My Gay Life

The other day I was having a drink with a few co-workers and was asked for about the 1000th time if I had a girlfriend. I decided I was tired of answering that question and decided to come out.

One thing I think most people are afraid of when they come out to someone is the challenge of explaining why you are gay and getting someone to accept you being gay. We are afraid of getting fired or ostracized.

When I came out to my coworkers I experienced none of this. The conversation went:

Me: Well honestly I will never have a girlfriend.
Co-Workers: Why?
Me: I am gay.
Co-Workers: Do you need a boyfriend?

This made me realize just how far the gay community has come in its acceptance recently. There was no asking why I was gay or how I was gay or wow or we can no longer be friends. It was let me help you find a boyfriend.

I learned not to be afraid of coming out anymore. Yes, you can still have a bad experience coming out, but it is a lot easier to do today.

This conversation almost doubled the number of straight people who know I am gay. However, this conversation has also made me a lot happier and feels like a big weight lifted from my shoulders. I learned to not be afraid of coming out.

Can it still be dangerous? Yes. I could have gotten fired as a result of that conversation. But I learned not to be as afraid and be much more willing to come out.

P.S. I know I said I was done posting, and this does not mean I am starting again. But I will continue to post occasionally about important events that I think need to be shared.

Although I have quit posting to this blog, I thought I would point out a post my former readers might be interested in on my new blog Hold Nothing Back. It is an open letter I wrote to anti-gay activists.

After months of trying to decide what to do with this blog, I have finally decided to stop posting here. Yes, I am gay, but there is more to me than being gay. And honestly there is not enough about me being gay to keep posting to this blog.

However, just because I have decided to stop posting here, does not mean I am done blogging. I just began a new blog www.holdnothingback.com. In this blog I have quit being politically correct and am saying what I want about any topic I want.

I hope to see you there!

Well, I have not posted in 4 months. Honestly I have only visited my own site a very few times in 4 months. Even worse, when I tried to login today I found myself locked out of my own blog.

So where did I go? Why did I stop posting?

Well, if you were here looking at me right now you would see me with my hands stuffed deep in my pockets looking down and shuffling my feet. I do not have a good answer. The best one I can muster is I got busy with work and I simply did not have anything to say. However, as we all know, I will always be busy with work and I honestly always have stuff to say. Granted some of the stuff I say could get me into trouble.

So where does that leave me and my blog? I am not entirely sure. I will probably post occasionally. Hopefully more often than once every 4 months; however, I am not going to force myself to post extremely consistently. I am of the belief saying nothing at all, is better than inventing something to say and make reading my blog difficult.

Anyway, rather than continuuing to ramble, I just thought I would say hello again to all my readers.

After watching a rather humorous Colbert on NBC’s Meet the Nation on Sunday morning I was flipping through the channels and ended up watching an interview of presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and much of the interview was about his religion.

I found something he said several times rather interesting. Whenever Romney was asked about his religious beliefs he refused to answer the question and said he would defer to those who study his religion. There is the obvious conclusion about this that Romney cannot make his own beliefs, but I am not writing this to bash Romney.

I am writing this because this made me realize something. I realized that a large reason behind the bigotry and discrimination toward GLBT is because of religion. Not only is it because of religion it is because a significant number of people refuse to choose what to believe and simply follow their religion blindly.

According to CIA estimates from 2002 10% of Americans are not religious. Of the remaining 90% of Americans I would say 10-15% of those follow their religious leaders blindly and if the religious leaders say the sky is green would believe it. I estimate another 20-30% do actually think for themselves, but are afraid to publicly oppose the stance of their religion (Romney is an example). Then you have another 10-20% who do actually challenge what their religion says with the remainder being loosely affiliated with their religion. These are my estimates not facts.

When I do the math I realize that probably 35-40% of Americans oppose same sex marriage solely because their religion says so and they do not have a good argument otherwise. So in America, the land of the free, why do so many people not think for themselves? After America was discovered immigrants moved to America to get away from overpowering religion in Europe. So why is it that some locations in Europe now allow gay marriage, yet the United States is still bound by their religious leaders?

I do not know the answer. I do not know why Americans do not make their own decisions. Maybe the political activism in the United States has died away for a while? I have no doubt it will come back, but when was the last time there were major organized political protests in the US? Maybe there is some other reason entirely? Whatever the answer one has to ask, if religion is such a large part of American’s values what type of influence good or bad has this blind following of religion had on the current United States?

(By the way, I have no idea why the CIA is collecting religion data on the United States.)

First, Alex at Bilerico has a very good post about acceptance within the gay community, a topic I recently posted about here.

Secondly, today is National Coming Out day. This is a day used by many gays to show others that they are not alone and let others know that homosexuals do exist and probably are part of most peoples every day lives. If there was anywhere that I was truly out, I would consider doing a little something, but there is not anywhere I am truly out nor do I anticipate meeting up with anyone where it would be appropriate to come out tomorrow.

However, one thing I have heard is people questioning if National Coming Out day is really something we should be doing. My initial reaction is no, it really cannot do much harm, but it is not worth the effort. But then I think back a couple years when I first learned about national coming out day. At the time I was feeling extremely lonely and wasn’t sure what to do, and although I can’t say this day changed my life drastically, it did make me happy and not feel so alone.

So do I think National Coming Out day is worthwhile? Yes. Will I be celebrating it? No not really. If I were at a college or a high school would I be celebrating it? Probably.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. At first I was depressed and didn’t feel like posting, then I was unexpectedly without internet access for a week (stupid hotel claiming to have internet access, but not really have it), then I broke my finger and even typing this is taking me much, much longer than it should. So I will get back to posting when I either get voice recognition software, or I get used to typing with th broken finger.

In the mean time I have a small piece of advice. Never throw the football when you are drunk, even if it is just mildly so. You just might break your finger.