For all of those who questioned why the Mormons were targeted for peaceful protests after the election in November. Well now you know why. And I don't think we're done yet. Just you wait until the final campaign funding report becomes public record in the coming days. I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a few more surprises about the Yes on 8 campaign.
From the LA Times Online
Mormon church reports spending $180,000 on Proposition 8 Jessica Garrison 6:48 AM PST, January 31, 2009
Top officials with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filed reports Friday indicating that they donated more than $180,000 in in-kind contributions to Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California.
The contributions included tens of thousands of dollars for expenses such as airline tickets, hotel and restaurant bills and car-rental bills for top church officials such as L. Whitney Clayton, along with $96,849.31 worth of "compensated staff time" for church employees.
The church said the expenditures took place between July 1 and the end of the year. The church's involvement has been a major issue in the campaign and its aftermath. Individual Mormon families donated millions -- by some estimates more than $20 million -- of their own money to the campaign.
On top of that, some Prop. 8 opponents say church officials violated election law by failing to file campaign disclosure reports outlining church funds being spent on the campaign. Fred Karger, who filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission after the election alleging that church officials had not properly disclosed their involvement, said he thought today's filing proves that his complaint has merit.
"They said they reported all their travel ... now, when there is a [complaint filed] they disclose 25 Southwest tickets just in October," he said. "They were required to report this" in an earlier filing, he said. Church officials could not be reached for comment this evening.
Six days to wonder, based on the experience of those 6 long days, what it would be like to not have any verbal communication with my friend.
On the sixth night we got together for dinner at this little Chinese restaurant. For the most part our evening was like all of our other prior engagements, a good time. Although, from the get go I felt like there was a proverbial elephant in the room. For the first 40 minutes or so, what I had asked of him six nights prior was not discussed. To the contrary, I thought he was guiding me to a two letter answer based on our conversation about some other guys that I’ve gone out with.
So having not formally broached the topic for most of the evening I finally invited the elephant to sit down with us. What had been a good conversation turned into a great one. We both were very open, honest, and in a sense a bit vulnerable. The conversation was both exciting and terrifying.
So the reason I left Vegas early was because I had two full days of Prop 8/Marriage Equality workshops that I had committed to attend. I arrived at the EQCA Summit at the L.A. Convention Center a bit late on Saturday and I missed most of the morning session. (no worries though because I learned most of what was discussed as conveyed in my Surprise Guest post) The rest of the event was just so-so and I left about two hours early.
On Sunday, I was invited by the Courage Campaign to participate in their Inaugural Camp Courage. This full day event was modeled after the Camp Obama, grassroots organizer program, and they did a great job enhancing it to meet our equality needs. The Courage Campaign will be holding additional Camps around the State of California so if you reside in California, please go check out their Camp Courage Vote website and get involved.
The first action based, working session that our cohort participated in was the creation and presentation of our own unique Stories of Self. The Courage Campaign describes a Story of Self as one that tells why we have been called to serve. The key focus is on choice points; moments in our lives when our values are formed; when we have to choose in the face of great uncertainty. A good public story is drawn from the series of choice points that have structure-the “plot” of your life: the challenges you faced, the choices you made, and the outcomes you experienced. This storytelling is important because it is a means of communicating our experiences in a way people can respond to by connecting with their emotions. Oh, and our story wasn’t supposed to exceed two minutes in length. Which makes sense because when we are engaging people out on the streets, their time is at a premium.
The story that I presented on Sunday was obviously my story, the one I have written about here in Stand Straight since May. Only, it was the 2 minute verbal version. (truth be told mine went a few seconds longer then two minutes) And you know what, most of my group thought I had the best one. I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed many times over the last few months and I’m beginning to believe that my story is pretty darn cool!
Stays in Vegas unless you happen to write a little ol' blog.
On Friday afternoon I ventured up to Las Vegas to attend the first night of a friend’s bachelor party weekend. I landed at LAS at 5:00PM PST and was back at the airport 12 hours later. It was really unfortunate that I had prior plans for both Saturday and Sunday because I was really excited about this trip. It had been some time since I’ve hung out socially with many of my straight friends, most of whom on this trip are my fraternity brothers from college. This was my first real, social event with many of them since I came out to them a few months ago.
While some of the guys, like myself, flew in from a few of the Western states, most drove up from the Phoenix area. My first notable experience was receiving a gift from one of the guys from the group that drove. I’ll call him The Mayor and let’s just say I received a key to his city from him. Apparently, on their drive up from Phoenix they stopped at a convenience store. The Mayor is not shy, nor ashamed of eating only the best, and most luscious food when he sees it. So while at the convenience store he saw an item that apparently looked too good to pass up. A 3’ long, whipper snacker, pepperoni flavored beef stick. Only this time, that fine piece of meat wasn’t to satisfy his never ending hunger, but was more a gag gift for his gay friend. Does he really think that all gay guys like to play around with a piece of meat that long? And come on, pepperoni flavored? Has he not been reading Stand Straight? If he had, he would have known that I much prefer the sweet taste of a bit of teriyaki. (haha) In all seriousness, my initial, internal reaction upon receiving his key to the city was one of disappointment. Although I saw a bit of good natured humor in his slightly inebriated gesture, I wasn’t comfortable with our greetings reflecting the fact that I’m gay. Nonetheless, my internal reaction was not expressed externally and I only reflected on it for a very short period. All was well and I was extremely excited to be spending some Vegas time with my good friends of well over 10 years.
The next few hours were spent drinking, gambling (for me only a few hands), and reconnecting. The funny part here is that one of my friends, I’ll call him Jersey, was passed out before 9:00PM. Jersey isn’t some little guy and in the past could certainly handle his booze, I guess not so much anymore. (haha) While Jersey was getting to know his bed, the rest of us went to one of the restaurants at TI. (on a side note, I love this song from TI with Rihanna and I have to ask, are you Live...ing Your Life?)
At dinner we spent way too much for crap food and drinks but overall had a good time in a fun environment. And of course with a group our size we had to have the obligatory one or two guys who disappeared when the bill came. However, I do believe they paid up when they were found later.
After dinner we continued to hang around the casino where we gambled, drank, and mingled. At one point another friend of mine, I’ll call him Shalom, noticed two girls, a blonde and a red head, at the roulette table that was two tables to the left of our blackjack table. He was in awe of both of their extremely large racks. Since Shalom, and all of my other friends were either engaged or married with children I decided to be their wingman for the evening. So I went up to the girls as they were at their very crowded roulette table and began a conversation. My goal was to get them to come with me, so I could introduce them to Shalom. Despite the fact that another friend, I’ll call him Gray, joined in on the conversation at the roulette table and was trying to get the girls to continue to play roulette, both girls left the table and began to mingle with our group. The blonde, whom Shalom liked, followed me back to his blackjack table. Mission Accomplished!
Before we left for the Badda Bing, a gentlemen’s club, we thought it would be fun to introduce the girls to our passed out friend upstairs and see if their presence would awaken his senses. Although I took a number of pictures of what they did, I am only going to post this one of the girls. And yes girls, I really am gay and now you’re starring in my blog. Since they thought I was straight, I played along with them through the first half of the evening, but by the end of the night a few of my friends had told them in their own private conversations that I was. I did speak with Red about it but I can't recall if I spoke with Blonde about it.
We then went to the Badda Bing with Blonde and Red. I have been to a lot of gentlemen’s clubs in my day, both for business and with these same friends, so I was interested to see how it would be going there with them now that I’m out. It was all good and I had a really great time! It helped that the place was relatively empty and the girls weren’t particularly attractive. I obviously didn’t waste my money on any of the girls working that night, so I spent most of the evening talking to my friends, Blonde, and Red. At one point I got into a nice conversation with CRock, another friend, where we discussed another gentlemen’s club in town which I was told had a "special" upstairs. So the question I have as I write this is whether my friends will join me at the "special" upstairs club when I get married? (lol)
After an hour or two we all left and went back to TI. We milled around the casino a bit and that’s when Gray started to mutter the words that Blonde and Red were hOOkers. Most of us didn’t believe that to be the case, but Gray was persistent. When Blonde and Red began to hear those utterances they were gone. Personally, I never believed them to be “working” us that night. I don’t believe that they would have invested a good 4 or 5 hours, with them leaving us around 3:00AM, had they been hookers. I thought they were two really cool girls. Clearly if they were hookers, and any good at their job they would have gotten an impression within the first hour or so from our group and moved on. But then again, what the hell do I know.
Around 3:30AM Gray, The Mayor, CRock and I went to go get some food. Having consumed some drinks and having blown their load ;-) , of cash of course, over the preceding few hours made for an animated conversation. We got into discussing gay marriage and the vote of the people. There was a point where I questioned The Mayor on whether he was being serious because he is too smart to have asked me, or commented on some of the things that he did. One of the things that came up in our conversation were the 1,138 rights that are afforded to “married” couples. You can find them here 1,138 REASONS. These are why the term "marriage" is so imporant to full equality. Beyond the serious tone of part of the conversation, I felt it was all good. Although I felt bad for the waiter because they didn’t have any country fried steak. Poor guy.
After breakfast and having said my goodbyes, it was back to the airport where I got no sleep for the remaining two hours I was in Vegas due to some of the most uncomfortable chairs I’ve ever sat on. Nonetheless, Vegas was well worth it and it was a great start to a very long weekend!
And for one final note, I was surprised to learn that many of my friends read Stand Straight. When I opened the blog up to them (please see Dear Family and Friends post) I assumed that many would peruse and read what had been going on in my life those last few months, but I can honestly say I never thought that they would continue to read it.
So my brothers, THANKS! But like I've told you, this blog is not intended to replace our own live communication. I had a lot of fun in Vegas and am looking to see you all again soon!
I have really tried over the last week to formulate my thoughts and write about what’s been going on these last two weeks, but honestly it has been very difficult. Since I began writing Stand Straight, this has been the first time that I really have had this problem. A lot has happened, events that have been both positive and negative, but I just found it has been very difficult to write about these things.
I’m hopeful, yet extremely terrified that I may have made a mistake. Terrified with the feeling that I may have forever changed a relationship that has been so positive for me. I may be making too big a deal about this, and I probably am, but since it’s been so long and I’m not sure what the gay dating mores are, that uncertainty has me terrified.
So what has me so terrified? Well, I asked a friend out on a date. Having known him, and having shared many a good times with him over the last few months, my feelings for him began to change. I don’t quite know what my feelings mean, but what I do know is that they are different today then what they were in late December. Ironically, it was what another date who I met out on Monday said that got me into thinking about my relationship with my friend.
So we spoke over the phone on Tuesday and I simply asked him out on a date. Nothing more, nothing less. I completely surprised him and his response was, “A date, date?” We spoke for another 20 minutes or so and it was a good conversation. He admired how open and honest I was, and thought I had balls for asking him. We will get together in the next few days to discuss this in person to determine what, if anything comes next.
(and in full disclosure this friend is one of the two guys whom I've told about Stand Straight since my arrival in LA)
There’s just so much on my mind and I was hoping to write about some of it. But after staring at my computer screen trying to figure out how to articulate what I'm feeling for way too long now, I’m done.
It was quite the surprise to learn that on Thursday night at my organization’s leadership meeting we would have a surprise guest. That surprise guest just happened to be the Executive Director of EQCA. The same Executive Director who I partly blamed, and whose resignation I asked for because of the defeat of Proposition 8 in November. (please see Bittersweet post for some background)
The Executive Director was completely candid and open to all questions during the three and half hours that we met. It was a good thing because in front of the 12 or so people in attendance, I held him responsible for our defeat. Due to my ignorance and understanding of the No on 8 Campaign structure, I branded him as the face of the campaign. He understood that feeling, and it wasn’t the first time that he heard it. As it turns out he was one of seven individuals who formed the No on 8 Executive committee. Suffice it to say, in the three and a half hours that we met I learned a TON about the campaign. Most of which it would be irresponsible of me to comment on or publish on this blog. The only three things that I will mention are:
1. My shock to hear that no one person was ultimately responsible for the $40 million, No on 8 campaign. 2. No one believes that there are any threats to the 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who chose to get married when they had the legal right to. 3. I am slightly more optimistic that the court will rule that Prop 8 was unconstitutional.
After the meeting I had the opportunity to meet the Executive Director and apologize to him for holding him personally responsible. Although he shoulders some of the blame, after learning what I did about the campaign, there is enough of it to go around.
A friend and I were walking home from a club on Sunday morning around 3:00AM when our ears were filled with the soothing sounds of more ignorant a-holes. The first car drove by and from the vehicle we heard something that sounded like, “you guys going to go suck each other’s dicks you assholes.” Not to be outdone by this first vehicle, about 300 yards further east along Santa Monica Blvd. a car stopped next to us, and the passenger yelled out, “going to eat your boyfriend’s shit you faggots?”
Having experienced something like this now for the fifth and sixth time, I kind of let it go in one ear and out the other as it happened. However, the second car’s action still has me thinking. They stopped their car to yell. They decided to do this beforehand and simply did not have an impulse to just yell at two gays as they were driving through WeHo. What losers!
Beyond that Saturday was a really good day and a fun night.
It was a year ago today that my life changed. And it all started with this email to a complete stranger.
“I've been a reader of your blog for some time and I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to write the blog and share with us the many experiences you've had over the last 2 years. For some of us, and speaking for myself, who don't know anyone in the community, your blog provides a small connection to the community and demonstrates the possibilities to those like myself who haven't quite been completely honest with themselves. So thanks again and I hope your '08 brings you true happiness, health, prosperity, passion, and the love of your life! L’Chaim!”
There was an unintended consequence in sending that email, and that was it exposed my true identity. I completely overlooked how my email was setup, so in truth, today is the day I first came out to somebody other than myself. I freaked out a bit when I received the reply addressing me by my real name. But looking back on it, I’m glad it happened as it happened. Coming out to this complete stranger was obviously a different experience, both meaningfully and emotionally, then coming out to my closest family and friends, but I’m thankful it happened when, and as it did.
So as it turned out, there was no turning back once I hit SEND on January 6, 2008!
And that’s what I’ll celebrate today. The fact that I took the initiative to change my life and it all began with this one email.
Based on the calendar it has been, but in reality I’ve only been physically living here for about 4.5 months. Regardless in how I choose to define my beginning in California, I’m lovin’ L.A.! So much so that I’ve renewed my lease and am now ready to call L.A. home.
With this commitment, I am preparing to turn in the furniture that I’ve been renting these past 6 months. So I’ve spent a good portion of the last few days mattress shopping. What a pain in the arse! I’ve been sleeping on a rental mattress and have spent a significant amount of time sleeping in hotel beds and I’ve never had a problem sleeping on crappy mattresses. Yet, I find myself agonizing over the finer details of this pending purchase. The #1 question is whether I should buy a king or queen size mattress. A queen mattress fits nicely in my apartment now and I wouldn’t have an issue with it’s size in any future residence. The problem is that I believe it will be a bit small and uncomfortable when I find myself a boyfriend. (there’s a first) A king mattress would overpower my bedroom now and it’s size may pose a challenge with future, rental residences. However, a king mattress would be way more comfortable and luxurious when I’m not sleeping alone. Decisions, decisions.
In other news, Saturday night was a blast. Went out for dinner with some friends to celebrate Gene’s return to the states and followed that up with three hours of dancing. While dancing, I locked lips with two separate guys ever so briefly. (although one of them was my friend, ah oh)
And for laughs...(a friend of mine sent this to me today and despite it being a few years old I had not seen it before, so I'm going to share)
Searching for truth, honesty, happiness, and meaning in a world of labels and my own self repression. Coming out in my early thirties experiencing the freedom, fear, and fun that it brings; with the gift of a 12 year old, the experience of a 15 year old, the body of a 24 year old, the face of a 28 year old, the analytical mind of a 40 year old, and the humor of a member of the tribe!
