listen to the things Jesus says—for people who lived in these places, people like me, then and now, people like Boy George and Troye Sivan mean nothing.  They could be from a completely different world, somewhere over the rainbow (if you’ll pardon the expression). 

But from within my closet, I hear their words coming to me from that magical place of hope.  They inspire me, the one who came before who, from the shadows, fought and still fights,   It’s a cycle, I suppose.  An enormous wheel.  Where does what one generation give to the next begin and end? 

I hear their words and they tell me of a time I will be able to be me without causing the people I love and who love me a pain they don’t deserve for something not in their control anymore than the pain I’ve suffered for things outside of my control.  I’ve lived as a victim of the world’s ignorance for this long.  With these glimpses of hope, I can wait.  I will not victimize others to escape my lot. 

So I keep watch.  I listen.  I write and I speak what I can, when I can, how I can.  And I hope I make a difference.  Probably not as big of a difference as Boy George, Troye Sivan, or Jordan Gray.  But hopefully a difference, if only to one person.  Because that one person still has the potential to change the world.

Addendum:  About 30 minutes after posting this entry I found the interview of Boy George with Joan Rivers.  An astounding difference.  Night and day.  Whereas Carson backs away from Boy George, Joan Rivers sings his praises, calling him "cute and sexy."  

Share it forward!

Follow me on Twitter @TroyComets

Homosexuality and the Bible

Recently I wrote about growing up in the Church and how ignorance and superstition have dictated ecclesiastical social stances for far too long.  The things that the Church has supported either overtly in its misguided proclamation or covertly by its silence and turning of a blind eye have damaged too many groups of people including the LGBTQ community.

I had no idea how what I was writing in that post would flow into what caught my attention today.

Tom Goss (on Twitter @TomGossMusic) released a music video today on YouTube.  It’s a contemporary take on a classic song:  “Son of a Preacher Man.”  The video depicts a romance between two boys, one of them apparently being the son of the fundamentalist preacher who begins the video by preaching an anti-gay sermon based on 1 Corinthians 6.9-10. 

I want to make one thing clear.  I’m not using the term “fundamentalist preacher” in a throwaway sense or as a derogatory reference.  I’m actually using the term appropriately.  How do I know this character is a fundamentalist preacher?  Because of how he treats this passage of Scripture. 

To demonstrate, I want to share how the video’s preacher-character recites 1 Corinthians 6.9-10.

1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verses 9 and 10.  It talks about the things that prevent people from entering the kingdom of God.  It talks about all kinds of immoral behavior.  But right in the midst of that passage, right in the middle of that verse, it says “and those who are homosexual.”  That’s not ambiguous.  Let me be perfectly clear, you cannot abide the gospel and be OK with homosexuality.  You cannot have faith in God and be OK with homosexuality.  You cannot call yourself a Christian, and be OK with homosexuality.  But this is about love.  It would be unloving not to tell someone when salvation is at stake.  We must tell the homosexuals the very same thing that I would say to you and you would say to me, “it is possible to change.  With God, all things are possible.” 

Okay, so I’m going to jump into this and I hope that I won’t lose you because I’m going to do more “academic writing” than story telling in this post.  Why?  Because what the video’s preacher does here is so far off base from what the passage of Scripture actually says that I need to give you that academic background.  This way when you bump into this kind of ignorance in your life you will hopefully have the necessary words to combat this nonsense.  This video’s preacher is obviously a fictional character…but he is representative of far too many leaders of the Church who influence far too many people in devastating ways. 

When you read the Bible the first thing you need to understand is what it is you are actually reading.  In this case, 1 Corinthians, you are reading what’s called “an occasional document.”  It’s a document written for a specific occasion.  It’s a letter.  All letters capture events and topics of specific moments in time.   Letters in the Bible are no different.  What makes letters in the Bible more complicated, however, is the fact that, for English language speakers, we need to remember that the Bible wasn’t written in English.  What we read when we open our English Bibles is the best guesses of translations of languages that aren’t even spoken anymore.  A lot of work goes into figuring out what the words mean but in the end the Bible’s translators’ agenda will peak through. 

So what does 1 Corinthians 6.9-10 actually say?  Let me give you a couple of translations.  Like I did with the quote from the video’s preacher, I’ll bold the word that we’re concerning ourselves with. 

First up, the New International Version (NIV):

⁹ Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men^[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

The NIV, to its credit, includes a footnote following “…sex with men” which reads:  The words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.

Second, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):

⁹ Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, ¹⁰ thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

Third, the King James Version (KJV):

⁹ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,¹⁰ Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

So what are the words we’re actually looking at here?  The oldest words (notice I’m not calling them “original” because we no longer have the original manuscripts) that we’re working with are malakos and arsenokoitēs.  The online resource Blue Letter Bible gives the following information on these two words (in summary):

malakos:  A catamite (that is a boy who is kept for sexual relations with an adult man).  (This, of course, was a very Roman custom.) 

arsenokoites:  Strongs states that this is a blending of two other Greek words, namely the word for “male” and “couch.”  In other words a male who lies on a couch.  This isn’t just an ordinary couch but a reference to prostitution.  Blue Letter Bible indicates that this word is translated, in the King James Version, as “sodomite” or “a male who lies with another male as with a female.”

So the word that our video’s preacher interprets as “homosexual” is actually two words which are rendered in a variety of ways in different translations but, in the end, have absolutely nothing to do with our modern understanding of homosexuality or LGBTQ people.  Let me explain.

The author of First Corinthians is addressing behaviors that are surfacing in the church in Corinth and is trying to highlight how members of that church shouldn’t be falling back into old patterns.  The whole reference to baptismal language just before the verses we’re looking at is an attempt to remind members of the Corinthian church that they’re supposed to be starting over and not engaging in these questionable and heinous practices—namely keeping catamites and engaging in prostitution INCLUDING male-male prostitution.  Why?  Because the entire underpinning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a recognition of humanity and self-worth as the faithful live into the promise of the Kingdom of God.  You can’t recognize another’s humanity if you hold power over them.  You can’t validate another’s worth if you demean them. 

This has absolutely nothing to do with being gay. 

As LGBTQ people have fought their way out of the shadows by sharing their stories and helping non-LGBTQ people understand what it means to be “something other than straight,” we have struggled to help others understand what it is we have wanted for so long:  We just want healthy relationships that validate our worth and our humanity.  In other words, we’re striving toward the kind of intimate relationships that the author of First Corinthians is trying to encourage.

This is exactly the kind of ignorance and superstition that I’ve talked about in previous posts to my blog.  People who parrot back whatever their preacher/pastor/priest has told them or who simply open their Bibles and point to the page and say, “It’s right there in black and white.”  And in order to justify this narrowness and lack of biblical criticism, they will invoke a superstitious understanding by saying, “If that’s not what God wanted you to know then he never would have allowed it to be written like that.” 

Believe me, there’s been more politics behind the creation and translation of the Bible than the average person in the pew on Sunday morning realizes. 

So I hope this makes sense to you.  Again, I’m sharing this in the hopes that it helps you when you bump into people like the attendees of this video’s Sunday services or the people who would tell you that “being gay is a sin.”  It’s not.  It absolutely is not.  Our modern understanding of what it means to be LGBTQ has absolutely no equivalent in the ancient Hebrew culture (Old Testament) or the Greco-Roman culture (New Testament).  Hopefully you can use this information—not to pick fights but to continue the conversation because it’s through conversation that we’ve made the difference we’ve made.  It’s through conversation that we’ll continue to change the world.

I want to thank Tom Goss for sharing this song in such a powerful way and giving us the opportunity to talk about these issues that we continue to struggle with. 

I also want to apologize to those of my readers who aren’t Christian people of faith or who have been too hurt by the Church to hear my words without it bringing up painful memories or causing you anger and consternation.  It never should have been that way for you.

From the Church's Shadow

I blogged before about growing up in the Church and for the most part it was a pretty positive experience.  I was fortunate to have some open-minded, progressively theological adults in my life at the time.  Unfortunately, though, these few adults weren’t enough to counter the conservative culture that was pervasive in my area and the era in which I grew up.  One loving, accepting Sunday School teacher wasn’t enough to coax me out of the closet.  Since those teenage and young adult years I have been surprised and even shocked to learn who else around me had to keep their true identity hidden for the fear of what would happen if they were discovered. 

The problem with growing up in the Church is that the Church is always at least a generation behind the culture.  For example, the “women’s liberation movement” began in the 60’s and moved through the 70’s (and still has a long way to go on many fronts).  Most mainline protestant denominations slowly welcomed women into the ranks of ordained clergy (pastors, priests).  The Methodists, Presbyterians, some Lutherans, some Baptists all began ordaining women in the later 70’s and 80’s—pretty much a generation behind women taking their place in the secular workforce among male counterparts.  But not all denominations have moved to accepting women as church leaders.  Some Lutherans, the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and many, MANY fundamentalist denominations who adhere to a strict, contemporary interpretation of scripture divorced from original culture and context still insist women must remain silent (1 Corinthians 14.34) and that wives are inferior to their husbands (1 Corinthians 11.3) and should be obedient to their husbands (Titus 2.4-5).

The same holds true for topic of premarital sex.  It’s still scandalous in many church traditions for an engaged couple to “shack up together” before they get married and if they have a child before the priest or pastor declares them married the amount of judgment and scorn they have to endure typically drives many from the church.  I know many couples who have been told by their religious leaders that if they want to be married in this or that church they have to give up living together and remain celibate for a duration of X amount of days/months.  Why?  Because somewhere someone has found a passage or two that can be used to interpret these premarital relationships as adulterous.  Nevermind the fact that for most of history, particularly in Europe, many couples wouldn’t be married until well after the birth of grandkids, usually as they came into the last third of their lives and wanted to “make themselves right with God.”  Marriage, in their case, was something done in the senior years not when the couple began their lives together. 

And divorce, which is actually a topic Jesus of Nazareth speaks of with relatively great detail in Matthew 19, is something that the Church was fairly quick to be okay with.  Why?  Because so many high profile leaders and televangelists were getting divorces and so, to maintain their reputations (and income), they minimized Jesus teaching on divorce to suit their own needs.  And, let’s be honest, it’s easy to disregard your own sin when there’s so many other flashier sins that can attract the public’s attention and on which you can make a living. 

I pretty much grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).  I’m still a member of this denomination though over the years I will admit that I have been tempted to make a jump to other, more progressive traditions.  The ELCA, for the most part, has been a fairly forward thinking institution within the greater Church.  Its predecessor bodies (because it was formed by a merger of existing denominations in the later 80’s) began ordaining women in the early 70’s.  In 2009 the ELCA churchwide body approved the rostering of openly LGBT clergy in “committed lifelong monogamous relationships.” 

This kind of progressive mentality still hasn’t manifested itself in the region in which I grew up or currently live.  In 2009, when the churchwide body made its decision, many local congregations in my area left the ELCA because they insisted that homosexuality was a sin and they would not remain a part of a church body that would allow flagrant (and flamboyant?) sinners to be leaders in their church.  While large, progressive metro areas like San Francisco and Portland and even pockets of Kentucky and Indiana benefited from the decision, congregations fell away from the ELCA in droves in my region. 

The reason I’m giving you this history lesson and introducing you to the realities of church politics is because I’m trying to paint a picture for you.  This is the reality in which I grew up.  This is the reality in which many of us grew up.  Many of us still live in this reality.  The Church, which is so fond of making Sunday School children memorize “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son…” (John 3.16) and make kids sing “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world…,” was the same Church that looked at people who were LGBT and said, “Not you.  God says you’re an abomination.  Here’s a list of passages from the Bible to prove it.”

So growing up in the 80’s, with the HIV/AIDS crisis taking hold of the media and the public imagination, homophobia was on the rise.  The one place LGBT people could have gone to be reassured of their value and their humanity systematically rejected them, declaring that there was no way God could love such wicked, unnatural people.  “God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve” is something many of us chuckle about today but back then it hurt.  A lot. 

LGBT people had no standing in the secular world and the Church tried very hard to take the love of God away.  Is it any wonder that mental health issues correlated with LGBT self-identification? Is it a surprise that antagonists of LGBT people would use that correlation for their own agenda, saying that LGBT orientations created mental illness rather than understanding that isolation and fear and anxiety over the reaction of friends and family and even God created mental health issues in LGBT people?

Self-denial and conformation were requirements for survival or so many of us felt.  What choice did we have?  If we came out as teenagers we would be ostracized or even physically threatened.  If we came out as teens or adults we risked losing the people who should love us unconditionally, our families.  And even God.  We were trapped.  We made choices.  We made commitments that would lock us into a trajectory that would deliver us into a future that, for the most part, would look dramatically different than the past.  For the most part.  Obviously there still remain too many exceptions to the rule and we, as a society, still have a long way to go.

For me, because of my personality and my interests and my education, as I grew older I began to understand things differently.  Within the context of the Church and the Church’s institutionalized homophobia, I eventually learned that the Church’s intolerance of LGBT people had nothing to do with God and had everything to do with narrow minded, superstitious, and even ignorant interpretations of passages from the Bible.  I’ve blogged before about a quote from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon and the quote that has been a guide for me in my understanding of theology and Church:

“From these Christians who came to [Avalon] to escape the bigotry of their own kind I learned something, at last, of the Nazarene, the carpenter's son who had attained Godhead in his own life and preached a rule of tolerance; and so I came to see that my quarrel was never with the Christ, but with his foolish and narrow priests who mistook their own narrowness for his.”

For me and others like me, it’s an enormous gift to come to a place of understanding in which you know that God loves you for who you are, just as God made you to be.  To shake off the burden of ignorant theology and superstition is a liberating experience.  The God we sought to please by denying who we truly were is the God who lovingly welcomes us with open arms, declaring, “No matter who you are, what you’ve done, what’s been done to you—I love you.”  Seeking God’s forgiveness for something far outside of our control like our biological makeup and internal wiring is no longer a priority.

For me, however, forgiveness still needs to be sought.  And I know I’m not alone.

In an attempt to be what we were told we should be, many of us, as I said, locked ourselves into a trajectory that led us into an unimaginable future.  We boxed up our LGBT selves and put on our straight faces because we never thought in a million years that things would get better for us.  We had “traditional” marriages.  We had children.  We built a life….that didn’t belong to us.  Some of us can extract themselves from this artificial life easier than others of us.  People like me?  Our life…our lies…interconnect with the lives of others with such complexity that to extricate ourselves from these lives would be disastrous.  It’s no longer a case of hidden identity for the sake of our own protection but it has become a case of hidden identity for the sake of the protection of others.  To tug at the threads and unravel the lies would hurt too many people.  So, those of us who have been forced by the culture, by the Church, and those who love us to deny who we truly are….well, we end up continuing to deny ourselves for the sake of those whom we love. 

I celebrate the stories I hear in which LGBT people find ways to navigate out of the trap and can do so on relative good terms.  Some of us can’t do that.  Some of us are still silent.  We’re here, we’re surviving, but…not really thriving. 

So here’s the thought that keeps me up at night.  Because I’ve come to a place where I simply can’t keep silent anymore, I worry about when Troy Comets and not-Troy Comets are going to come together for the first time in front of the people I try to protect.  Because, as much as I was victimized by a culture of ignorance and a Church that should have known better, the people affected by my choice to “try to do the right thing” are real victims.  I can’t not tell my story anymore (which is why I’m blogging) and I can’t not help others tell their story. 

What happens when my ‘two selves” are forced to coexist in the lives of the people I love and who love me?

And I know I’m not alone in this. 

I have learned that forgiveness from God is easy; it flows from God’s loving nature.  I also know that forgiveness from human beings is complicated, particularly from those who feel betrayed by us even when our intentions were the best.  After all, how do you forgive someone for breaking your heart?  How do you forgive someone for threatening to not be there when you depend on them so much? 

I guess this is the shadowed reality of the LGBT community. 

Soundtrack Update

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the soundtrack to my life.  In that post I talked about Troye Sivan's song "Heaven" and gave a link to a lyric video.  

Troye recently performed in the iHeartRadio theatre and one of the songs he did was "Heaven."  This evening a number of his live performances from that concert were put up on youtube including this video of Troye Sivan singing 'Heaven" live.  It'll show up as "Wild" but it's actually "Heaven."

I encourage you all to check it out and show much love and support for Troye's music and the message he tries to convey through his gift.