My Gay Life

Over the last couple of months I have done a lot of reading and talked to a lot of people that have forced me to start doing some soul searching. Soul searching around questions like why have I not come out to my family yet, why did I move to Colorado and away from all of my family, and what do I wish things would have been like. Over the next several weeks I will be putting my thoughts to paper and posting most of them. I feel that there is a lot that can be learned by sharing my story, both for other gay men and for parents.

I don’t really know where to start so the stories I tell and the conclusions I come to will likely be jumbled and seem not to support each other. I could start with the first things I can remember but starting there will not allow me to come to the conclusions I need to come to. I could start with when I first realized I was gay but starting there omits many important stories. I could start at present and work backward, but that just does not make sense. Instead I think I am going to organize somewhat by theme hopping throughout time with no chronological order of the stories I tell.

I wrote those first two paragraphs hoping that it would provide me inspiration with where to start, but it is still lacking. I think I will start with some information about me that will help you understand how I grew up. You can probably glean this information from other posts on this site, but for those who do not have time to read every post here goes.

I was raised a Catholic in an entirely Catholic family. I do not think I even knew that there was something different than Catholicism until I was in the 3rd grade. I led a very sheltered life being the first child with parents who were afraid that something was going to happen to me. I cannot remember any neighborhood friends before I was in the 2nd grade. All of my friends from school lived in different neighborhoods. I only saw them at school and baseball and soccer.

I was not raised in the best area of town, but in my early years it was not a bad neighborhood. As I grew up the neighborhood gradually declined, but fortunately we moved before it got too bad. When I started 7th grade we moved to a very nice house that was on the edges of the country leaving all of my neighborhood friends behind. They were moving also so even if we stayed they would have been gone. However, in the new neighborhood, or a street really with 10 houses there was no one my age. Therefore through Middle School and High School I was limited to meeting friends at school and begging my parents to let me hang out with them.

I was in Boy Scouts and ran cross country. Both were great opportunities to hang out with other boys, although that is not the real reason I did them. I enjoyed the activities more than sights. When I started both I did not really understand myself.

Upon graduating High School I insisted on getting out of town for school and went to college 2.5 hours away. Far enough that family would not visit at the drop of a hat, but close enough that I could still get a ride home when I wanted. Upon graduating I found a job, spent a year close to home but dreaming about moving to Colorado the entire time. A little over a year after I graduated I picked up roots again and moved to Colorado Springs where I have been ever since. There are times I consider moving again; however, I just bought a house.

I am single but looking. Have not found anyone yet. I have realized I need to come out of my shell. But I have been comfortable in my shell for 26 years so leaving its safety is harder than I would like.

Colorado Spring’s PrideFest was this past weekend, and in my opinion it was a disappointment. The organizers tried to grow into a big city festival by growing into a two day festival. I made an appearance both days and was not impressed by the attendance. In previous years the park has been packed for hours, but this year it seemed empty. I do not think Colorado Springs is ready for a 2 day festival.

Beyond that there were zero public figures in attendance. The organizers could not get the mayor, any city council members, and county commissioners, state representatives, or political figures of any type to make an appearance. All the organizers were able to obtain was a letter to read from one Senator. I understand that Colorado Springs is a conservative city and the list of candidates who might make an appearance is limited, but this was embarrassing.

Beyond that it was one of the worse parades I can remember. The highlight of the parade was a bunch of gorillas in the back of a truck.

The highlight of the parade. A truck of Dancing Gorillas.

More pictures after the jump.
Read entire article.

While I wait for my card reader to arrive so I can post several of my posts for this week here is a preview for this week. Whenever my card reader arrives (Wednesday?) you will learn about the Colorado Springs PrideFest this year, which in my opinion was not one of the better PrideFest, and biking down Pikes Peak.

In other news it is HOT. In Colorado Springs recorded history it has only broken 100 four times. Today my thermometer read 98. I have run my air conditioning the last 3 days which is my quota for a year when I normally turn on my air conditioner for 2 or 3 days.

Michelle Bachmann is continuing to make fun of herself by signing a pledge saying that slavery was better for African American kids than today’s society, dropping out of her church just before the election that states that the papalcy is satan, and that somehow the quote from her husband that gay teenagers are barbarians that need discipline (sounds like BDSM to me) was taken out of context.

Finally, I really dislike Sony. They are too cheap or too lazy to make their Sony Cybershot line work with Macs. For that reason I will never buy another Sony camera.

Oh, and did I mention it is hot?

It sounds to me like Marcus Bachman is into BDSM. After all gay teens need educated and punished.

A couple weekends ago their was an anti-gay hate crime in Colorado Springs. A couple soldiers, and their friends walked into a restaurant and a group of 5 guys and 2 girls started yelling homophobic slurs at them before escalating into a physical confrontation. In the physical confrontation two of the victims were seriously injured with one having to have his jaw wired shut. What was the big offense that set this off? A few of the victims were gogo dancers and one was still in his costume.

I did not post on this when it occurred because the local reporting on the incident was horrible with no details to share outside of a hate crime happened. Since then a lot of information and political posturing has been ongoing.

The homophobic mayor steve bach has “issued” through submissives statements saying this hate crime was wrong, but has never come out and said so himself. His title of mayor and his name do not even deserve capitalization. In the past couple days gay activists requested that homophobe steve bach make a public statement decrying this hate crime by signing a proclamation. He instead insisted on pointing to a proclamation that the council issued 8 years ago when mayor homophobe was not even involved in politics and stated it was not his job.

Homophobe bach also went on to parade out his chief of police who is sucking bach playing politics and has him state that there is insufficient evidence at this time to state that this crime was a hate crime. This despite the fact that the Colorado State Police consider this a hate crime and are investigating.

So I know that I posted a couple weeks ago saying that Colorado Springs is an OK place to live. However, the more that is coming out of our homophobic council and mayor the more I am starting to think that Colorado Springs deserves its reputation of being the toilet of American right wing nut jobs.

Colorado Springs mayor Steve Bach has refused to sign a proclamation sent to him in support of PrideFest. He made very clear during his campaign that he would not sign this proclamation. This has caused many including Charles Irwin Executive Director of the Colorado Springs Pride Center to issue statements in disgust about this decision.

“During Bach’s inauguration he spoke of focusing on downtown, “making it the heart of the community again, as it should be.” It doesn’t surprise me that this lack of support comes as the Pride Center begins it’s fundraising drive to move our Walk In Center aka The Equality Center to the downtown area. Hopefully just a block from City Hall.”

However, I on the other hand am of a different opinion. I support Mayor Bach’s decision not to sign this proclamation as long as his future records is consistent. Mayor Bach declined to sign the proclamation stating that he is not in the business of signing proclamations and is instead in the business of improving this city. Therefore I support Mayor Bach’s decision as long as he is consistent and does not sign ANY proclamations while in office.

If Mayor Bach signs a proclamation in support of the St Patrick’s Day parade, or African American History month, or even for something as small as a Boy Scout getting his Eagle Scout award I will change this opinion and vigorously object to this decision. From my research in the little over a month Steve Bach has been in office, I have been able to find no proclamations that he has signed.

I will continue to watch him on this. I have even set up a news feed to find out if Mayor Bach issues any proclamations. The first time he issues a proclamation I will post it to this site and I will contact Steve Bach with my opinion.