Christian musician stole my story.

Well, let's say Trey Pearson stole my story.... except for the part where he actually sold albums.  

I struggled while reading this because he talks about the ONLY way to be whole is to come out.  I think that is too personal of a decision to say that there is only one way to be whole. Maybe it is, but I feel hurting too many others by coming out would hurt me more than where I am right now.  

My thoughts also differ in this story as I was not "taught" the bible says it is a sin.  I was "taught" by words and deeds.  "He is a queer."  "That's gross." "He is limp wristed."  I'm not sure it is not sinful, as is adultry, hate, using the Lords name in vain, coveting my neighbors property, and many others.  I'm just sure that being a Christian doesn't mean we are perfect.  Lord, and you all know that is not true.  

Pearson is not abandoning his faith, though he accepts that he may lose some fans because he came out. Still, he plans to release a new single later this year.

Pearson adds,

“There is absolutely no conflict with accepting who I am and following Jesus. God wants me to be healthy, authentic, whole, integrated and my truest self.”

“I definitely know how hard it was on my journey to be able to accept myself, and how other people’s voices and stories helped me. So I absolutely want to be a voice for other people. I know there are more and more Christians that realize how important this is, and I hope I can join with them in seeing this change.” 

Here is the story that I copied from http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/ .  I follow him, just so I can keep a pulse on the anti-christian movements thoughts.  I don't like a lot of what he writes, but I like to see what he is saying.  He also has a similar back story, he at one time was married to a woman, with children.  

Thanks for reading.... and I know it has nothing to do with my sex-life.  I'm sure the next one will.... maybe...  If I ever have it again...

Here are highlights from Religion News Service:

“I don’t mean to cry. It’s just been such a long time coming.”

Trey Pearson, 35, was overcome with emotion halfway into our first interview, and it is easy to understand why. For the past 15 years, he’s been the lead singer of the popular Christian rock band Everyday Sunday. But he decided to put his career on the line this week and acknowledge to his fans that he is gay.

“I finally decided to come out because I couldn’t keep trying to be something that I wasn’t,” he tells me.

(614) Magazine, an entertainment and culture magazine in Columbus, Ohio, will tell Pearson’s story in a 12-page cover story for its June issue. His narrative will ring familiar to many who grew up in a religious community. Pearson was raised in a conservative Christian home where he was taught that sexual orientation was a matter of choice. Though he knew from an early age that he was attracted to other males, he attempted to suppress his feelings and “be straight.”

“I never wanted to be gay,” he tells (614). “I was scared of what God would think and what all of these people I loved would think about me; so it was never an option for me.”

Nearly eight years ago, Pearson married a woman in hopes of achieving the kind of straight dream-life his community would support. Though he and his wife had two children, his hopes never materialized and Pearson realized he “was never going to be who my wife needed me to be.”

“I was not making it an option to be gay so I could be loyal to her and my children,” he told me. “But then I realized the only way I was ever going to be my best for them was to be healthy myself.”

Pearson’s shift places him in the center of a growing movement of popular Christian musicians who are coming out as gay and are advocating for a more open and accepting posture in the church. Ray Boltz, whose songs were staples in evangelical churches throughout the 1990s, came out as gay in 2004. Grammy-nominated Anthony Williams  became the first openly gay gospel artist in 2009. Jennifer Knapp, another Grammy-nominated Christian artist, acknowledged that she was a lesbian one year later. And in 2014, popular worship music artist Vicky Beeching told The Independent that she too was a lesbian.

These musicians paid a hefty price. Since Christian music fans tend to be conservative and believe that homosexual acts are sinful, you won’t hear these artists’ music played in most churches or on Christian radio these days.

I absolutely want to be a voice for other people,” Pearson says. “I know there are more and more Christians that realize how important this is, and I hope I can join with them in seeing this change.”

As for Pearson's letter to his fans and friends, here are excerpts:

 To my fans and friends:

Most of us reach at least one pivotal moment in our lives that better defines who we are.
These last several months have been the hardest – but have also ended up being the most freeing months — of my life.

To make an extremely long story short, I have come to be able to admit to myself, and to my family, that I am gay.

I grew up in a very conservative Christian home where I was taught that my sexual orientation was a matter of choice, and had put all my faith into that. I had never before admitted to myself that I was gay, let alone to anyone else. I never wanted to be gay.

I’ve tried my whole life to be straight. I married a girl, and I even have two beautiful little kids. My daughter, Liv, is six and my son, Beckham, is two.

I had always romanticized the idea of falling in love with a woman; and having a family had always been my dream. In many ways, that dream has come true. But I have also come to realize a lot of time has passed in my life pushing away, blocking out and not dealing with real feelings going on inside of me. I have tried not to be gay for more than 20 years of my life.

I tried to convince myself that this was what God wanted and that this would work. I thought all of those other feelings would stay away if I could just do this right.

When Lauren and I got married, I committed to loving her to the best of my ability, and I had the full intention of spending the rest of my life with her. Despite our best efforts, however, I have come to accept that there is nothing that is going to change who I am.

I know I have a long way to go. But if this honesty with myself about who I am, and who I was made by God to be, doesn’t constitute as the peace that passes all understanding, then I don’t know what does. It is like this weight I have been carrying my whole life has been lifted from me, and I have never felt such freedom.

In sharing this publicly I’m taking another step into health and wholeness by accepting myself, and every part of me. It’s not only an idea for me that I’m gay; It’s my life. This is me being authentic and real with myself and other people. This is a part of who I am.

I hope people will hear my heart, and that I will still be loved. I’m still the same guy, with the same heart, who wants to love God and love people with everything I have. This is a part of me I have come to be able to accept, and now it is a part of me that you know as well. I trust God to help love do the rest.

Anderson Cooper - Vanderbilt and Me

He is so fucking sexy,
and beautiful.

I watched CBS this Morning and the story about Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt today.  I think of this handsome man, and all he has been through.  The loss of his father at a young age, and the the death of his brother, who jumped from a balcony to his death, and wonder, how do our lives compare.

I'm not talking about the money, and fame, we know where that stands.  But where his life as an out man, is different than mine.  What if I would have had the courage to be OUT. Either when I was a kid, or now.  There are times I want to be free of this lie, of this life I have built.  But then, I have to sit back and realize that I have build a great thing.  Others would disagree, but I'm 51, I have a career, I have built a family that is loving and full of life.  We care for each other, love each other despite our differences.

Then I read this contrast in family.

Los Angeles father allegedly killed son because he was gay.

I do have an extended family that is homophobic, but would never go this far.  Last time I was home, my father was lamenting over his friend's son who is gay and living in New York with his husband.  They have a family vacation, and take family pictures during it.  He can't believe that his friend is okay with the pictures of the gay son's husband in the picture.  More so that they would post it on Facebook.  And furthermore, how they would allow this behavior next to the gay son's sister's kids.  Showing it as normal. Of course I sit and just listen.  Say nothing, wanting to debate him on his views.

I guess it brings me back to what makes one life better than another?  Just because one is out, does that make his life better?  Is one life more moral than the other?

I say NO.  It is different.

Long time

Hey guys!  I have not posted in a long time.  I guess that is a good thing.  I'm really settling back into the married life as a gay man.

So what has been happening?  Well, mostly boring stuff.  I have been traveling, and finding a play partner here and there, but have mostly realized that I need to make sure I keep to a really high standard.  When you get to my age (upper 40s) not just anyone wants to get together, and those that do, you have to make sure they are not dead beats, or ugly, or weird.  I have stayed to real safe stuff.

Personally my wife and I are getting into the groove of our new life, one with running the farm by ourselves and with our daughter in college.  It is pretty stressful without her dad to help with the farm, but in some respects, she needs me more to help out.

So.........  Boring here........  

"I'm doing okay."

What do you say when someone asks you, "How are you doing?"?  I am a, "I'm doing okay."  Type of guy.  Sometimes I get the response, "Just okay?".  I usually tell the person. "Yeah, just okay. Do you want me to lye and tell you I'm doing great, or perfect?"

I don't usually let them know why I'm not doing great, but I do want to ask them why it is so important that I am doing great.  Most people don't have it great all the time do they?

Well where is this leading?  Well my last post was really depressing, and from the comments (Which i appreciated.) I must of sounded real bad.  I guess lets just say I still am "okay".  Not "Feeling like I'm about to kill myself." and not "Best ever." 

Will I go see a therapist?  I probably won't.  For two reasons.  1.  Money.  I know everyone said screw the money go do it.  Insurance will pay for some of it.  But reason 2. says why spend the money?  2. Wife.  I know that she would want to talk about every detail the therapist and I speak.  It is not worth the trouble aftwerwards.

If you haven't figured out.  I like to put my head in the sand, and let the world twirl around me.  That is just me.... that is my whole family...   I should get this statue for our home. 

Still Gay.  Still married. Still doing stupid things that feel right at the moment.  Probably just going to go and have sex with a man.... that will fix it all.  Well for two hours or so it will...

Will My Family Love Me?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  Not because I'm contemplating coming out, but because it has always  been a question in my mind since I relieved who I was. My wife and I had discussed this a lot when I first told her. My family is the epitome of small town, conservative, christian values.  I hear fag comments when I'm at home all the time. Not directed at me, but in everyday conversations. They know people who are gay, but they do not know anyone real close to them. 

I guess the real question is not will the LOVE me.  But will they want to be around me or accept me if they were to know. I think some would, although they would treat me completely differently. I think they would have a long period of morning, and loss. I know gay would "disgust" some, but they would come around.  I think the problem is most people, including my family, see being gay as a sexual thing.  They can never imagine sex with someone of the same sex, so to them that is disgusting.  Well here is my thought.  I can think of some sex between people of opposite sex and think, "How disgusting."  When I say that I mean, dirty, gross, unclean people, having sex disgusts me. 

It is about who you long to love and be intimate with. I think that is the hard part for them to understand. As I've said before, If you are in the closet you sometimes make it all about sex because that is all that you will allow the world to see, and that is all that you can keep "down low" with out the world or your family knowing. I could not allow myself to get close to another man. So I understand in a way why people think it is all about sex.

I remember right before I decided to tell my wife, I was confiding in several guys, but one was still married, but living "apart" from his wife.  I was starting to fall for him.  I wanted his comfort.  To see him was so exciting to me.  Once my wife and I decided to stay together, I had to pull away quickly.  He understood, and pulled away as well.  But again, that was easy for him as well. 

So again, it is not all about the sex, and I think once people figure that out, they have an easier time accepting that their loved ones are different.  Some in my wife's family know.  They accept me, but they are part of the secret as well.  Not telling anyone, and yes they do treat me a little differently.  But maybe I just take it differently because they are part of the lie and secret.

Will my parents, and siblings ever know? Or do they already "know" but won't admit it? Will I ever tell them?  I don't know what God has in store for me, but for now these questions will stay in the closet with my wife and me.

Peace