Lodge is a Force of Nature

This past weekend, I drove up north to spend a weekend at Spider Lake Lodge. My awesome friends Nancy and JP reserved the entire lodge for the weekend and then invited a bunch of their friends to take the various rooms. The awesome weekend was full of lounging and relaxing, plenty of drinking, walking and snowshoeing in the woods. Saturday night, we all dressed in 70's attire and acted out one of those murder mystery dinners.

I've never been one to volunteer for "roughing it." I'm what you call an indoor sort of guy. Give me a W hotel and my AmEx card and I'm pretty much happy. And as many of you know, I am not a fan of the cold weather. So travelling up north in winter to spend a few days in the wooded wild in a place with animal heads on the wall is a bit of a stretch for me. But I'm stepping outside of my box these days, and any weekend with friends is a weekend to be cherished and remembered. The above group photo was taken during one of our treks over the iced lake.

And in the spirit of the great outdoors and taking my cue from a few recent gay characters who knew how to rough it, I had to pay my homage to Brokeback Mountain by wearing my cowboy hat.

I wish I knew how to quit myself.

A Gathering Storm

One of my favorite authors is Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who has gone on to write many books about the human condition. He has been awarded the Nobel prize for Peace for his work in uniting humankind and speaking out against the cruelties that humans suffer at the hands of each other. His book, Night, changed the way I thought about everything. I had the distinct pleasure of listening to him speak a number of years ago about the massacres in Rwanda and how, for him, our world now is full of parallels to his world before his encampment. He mentioned how he cringes when people say that the Holocaust could never happen again because he sees the same skies collecting that he once saw as a boy.

School never taught me about the Holocaust - not truly. Of course, my education hit on the high points. I was left with the idea that the German army, in one fell swoop, moved Jews to the concentration camps where they were systematically destroyed. One day they were free, the next they were imprisoned. And it was only Jews. It wasn't until I visited the Holocaust museum in Washington DC that I learned about the nonJews that were included and I understood about the time leading up to the move to the camps. The degradation started small. Jews were not able to purchase certain nonessential items like flowers or wine. They were not able to enjoy concerts or restaurants. Later, there were curfews. Jewish children were unable to go to school. Jews had to register and carry papers, wear gold stars in plain sight, ration their food. By the time they were asked to move from their homes into the Warsaw ghetto, the decree was just one in a long line of ways to make an entire people invisible. And nobody could imagine that there existed enough cruelty and evil in the world to euthanize an entire race. And so they got on the train.

I was reminded of this when I read this article from a Montana newspaper (thanks Towleroad). The article describes how the Montana Family Association is opposed to new measures by the Montana Board of Education to limit bullying in schools. They feel that the measures that would limit the bullying of LGBT students dangerously promote a homosexual lifestyle and those measures should be excluded. Essentially, bullying of LGBT kids is OK and there should be no measures to prevent or penalize such bullying behavior. It is easy to dismiss this as ultraconservative or wingnut behavior but the measure is up for a vote. And take a look around. Gay men have been unable to donate blood or plasma for a long time but it was just this year that this might extend to sperm donation. We still have no overall employment protection and can still be fired just for being gay. This year alone, we have read stories about gay people denied access to country clubs, private properties, and even this country. There is sweeping legislation, constitutional changes, on the table to significantly limit our ability to maintain family and relationships. And people are still murdered for no other reason than being gay. The skies are cloudy indeed.

Many civil rights and minority groups are torn on where to stand. Will standing up for us weaken their own position on the political power scale. So many people say that there is no comparison. Homosexuality is a choice, your race is not. People cannot hide the color of their skin, gay people can live in the closet. And certainly through the ages, many have hidden in order to survive. Those who can "pass" might have a chance in this world. But should we have to make that decision? Should having to choose the shame of denying our own life, beliefs, culture, race, ever be a choice? And are the seemingly little degradations that we endure, the denials, the slow and quiet dissolution of our civil liberty, the fuel for the greater fire on our own road to invisibility? When the time comes, will we not even be able to see ourselves anymore?

After listening to Mr. Wiesel talk that evening, I had the chance to stand in front of him - to meet this amazing man who had changed my way of thinking about things. This man who has stood in the presence of and voiced his opinions to politicians, kings, spiritual leaders, law makers, and great free thinkers now stood in front of me. He looked at me as I imagine he looked at all of those greater men when I asked him what the solution was, how we can change this world that we live in before it is too late. His words were probably the same. With a gentle voice, he only said this to me,

"Remember one thing at all times. Be good to each other."

Surprise, Surprise

http://uk.gay.com/headlines/9511

Apparently, I'm not the only one selfish out there.

Boycott

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17866401%255E2702,00.html

I guess the American Family Association will now have to boycott going to all movies. Stop the insanity!

Selfish

One of the great things about being out at work is that your co-workers get very comfortable talking about gay topics and you really get a nice view into the thought process of conservative heteros. Case in point. Last week, a co-worker asked me if my BF and I were ever planning on having children. Now, aside from the fact that I find most children annoying, I have no desire to parent in this day and age. Neither does he. And personally, I don't want to spend my energy constantly wondering whether I was fucking it up. In this case, I thought a simple "no" would suffice.

"Oh, so you're one of those selfish gay couples who wants to spend all of their money on themselves". Wham, I did not see that one coming. I mean, this was even worse than the "you shouldn't get married because gay men are not capable of maintaining a monogamous relationship" rant I have heard multiple times before. I am so tired of these ludicrous arguments - these "good gay/bad gay" delineations.

If by selfish you mean that I prefer to use my hard earned salary toward paying back my loans from years of postgraduate education (while my friends were going on spring break). Or toward helping my brother adopt a child of his own. Or putting it toward my godson's college education. Maybe you mean the money I donate to GLSEN, the organization that promotes the healthy education of LGBT youth. But even if you mean the money I selfishly wasted on my Prada loafers, the John Varvatos sweater (which I got at rack price), the seemingly silly 36 hour trips to Atlanta just to see friends at their pool party, the trip to Hawaii and the upgraded mustang convertible rental, too bad. TOO. BAD.

Because mostly, I think that you are just jealous. I don't think that you can stand the fact that, as a gay man, I am not constrained by many of the social pressures that plague you. I don't have to get married just because we've been dating a certain amount of time and all of her friends are married. (Or god forbid, people think I'm gay.) I am not forced to choose one person to be intimate with for what is assumed to be the rest of my life. I don't have to feel cornered into having children because of a proverbial inner clock or because I should want them. Some might, but I don't. If that makes me selfish, so be it. I choose to travel and see the world. I choose to look fabulous with my even more fabulous friends, drinking gin under a hot sun, eating at a swanky restaurant, or dancing the night away. I choose to openly negotiate my sex life, with respect, like an adult. I choose to come home from work, have a beer and pizza, pop in a DVD, and relax without any interruption. And I'm lucky enough to have found another person who doesn't mind figuring out what being selfish together means, hell maybe for the rest of our lives. And by the tone in your voice, something tells me that you wish you could be selfish too.

The whole thing just got me thinking, and it all makes sense now. You don't believe that we should be able to have or adopt children, but you do think that we should want them. You don't believe that we should be allowed to get married, but you do think that we should all want to maintain sexually monogamous relationships. You think that we should all want to be like you but you don't believe that we ever could. Maybe it's because if you allowed yourself to see us in a positive light as equals, you would realize that it's not so much how we wish we were like you, but rather how much you wish you were like us. And that, frankly, scares you.