On Friday night, my partner and I attended a dinner that was part of our state’s HOG (Harley Owner’s Group) Rally, which is being held not far from where we live. As part of the dinner, a local comedy troupe performed. The six members of the group who were there are undergraduate students at my alma mater, the University of Maryland.

Most of the comedy routines were rather lame, but the performers were trying. I’m not quite sure they knew what would be funny to a bunch of middle-aged bikers. However, about 15 minutes into their series of routines, a black male who was part of the group was introduced to give a stand-up routine. What spilled out of his mouth was astonishing. He made many disparaging remarks about gay people — over and over again. Not just one “joke,” but a continuing series of bigoted, intolerant, and completely ignorant statements.

“I don’t mind gay men as long as they are masculine and watch football. What I hate are the prissy guys, as all of them are.”

This is what was ringing in my partner and my ears when we got up and walked out.

I am a white gay male. I would have been lynched if I got up and gave a stand-up routine with jokes about black people.

This kid should be ashamed. He should not get away with this ignorant behavior.

I have to give most of the adults in the audience credit — they weren’t laughing.

Believe me, I am following up. However, the follow-up may not be what you might expect. I am reaching out to ask to sit down with this kid, and educate him about who a gay man is. I will let him know how hurtful, insensitive, and totally absurd his statements were — along with a healthy dose of incredulity that his behavior put the words “black bigot” together in my mind for the first time. I hope I can help him understand that what he was saying was totally wrong and should never, ever, be repeated again.

What would you do? If you had a chance to sit down with this kid, what would you say? Comments are welcome! Either click on the comment section of this blog, or if you just want to tell me what’s on your mind, write to me privately.

I am gay; no secret. I’m out to my family, friends, in my community where I live and volunteer, and where I work. I consider myself a masculine gay man. My voice sounds like any other adult male. I carry myself that way. I wear boots (always) and prefer jeans, t-shirts, and when it’s cooler, wearing leather. I ride a motorcycle. I build things. But I don’t care for sports … or women (sexually), though I have many female friends.

There are other gay men who behave differently from me. That’s fine; everyone is different. Some are more effeminate sounding. Some dress in fine suits and are clothes horses. Some like dancing and partying late into the night. Some are single, and some are not.

I am among the latter — as it says in my intro on this blog (to the right), I am monogamously partnered. I don’t hide the fact that I am partnered, and that I love my man (and he loves me).

But I have to say, sometimes the Gay Community, as ever it may be defined, is very hard on itself. There are some gay people who ridicule other gay guys for their looks, appearance, interests (fetish or otherwise), and behavior.

There are times when I have been subject to what may be defined as “hate speech” or “ignorant speech” from some men who are heterosexual. I do not often think of myself as a minority, but as a gay man, I am. So the discrimination and negativity directed at what other people do not understand and/or fear happens sometimes. I deal with it. But that’s one reason why my partner and I choose to live where we do, because our community, county, and state is generally more accepting and tolerant (compared with states such as Virginia where my partner once lived.)

But what seriously puzzles me is how hateful and catty the gay community can be. For example, I received an email the other day from a gay guy who likes boots but apparently, for whatever reason, doesn’t like me. I don’t even know the guy, but he took it upon himself to insult me. Well, as I have often said, “sticks and stones….”

Then I heard some gay guys making fun of another gay man because he wasn’t out. Yet they themselves live part-way in the closet.

Then there are the gay guys who have a partner, but then post photos of themselves and write with sexual innuendo implying … whatever … but to me, it is unfaithfulness. But because I don’t want to go down the road of being judgmental as some have been toward me, I have let it go. They do what they do, and I talk about my partner a lot. So be it. To each his own.

But there’s no need for gay people to attack other gay people through rude email messages, posts on internet forums, or talking behind backs (as word eventually gets back to the person being talked about) and spreading gossip or rumors. Some of these guys need to get a life. They may think they have a life, but if they have to resort to being rude and negative, then they have more growing up to do.

If the Gay Community expects heterosexual people to be fair, just, and let them live a decent life, then we must hold ourselves to the same standard.

John F. Kennedy said, “…civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.”

Last week at the grocery store, I bumped into someone who I remember being close to in Junior High and High School. She got married almost immediately after high school graduation, and moved with her husband out of state. She never came back for high school reunions. I had not seen her since we both were 17 years old.

When we recognized each other, we smiled and said hello. It was evident that we both were in a bit of a hurry, so we exchanged contact information and promised to follow up.

That evening, I sent her an email. I brought her up-to-date since high school graduation. I mentioned the names of some of our mutual friends and what I knew about how they were doing. I also said that I had built a house and settled down with my partner, and explained that we had been together 16 years now, are happy, and are going strong. I also remember that her mother and mine had gotten to know each other, so I asked about her Mom and sadly explained that mine had died.

Two days later, I received a reply, which surprised and deeply disappointed me. At first, she caught me up on her life and family, including the status of her Mom (who has Alzheimer’s) in one paragraph. Then in five subsequent paragraphs, she ranted about my being gay, and said things like “when did you go do that?” and “why?” and then railed all the anti-gay quotes from the Bible. She explained that she had become Christian, and that she wanted to “save me.”

Oh please… it’s obvious that she has become brainwashed from what she has been taught to believe. It’s so sad, too, because when I knew her, I thought she had a fairly open mind. Not now….

I replied by saying this:

Thanks for your message. I’ve been gay since I was born, but did not realize it until I was in college. I did not “become” gay, I was born that way. If you can not accept it, then I’m sorry. I live a solid life with a man I love deeply, and who loves me. We work, we care for our families and do civic work in the community. We’re no different from any other couple who loves one another.

Then I signed my name and that was that… and I have not heard from her again.

By serendipity, a very similar situation happened to my best friend, AZ, who got in contact with his former third grade girlfriend, who replied to his catch-up email with a similar response to the one that I received. So sad… so disappointing.

What’s really sad to me is that people who call themselves Christians tend to act the most hateful toward anyone who is not like them, especially toward people who are gay. This contradiction in the teachings of the Bible is beyond me. But I know I am not the only one who has pondered this irony. You’re take?

Happy Gay Pride Week in DC. I had almost forgotten about it. Well, actually, I keep up with the news and knew that this past week was Gay Pride Week, but it’s really not a big deal for my partner and me. In fact, the only reason why we went into the city on the culminating weekend of Gay Pride Week in 2007 is when my friend Larry (of hotboots.com fame) was visiting. We joined some other guys for a rather poorly-attended “hotboots” party at a now defunct bar in the city.

Honestly, there are many other things that we would rather be doing today than go into the city and mill around with tens of thousands of LGBT people and their supporters. There’s something about gay pride festivals that draws out the queeniest of queens whose actions and statements (when shown on TV) demonstrate the stereotypes that straight people perceive about gay people. It just kinda makes me nauseous. And since my partner is the recluse’s recluse, he would much rather be anywhere alone than surrounded by all those people.

Later today, a group of us will saddle up on our trusty throbbing motors and head out to the Antietam Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland, on beautiful back roads all the way. This break was earned after more work on our home’s hallway renovation project yesterday. Uggghhhh…. but I digress.

Why not attend the Gay Pride festival? …Been there, done that, got the sunburn. It truly is much too intense for us. Plus, it’s not an event where I would expect to see many people I know. My social circle is pretty much “suburbanite home-body.”

Further, we have no need to go to an event to surround ourselves with gay people so we can be “who we are.” Heck, we are who we are all the time, regardless. We live openly in an accepting atmosphere both where we work and at home, as well as in the community where I volunteer quite a bit. It’s not necessary for us to go to a Pride event because we’re already out, 365/24/7.

Some guys have told me that they like to go to the Pride festival so they can check out other guys or be entertained. Well, not us. I am not interested in checking out other guys when the best one is by my side. The entertainment at Pride festivals does not suit our tastes; I can live without the bunga-bunga-bunga throbbing noise played loudly at gay events. The throbbing noise I like best is that of my Harley (LOL!).

I anticipate that I will be home from my motorcycle ride in time to grill dinner out on the deck, fill a tall glass with ice water, put my boots up and sit with the man of my life while we watch the sun slowly sink behind the trees in our forest. That’s the life. Far more quiet, peaceful, and certainly much less intense and dramatic. Ahhhhh….

Life is short: know that you can have pride in being who you are without having to attend a once-a-year festival to display it.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that a fine young motor officer contacted me for some conversation on how to deal with coming out to his boss and peers in his Police Department.

It’s interesting — I have received more visits to that blog post than most others I have written. In one week, more than 1,000 unique visitors have read it, and it has been linked from two message forums that are supportive of LGBT issues in the workplace.

I also have received over a dozen email messages. One of them, in particular, was exceptional in that it provided me with some suggestions of additional resources in which my buddy might be interested. One of them is bluepride.org, a website specifically for and by the LGBT law enforcement community. The other was a book titled, Coming Out From Behind the Badge, which is a chronicle of a gay cop in Canada who worked through the coming out process, married his man, and is doing well.

I forwarded those thoughtful messages to my buddy. I also have had several conversations on the phone with him. And now, here’s an update directly from him, in his words (reproduced with his permission):

I just had “the talk” with the District Commander and my boss. I explained to them factually that I am Gay. I said that I wanted to let them know because it was important to me to live an honest life. I felt that hiding my sexual orientation was causing me to live with less personal integrity. If I value anything, it is that others perceive that I do a good job and am a man of high integrity (as I have learned that you are).

[some content deleted here to protect privacy]

I feel so much better now. Thanks!

Well, buddy, you did the hard work. I admire your strength, determination, and most of all, your integrity. I’m here for ‘ya, and look forward to ongoing conversations.