The April Fool

Growing old is a humbling experience.  I remember all the ways I've failed and been less than I think I should have been throughout my life.  I had a moment like that today.

With all the talk of gay marriage lately I've missed the ol' blog.  I'm on the high council now and the stake presidency knows I'm gay.  We discussed it a bit when I was called because I wanted them to know that I come out to whoever I want whenever I want, and they've got to be okay with that if they want me on the high council.  They were.

I also came out to my parents about 6 months ago.  They were visiting our family and we were chatting about a gay cousin who blocked me from Facebook.  I mentioned, "You know, I'm gay too. FRM and I decided to get married anyway."  My mom took it in for a few minutes while my dad sat opposite us playing with my kids and didn't even notice what I'd said.  And that was it.  There were a few slightly awkward phone calls after that where Mom had to sort of dip a toe in the water to find out if talking about it was okay.  It was.  And it gave us the opportunity for me to disagree with some of her views.  But that was it.  Not spectacularly interesting event, I suppose.

But let me get back to gay marriage for a bit.  I've been on record as being for gay marriage for at least 5 years now, but I find people don't necessarily realize it.  When the topic comes up I take the devil's advocate spot.  With my friends against gay marriage I try to point out that it's fair and pragmatically the right thing to do for people.  With my friends against religious people I try to point out that vilifying and distorting those with whom you disagree doesn't help move the cause forward.  Because I'm always the devil's advocate, people assume that my position is always the opposite of theirs.  But my position is for people to quit being haters of the others; sometimes that ends up with them just a hater of me.

I think it's one of those devil's advocate conversations that must have crept into my cousin's facebook feed that caused him to block me.  My feelings were hurt because we've never once had a conversation about gay anything, let alone gay marriage.  He has no idea how much I've defended him and stood up for him in conversations with other family members.  And frankly, I have no way to let him know because he's closed off all contact.

It's certainly taken a lot of thought and time for me to work through the issues, and I think people should be given the time they need.  For those who think taking too much time makes me a failure, I have no great response.  I'm not perfect.