Several months ago I submitted my personal blog address to several bloggernacle blogs to be linked. The blogs had a specific policy regarding which blogs they would link, and I thought my blog complied nicely. It's LDS themed (and sexuality themed, but LDS just as much, I think), and generally uplifting in its goal. I checked back several times afterward to see my link, but it never showed up. This was on more than one blog in the bloggernacle ring, mind you. I never got any kind of acknowledgment from the blog administrators as to why my blog was not suitable, so I was left to speculate all on my own why I had been excluded.
I can't help but imagine the worst. I don't want to believe that I was excluded just because I'm gay or they found my blog distasteful. But what else could it have been? I talk about sex on my blog on occasion, but I don't think I've ever been offensive or inappropriate. Perceptions can be very subjective though, I suppose. I didn't think a post about sexual attitudes was too salacious, but I saw a link afterward where I was criticized for having discussed my little boy running around naked (without context). So, maybe my writing is just too much for some. Maybe I just did it to myself.
I'm disappointed to say that I still suspect that my being excluded represents a homophobic undercurrent in the ostensibly open-minded and tolerant folks in the bloggernacle. Creating a new blog--one with multiple contributors and a very clear intent to help faithful members dealing with homosexual issues--seemed one possible way to break free of this marginalization. It should have been unnecessary to be treated with respect by the cerebral naclers; regardless, I still don't know if the new blog will merit a link either.
Now, imagine my disappointment when I realized that at least one good friend of mine felt marginalized in exactly the same way with the start of this new blog. In my impatience to get the blog up and running, we created a subset of the blogs discussing LDS and homosexual themes that we thought were written by people who would want to be included in the new "community." This ended up being very hurtful for people who were mistakenly left off. It was a mistake, sure enough, but that doesn't make it any less regrettable and unfortunate.
Yesterday I was explaining friends' hurt feelings to my wife, as well as the misconception that we don't want varied points of view to be discussed, and the horrible notion that I'm just up and leaving my existing blog and promoting some bipartisan break in the community. She said, "Why do you need another blog? I mean, if you're going to discuss the same sort of things you always have..." She knows that I consider many of the non-LDS commenters on my blog to be friends and that I really appreciate all their feedback and insights. What purpose could this new blog serve other than to be divisive? I told her some of the history I've just written here--of being excluded from the bloggernacle rolls and feeling misunderstood. This seemed like a way to add a level of comfort--perhaps even just a superficial one--for those who want to feel very reassured that exploring homosexual issues is not a "bad" thing to do. And by adding one more URL, we haven't taken away any. If it helps more people to feel comfortable getting into and out of their issues, I will feel like the new blog will have done some good.
2 comments:
I must admit that I too was somewhat reserved about the idea of a new blog reserved for those who can be more "clean" in their speech, topic discussion and visual component of their posts. However, my need is to be able to go to a place that I don't have to worry about being placed in tempting situations. My real need for blogging and reading other blogs is to seek that support from gay lds men going through the same trial as myself yet remaining true to the teachings of the church.
-L-, I'm ok with Northern Lights. I'm glad to be a part of it. I'm tired, to be brutally honest, of the guys who decide the trial of living all the principles of the gospel, of keeping the covenants they've made, of choosing to "be true to themselves." I didn't choose to be SGA either, but I am one who has chosen to be faithful to my wife and family, to keep the covenants I've made, and to try to be an example to the younger guys out there that you can actually have a wife and a family and be active in the Church and still have the feelings and not act on them and be happy - all at the same time!
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