What can I say but how thankful I am for those who have supported me, helped me, advised me, especially given me kind words, and most of all read my posts.
Initially the Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters blog began as an advertising tool for a self-published book I wrote of the same name. I wrote the book because I felt that the lgbtq community was not getting what it needed in terms of information to refute the lies of the religious right.
The book was published in 2007 and it was a very, very minor success. To be honest, it didn't come off like I wanted it to. One day I will go revisit it and maybe work on another edition.
But for now, it's all about this blog. So much has happened in the years I've been posting.
Marriage equality is now seen as an inevitability rather than an impossible dream.
We have an African-American president
Gays and lesbians can serve openly in the military
And most of all, our community has become more powerful. We have taken advantage of the internet age in terms of sending out information and reaching those in our community which we never have before. And we have become more sophisticated in exposing the right.
Years ago, a study like that awful one which was published recently about gay parenting would have devastated us. We wouldn't have been able to combat the junk science in it. But now we can and we have. We have become more intelligent, more consistent, and more direct in calling out the religious right when they lie on us.
I like to think that I play a part in that.
That's not to say there haven't been problems.
I do not act, I do not sing. I am not a celebrity. I do not live in a metropolitan area. I am an unconventional gay man - older, African-American, not twinkish at all, and from the South. No one is going to put me on camera as representative of the gay community no matter how much intelligence or finesse I possess and very rarely do I get the play I would like from some of the national groups or the attention I would like my blog to receive from some of the scoops I break.
And there are times in which I get depressed when I take into account the enormity of the fight for equality or when I wonder if my words are having an effect.
But those moments come and go like rain. They never stay. What does stay is my need to educate my lgbtq brothers and sisters on the basic fact that just about every negative thing said about us are lies.
We are not sinners, we are not filthy and evil, we are not sick, and we don't need prayer to change ourselves.
The lgbtq community is as God made us and as such, we are marvelous in His eyes.
Our sexual orientations are not things that we can take on or off nor are they "conditions" which we should be ashamed of or allow the ignorant to strip us of.
I am a gay man. That part of me as a crucial to my personhood as my ethnic heritage and my very humanity. No one can take that away from me. And no one will.
And as long as you keep reading, I will keep posting. To the right corner of this blog are some of what I consider the best posts I have done in these five and a half years. If you haven't yet, feel free to indulge yourselves.
One more thing:
Dear Peter LaBarbera, Peter Sprigg, Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Tony Perkins, Matt Barber, National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council and the rest of you nuts,
Thank you for being so transparently full of lies that you have given me more than enough material to work with in these five and a half years.
No doubt, you will continue to shuck and jive and lie in the name of God as you do those things that you think we are not hip to.
Please be aware that as long as you do them, I will be there to shine a light on your hypocrisy, laugh in your face, and expose your distortions in front of God and Man alike.
Also be aware that no matter how much money you have or influence you think you may have, the one thing you do not have and you will never have is truth.
You are going to lose this fight. Count on it.
