Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters celebrates 14 years of calling out homophobic liars and keeping receipts

Sunday marked the 14th anniversary of this blog. It's been a bunch of wild, successful, and at times, very frustrating years.

I've had much success (waves to my 2017 GLAAD Media Award from across the room), lots of positive press (The Advocate, Newsweek, MSNBC), met lots of new friends and allies, and raised a little ruckus (blocked on Twitter by Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, 'Porno' Peter LaBarbera, Ryan T. Holmes, Matt Barber, multiple members of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Mass Resistance, and the Liberty Counsel. Blocked from commenting on Lifesite News and World Net Daily.)

I hope that I've succeeded in my original aim, which was to shine a bright spotlight on how religious right groups distort and cherry-pick science to denigrate LGBTQ people as unhealthy, diseased others out to 'recruit children,' 'wreck Christianity,' and cause general chaos.

So how long will I do this and what's my next move?

I honestly don't know the answer to either question. Things have changed tremendously over the course of 14 years. While LGBTQ people have moved forward, there is still a cadre of folks - including some of our own - who are attempting to push us back. While we gain visibility, the stakes become higher, the other side changes tactics, and sometimes it's rather difficult to keep up. It becomes less about distorting convenience samples from STD clinics to falsely categorize us or self-appointed fake experts from so-called morality groups spewing talking points to be used in referendums. It's more about slanted news sources and news programs which feature our opposition in unchallenged platforms where they will practice a kinder, gentler, but nonetheless obscene form of lying. It's less about shock and more about inferences under the veneer of concern about the "rights"  of Christians or the safety of children.

On that last score, it just goes to show that while the tactics and patterns change, the sly comparison of gays to the witch in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale never changes.

My joy at posting a wonderful piece which goes viral and gains attention is also something which never changes. Neither does my weariness and frustration in feeling that I'm not reaching enough people. Another thing also doesn't change. My quiet rage which fuels why I'm doing this. So many roads and incidents put me on this path, but allow me to indulge you with one. 

I realized that I was gay when I was college. And it was hell. I never actually came out per se, but folks knew. It was difficult for me to accept myself because of all of the homophobic nonsense. No one really talks about how bad it was and probably still is for some. Being openly gay had the potential of causing you to get a beat down. In the backdrop of it all were various "traditional values" groups, Pat Robertson's 700 Club, Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority, junk scientists, discredited researchers all working together behind the scenes to not only demonize us but also give people reasons to hate us. These individuals didn't exist in the form they do now, but they existed. And they had a lot of power over the lives of many LGBTQ people, myself included.

And the this is the problem they presented in my life. I don't care how many folks "accepted" me or supported me, the fact of the matter is that my sexual orientation felt like something which stopped everything.  Back in the day, it formed a huge roadblock. No more looking ahead to the future where you would graduate, attempt a career, maybe get married and have children. Having to deal with being gay was a giant eraser which blotted it all out. It was inconceivable for me to grasp a future because my sexual orientation was a giant monster in the road which led to my future and it was going nowhere. What's worse, I had no way of dealing with it. 

LGBTQ people on my campus had little to no support systems. We were mostly silent and kept to themselves or traveled in very small groups. We were never encouraged to talk with each other in public or even hang together. We existed in our little lonely worlds too scared to even be real with each other. And you cannot gain camaraderie with folks who was just as scared as you.

In a campus of thousands of people, I felt like the loneliest person there. I had friends - pretty much heterosexual - and they had their lives, their loves, and their drama. Meanwhile, I was stuck in a psychological suspended animation watching life pass me by and unable to join in. I had no one to talk with on a level which I needed, no one to lean on, and no one to date. Not even to slow dance with.

The most I had at least for a while was insignificant fumblings which in a better world would have probably ended up in a decent relationship. In my freshman year was this short guy, jet black hair, a little Gomez Adams mustache, and a thick country accent. We got together twice in short couplings. It wasn't fire and music or magic, but it was something. But it could have been something more if we had the courage to be honest with each other. That's one thing people tend to forget about being forced in a closet. Even when you're in a circumstance where you can be out, you still take the form of a timid rabbit. I guess it's conditioning.

He was a sweet guy. And I think he was fond of me. Looking back, I liked him very much. I looked him up this year and found out he had died in 2016.

That's the root. Sadness, regret, and anger. In a backdrop where LGBTQ people were denigrated, stigmatized, laughed at, and treated more like shit than we are now, I feel like something was taken from me. Granted, I did develop great relationships and supportive friendships with other gay men and LGBTQ people in general on campus and beyond. And I have grown more comfortable and confident in my sexual orientation.  But I guess internally, I'm pissed. I'm pissed at the time wasted, the times I felt alone and despondent, and most of all for the friendships and relationships I could have had if it weren't for the backdrop of lies and homophobia which permeated society back then. 

And of course at the various groups and personalities who created and fed off of it.  All of the preachers and spokespeople and groups who read off disgusting and false information about gays and diseases, gays and children, or just gays in general. 

I'm not about to let go of it. Maybe there are sometimes when letting go of  the past is healthy. But forget that shit.  I want people to know my loneliness and inability to fight those who made life harder for me in pursuit of their egos and religious self-righteousness. And not just me, but so many other LGBTQ people. And not just what they did in the past, but what they continue to attempt in the present.

More people need to know and more people need to remember. Most of all, more people need to get pissed about it.

Editor's note - Some of my best posts can be seen on the right including my top 10.