18:28
The Ruthless Unapologetics After Silence
What
it feels like to be gay: I was sitting
in an ugly but comfortable, green chair, next to the trivial small talk of a black,
Jamaican staff sergeant, chatting over speaker phone with a fellow Marine
recruiter- a sergeant- waiting on our boss to come in an’ finish our training
about rape ethics, and I felt it’s just not the time, place, or people to jump
up on the table and say “DOMA IS DEAD!!!!”
Indeed, I am hiding under the
torture of wanting to know more about - I can't access the internet on my phone as well to read the news- as much as to tell these people the outstanding revelation, allowing the weight to crush the
air out of my lungs, and keep my mouth shut. It it’s not out of fear of
reprisal. Just no one cares. And no one would care about the breathlessness I
feel now. I’m fainting, the oxygen leaving my blood, and my thoughts white out, too. And I am again caught in the upset of
not knowing how I should be allowed to feel (and then, what do I feel?).This weekend, it’s time to celebrate. And I deserve to celebrate.
But this silence that I’m suspending myself in as I wait for this weekend… The silence. I have been appropriately silent for a long time. A very long time. It’s a time for celebration, but a time for reflection as well. And I deserve to deluge the suffering- minuscule in comparison maybe. I have kept in silent burden incredible injustice imposed on me by animus, for animus’ sake.
And I’m ready to speak.
Background: I figured out I was gay when I was twelve.
The same time I realized my identity as Mormon. I was blissfuly lonely and
neglected as a child; I had a very transparent and empty support and social
sphere. I was alone, but observing, almost all of my developmental years, all
the way up to… That's not the point here.
Truth.The point is Truth.
How do you “normal” people interpret Truth? Obviously, you mix some strange subsets of reconciliation between beliefs and actual experiences through varying amounts of emotional response or logical deduction (the two are almost always mutually exclusive).
For me, Truth is. And when I was twelve, I was met with Truth yet again.
The visits before? I didn’t know my father personally- he was a presence in my life that had to be dealt with; Truth was that he was a hazard. Mother was not present, even when she was, for many reasons, none of which I blame her for; Truth was she was unreliable. People are whimsical and detached unless circumstance endears them toward you and they decide to spend time with you; Truth was that you had only yourself as a friend.
I read the Bible’s passages condemning homosexuality. They confused me. They didn’t make sense. They applied to me, in essence, despite being factually inaccurate. I didn’t have anyone to help me. But God. So I submitted, as Mormon children are taught to do, and offered my ignorance and good intentions to God:
Make me straight, or tell me I’m okay. Because I feel that I have done nothing wrong, and yet am so corely shaken and hurt. I am hated for something that I don’t even understand myself. I don’t understand. I don’t. But I don’t want to be a bad person; more to the point, I don’t feel like one. So if these two things- Good, Gay- cannot exist together, then fix it. Fix me. Or tell me that I’m okay.
It felt something so incredibly powerful at the time… I didn’t cry very often. I really don’t cry. I don’t like it. It feels lost when you cry by yourself. It feels fake when you do it around others. It’s a sleight of hand trick, and you’re either weak or a charlatan when you do it. But when these thoughts were running through my head, I found myself absentmindedly in tears. Not silent tears as I was accustomed, too. Not controlled. I was bawling for a moment, uncontrollably- a body reacting to some kind of pain, but completely entrapped in the dilemma in my heart and mind and soul.
But after I offered myself to God, I felt better. I didn’t feel better- I felt Good. I felt Good as a state, and I felt as a feeling, the essence of Good wash over me. It was seriously like being in a wooded grove, overcast and cold, lonely and afraid. And light breaking through the clouds and leaves, and touching me. I felt the warmth in my tears, and I smiled a genuine smile. I felt Truth. The Truth was in the honesty of the smile. God heard me, and God would take care of me. I interpreted that as God had accepted my willingness to do the right thing, and would make me straight.
The next day at school, I ran into some of the other students and the first thing that came to mind was that a guy was cute. He said something to me, and I had the butterfly effect in my lungs, and after he left, it hit me. Nothing changed. I was disappointed for a second, then I remembered the sun breaking through the dark sky. Nothing changed because I was okay. God was telling me I was okay.
The Truth: No matter what other people believe or think or say or justify or permeate or legislate or proselytize or attack or theorize or contemplate or instigate or are- ‘I’- me- who I am… I am okay. There is nothing wrong with me. … I may be a little unique and that poses its unique challenges with it. But I’m okay. “Even God says so.”
In the
spring of 2010, DADT became a thing. A big thing. A very big thing. “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell”, a mantra that I had long ago accepted as a personal code of ethics
in the first place. I generally didn’t tell people I was gay unless they asked,
and even then, not unless I knew you and trusted you. It was a bit of bushido-
you don’t tell people things unless you want them to know, both tactically and
intimately. But I had joined the Marine Corps in 2004. And I was a sergeant
now, in the Missouri heat, and I was constantly being bombarded with things I
had to swallow quietly.
It was about this time that the full
effect of the injustice of our world was hitting me. Prop 8 was going to the
courts, yet again. DADT was in argument as well as the beginnings of what would
crush DOMA (and yes, DOMA, the unabashed catalyst gets its foreboding and
foreshadowing mention- the eldritch abomination that is the origin to this blog
entry). You see… I was always okay. Even when I was twelve and alone, I had managed to marry without any real difficulty the hypothetically unrelateable concepts of Good and Gay. These people in the Corps, on TV, on Fox News Forums- They weren’t inherently bad people. They just needed someone to show them the way things were. They also had to be willing, though, and the fact that they weren’t really enraged me. But nevertheless, the courts and logic would prevail. Because logic is the common denominator in a country that is ultimately ruled by the people. Because if it don’t make sense, sooner or later it dies. In the end, you cannot divide by zero.
Only it didn’t die.
It didn’t die fast enough.
My fiancé was a Corporal down the street with the 9th District. We had been together for two years, and it was time for us to re-station. Coincidentally, we were hitting our tenure on this installation at the same time. There were spots open for both his and my MOS's (jobs) in Seattle and Ft. Lewis respectively. They were an hour apart from each other. We could live inbetween and drive thirty minutes to work. We could make that our life, and so easily. My officer-in-charge, CWO Lopez was friends with my monitor, MGySgt Hicks. And that friendship was already preestablished to get me any seat I wanted, as long as it was open. Because I was a good Marine. I had played by the rules not just with DADT. I worked hard, fought hard, and meant for the best, and the CWO loved me for that. Bryan got orders to Seattle. I was going to ask for Ft. Lewis.
I loved Bryan so much. He was the absolute center of my world. He was the Truth of Love for me. A very special, unique feeling I had never felt before. Like all relationships, it had its moments, but ours never lasted more than a moment, except the rare special fights you're supposed to have as your relationship matures. And we never once went to sleep angry at each other. And this was Providence. It was perfect. We’d get to go to the same place, and continue our lives together. And DADT might get repealed and … It was so idyllic.
Until at the last second they fucked Bryan, cancelled his orders for no apparent reason, and refused to tell him where they were sending him for months. The time came where I had to pick a place to go- the MGySgt was coming to MOBCOM for our BRAC’ing down to NOLA (shutting the command down) and everyone needed orders at once. Last rumor was that Bry may get Salt Lake City. I asked the MGySgt, who was very irritated that suddenly Ft. Lewis was not my destination, if there was anything near SLC. He sent me to Portland, OR. Later, Bryan got his orders to Albuquerque, NM.
And the seeds of bitterness were sewn.
Over
the course of the following two years, DADT was put up for a social experiment.
Surveys were taken and psychoanalyzed. I had to take it myself. I know what was
on it- and I thought it was hilarious how people were lying on Fox News about
it. That the questions were skewed to favor certain wording; that some
questions were asked that weren’t; that some questions weren't, that were. Etc.
It was funny, and infuriating.
And for the entire time, people kept
talking. And I had to keep my mouth shut. I couldn’t say anything about how it
was affecting me, and that was indeed the point of DADT. How the only reason I
was in 6th Engineer Support Battalion was because I wasn’t allowed to- in a
pivotal moment- say something as simple as, “Look… I want to marry this guy. I
love him. The only reason I can’t is because it’s illegal in the military. Even
if we couldn’t get benefits, I want to marry him, but any attempt to do so, in
a legal sense or not, breaks DADT, and we’re trying to play by the rules. But
this is so easy… Can you just talk to the MPAR monitor and explain the
situation? I’m sure they’ll fix our orders- there’s no conceivable reason they
wouldn’t…” Other than bigotry, which is of course a potential considering how
high rank (old) the monitors were. But … my experience since DADT repeal is
that they would’ve considered it. And no one is that malicious in the military
against your fellow Marines. … Well, some, but it’s rare.Nevertheless, I couldn’t say anything. I had to sit in silence as people talked about things they didn’t understand. Made comments that were offensive as hell. Made jokes that were hilarious because they were true. I had a Sergeant Major come up behind me, talking to the Corporal across from me, asking how they would deal with the fact that most gays are pedophiles. The poor corporal couldn’t say anything. He figured out I was gay on his own, and the helplessness I felt was reflected in his eyes. Even though he had perfectly valid things to say, could support his own opinions and facts without me, and indeed wanted to, the fact that I was there, and unable to speak. He couldn’t speak. The major stepped in and tried to deescalate the situation before the Smaj said something worse (and he did- bestiality, the usual).
And, y’know the thing was… He was serious. He was genuinely confused. The Sergeant Major was seriously just that ignorant, and it was all he ever knew. If it weren’t for DADT, I could’ve just swiveled and explained, “That factoid is based on several studies that came decades ago, and generated with very loose definitions of terms that were not actually looking to identify the sexuality of perpetrators for sexual crimes against minors. If you’d like, I can pull them up and explain how the studies came about, and the more modern ones that very clearly show that statistically speaking, pedophiles are consistent in percentage of gay and straight as the general population is; and that generally speaking, pedophiles don’t rape along sexual orientation lines anyways.” (They abuse children, based on attraction to children; not men towards boys or girls depending on an orientation.)
These kinds of things bore down on me literally every single day for two years. And when it was all said and done, Bryan and I broke up. I broke up with him. For many different reasons, but the origin of the issues I’m confident is because we were separated. We were perfect together. Even when we had problems and they became worse and worse, when we were actually physically together, until the very end… we were perfect together.
You
see, when people bashed me on the internet, my anger was silent. I tried to correct
them. When people insulted me and insinuated things between me and my
chosen-blood brother in highschool, my anger was silent. I ignored them and
tried to protect him. When I joined the Marine Corps and I had to play by rules
that I never believed in- when I read the three rules on homosexuality at the
MEPS inprocessing station, my anger was silent. I knew what I was doing and I
chose to serve for all the right reasons- and I don’t believe it belies
humility to say it was selfless of me. When I heard the Church actively- and
illegally- making political demands of its host, my anger was silent. With
couthie grace I stopped coming back. When Bryan was taken from me and sent to
Albuquerque- despite every indication to me that it was wrong- so incredibly
fucking wrong- my anger was silent. Because it was what I signed up for, and
true love can withstand these things, and there was no use in being upset about
things you can’t control; you just endure.
Only it didn’t.And when DADT was almost not repealed. Silence: Logic and Truth will one day prevail.
When it miraculously WAS repealed. Silence: This is a good thing, and we should be happy, regardless of the shady circumstances.
Years of politics, intrigue, insults, and evolution, and here we are at the Supreme Court decision, and what do we have?
… Surprisingly… people… uh, sorta’ doing the right thing. The logical thing. The logical right thing.
Truth.
They sided with Truth. And uncomplicated, simple Truth at that.
I’m a
little lost for words. I was almost certain, if they deemed it unconstitutional
at all, that they’d do so through Section II, arguing about the
entirely distilled notions of states having to recognize each other’s
marriages. Unconstitutionallizing (neologism) Section III left the issue up to the states ultimately. But this could be
argued to mean many things. It forces nothing on no one, but it … well, I’m not
sure. It kinda’ does.
You see, the right thing to do this
whole time was to accept that sexual orientation- a term I will use as a
bludgeoning tool that will cover the conglomerate complicated multitudes of
trying to define sex- is not
something you can attack, nor codify attacks againstit into law. That it is
functionally the same as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, creed, etc.
Religion probably the best parallel. Anyone can be
anything, and you generally can’t tell, unlike race with skin tones (note that
many mulattos can pass for whatever they’d like, too, though); sure, you can
tell a Jew by the Kippah (unless he’s Samaritan) but just like you can tell a
Gay by the earrings (unless he’s a metrosexual)- [and for both parentheses, “same thing?” applies].This court ruling does still manage to leave a bitter taste in my mouth: It does not establish that sexual orientation deserves ‘heightened scrutiny’. The cynic in me believes that’s intentional; I could be persuaded to believe it was a colossal but unintentional error. The effect is that any court in the states can be challenged by this ruling for the effect of marriage equality, and there is a beyond reasonable chance that marriage equality will win. Rather, it would be conflicting for equality not to win with this Supreme Court decision in your pocket.
I have been dreading this moment for a long time. I was afraid of a several decade regression when the Court decided against us. That it'd be time to finish my tour, and move to a place that would accept me and my future husband. That I may never be in a safe happy place. And I am so overwhelmed. I will be even more. I want to be happy.
And I will allow myself to be happy… After this final section of the post:
For
years I kept my mouth shut while people around me- everyone around me- got to
say their piece. Okay, that’s not that true. Some people had to keep their
mouths shut like me, and on all angles. Not everyone got to have their voices
heard. So be it. But in this space, for me to ever find the day I may bury this
hatchet, I am going to speak:
I am incredibly and unapologetically
disappointed with humanity that this evil was ever allowed against me and people like me in the first place. I am
determined to never forgive the generalized populations that put me in the
circumstances I was put into- and God may shake His head in dismay at that. For
Bryan. For all the people who murdered by their own hands over the years. For the lost
souls who died from AIDS and were told it was their punishment from God. For their friends, lovers, and spouses who were denied the right to see them as they passed in the hospital; who took them away from those places when the hospitals refused to give good care and take care of them. For the children stolen; the families decimated by legal technicalities and judges 'helpless' to keep kids with the parents they belonged to. For
the lives destroyed by the rules and articles governing
the Armed Forces of the United States. For us all. For me.
I will never forgive you for what you did to me.
I played by your sick, disgusting games and for what? For your personal satisfaction in knowing that your ways are the old ways and visa versa; they are the laws of the land. For your personal comfort zone, because you couldn’t fathom- let alone stand- the notion of me having the same rights as you (and I appreciate attempts to digress that I always had the same rights, but I am disinclined to argue simple concepts with people who feign idiocy to maintain purity in their broken ideologies).
You caused the most absolute form of suffering on your own fellow human beings for no logical reason. You watched them die. You had them die- suffering, and alone, believing they were bad people. And you did it out of fear. Out of arrogance. Out of spite. And many of you did it gladly. In the name of God, in the name of Country, in the name of Good. And some of you knew you liked it.
Maybe it’s a bit existentialist, but I know Truth. I know it when I stop and I just listen to my heart. When I feel warmth. When I feel that warmth and light breaking the darkness around me. I know not everyone believes, and I’m okay with that, but I have a true faith and testimony in God. I felt Someone lift me out of that darkness. What I feel is what I feel. And disgust is not an indicator of right and wrong. Hatred is not an indicator of right and wrong. Fear is not an indicator of right and wrong. But Love- Love absolutely is an indicator of right and wrong. And for you to see Love and not see Truth is an impossibility to me. You knew what you were doing as you did it, and regardless of the reasons that made you do what you should’ve known was wrong- whether you knew it was wrong-
I don’t forgive you. As long as you hide in your ignorance- and often even when you come out of it- I will not forgive you.
