Crusaders -
Can I get real with you guys for a minute?
I was raised, every other weekend and two months in the summer, by a very devout Christian. As a child my relationship with God was directly tied to my relationship with my father, as he was the one I went to chucrh with, prayed with, got dipped and saved with. We weren't the best Christians in the world... Always cussing, and we were both perverts (he owned porn, I would sneak peeks at it, both sins), and we would lie ("I don't own porn..." and "I don't look at the porn you don't own..."), and we would covet, and gloat, and eat too much, et cetera. Also, we were always late to church. Like hella late. Like last ten minutes of service every single week late. A couple of our church friends called us the "Amen Brothers", which I just loved. One time we got to church and no one was there, which was really confusing to us because it was the one time we thought we were on time (or almost on time... we thought we were only thirty minutes late). Turns out we were early because of the time change. Thanks to Spring Forward we were going to look like good Christians, but that seemed dishonest to us, so we went to breakfast and ended up showing up to church (at most) fifteen minutes before the end.
That's a true story!
Still, I respected my father, and our shared faith, and took everything he told me about God to be the absolute truth. Like God hating Ladyboys. My dad said it, so it must be true. "All gays are going to hell," he said, "because it is an abomination to God. He meant for men to be with women and nothing else." (I would like to mention, as a testament to my father's conviction on this matter and to show you that he wasn't a HUGE hypocrite, that he didn't own any lesbian porn - never has, never will. ABOMINATION!). He also told me, "Catholics are going to hell because they worship Mary, and God says that is heresy." This was our own team he was speaking against! Not just because Catholics believe in Christ, but because half of our family is Catholic (we're Mexican - I know I don't look it, but he does, and you need to trust me on this). But I believed him, again, because he was my father and my connection to faith. Poor Uncle Andy! An eternity in hell for worshiping Jesus' mother! What luck!
This is how I was raised, and though my father still holds a lot of similar beliefs, since I have grown up and left the house he has become softer around the edges, because with me as a son he sort of has to. My first roommate out of high school was a tall gym-queen named Steven. Steven had been raised Christian himself, had even attended a Christian high school, but all of that was behind him (sort of). When he came out he burned the closet down! Shaped eyebrows, painted toenails, flags, murals (honestly, he painted our hallway), the whole works. But he kept his politics! He was raised conservative, and he stayed conservative! He voted for Bush! Log Cabin Republicans will always puzzle me... Anyway, when I told my father I was moving in with Steven he was heartbroken.
"Dad, I have good news and bad news. I found a roommate, but you're not going to like him."
"Is he a punk?" (this was during my punk phase, and dad didn't like it).
"No, dad, he's not a punk..." Silence. We looked at each other. "He's gay."
"Are you gay?" he asked, his brown skin turning red, holding back tears of frustration (we are emotional boys, my dad and I).
"No dad, I'm not gay."
"Are you bi?"
I didn't even know he knew what that meant.
"No dad, I'm not bi."
And then I told my dad about high school, about how all the kids thought I was gay, about how I got teased and bullied over it, and how I was angry at first - not at my aggressors, but at gay men and women for even existing, for allowing me to be confused for one of them, angry like God and my father that they were alive and walking among us. If only they would do what they were supposed to, I thought, I could be spared this grief that they deserved. But then, slowly at first, I began to see the flaws in my logic and that of my father. We weren't hating gays because it was what God wanted, but because we had been taught to fear what is different from us and to attack such behavior wherever we could find it. But we were different! My father is a Mexican by blood but was born and raised in America. He grew up in white towns and had to face intolerance every day - how could he think this way? He was a hippie in the sixties, a big fan of Hendrix and Dylan - then and now - and a singer in a band. My father dreamed of being a DJ and has always been a good artist - in fact it was him drawing pictures from my comics and Mad Magazines that led me to pursue art in the first place. My father appreciates good films - he introduced me to THE GRADUATE, Marx Bros films, and Bill Murray, and we have watched nearly every Wes Anderson film together, lauging and crying and what have you. My father is a cryer! I have never seen another grown man cry as much as he does. Being such a sensitive and caring man, how is he filled with such hateful ideas?
Drugs were the catalyst.
My father, being a hippie and a man open to the world, became a drug addict in the late 60's early 70's, and pretty much stayed on them until I was born in 1984. He had grown tired of his life with drugs by then, had hated his mood-swings, his aches and pains, and his wounded soul (he too was raised a Christian). My father turned to his mother, a source of strength for him, as well as to the Lord, a bond he had shared with his mom just as I had shared with my father. My dad asked God for something to help him get off of drugs once and for all, and shortly after I was conceived (or so the story goes). My father got off of drugs and never looked back, but he lost my mother in the process, and because of California laws, I went with her. To stay off of drugs my dad devoted himself to God (again) and rejected his past life, but as it is with the baby and the bathwater, some of my father's tolerance and open-mindedness that had defined him for so long went out with it.
But those were not my experiences. I had these ideas of sinful gays and hell-bound Mary-worshippers because I was taught them, and when I looked at the world outside of the church and my father I found that people are just people, and I began to embrace cultures other than my own. Over the years I have shared a lot of my new opinions, and how I came to them, with my father, and we have more common ground than you might think.
Still, until today I have hidden THE PROMISE KEEPERS project from my father, because as open as I am with him, the project has a lot of potential to upset him. But it is important to me that my father knows who I am, what I am doing, and where I stand, so I sent him the link to the Kickstarter video earlier today. If you have yet to see it or haven't seen it in a while, click HERE and see all the things that will likely earn me a talking to. But I have faith in my father, in myself, and in the project. I think there is a good chance that my father will be open to this, that he will encourage me to follow my dreams, and hell, that he might even pledge some money. Time will tell, and so will I - there will be a follow up to this story to tell you just how my father reacts. Keep your fingers crossed!
One last thing to leave you with. When I was a kid my father would buy me a lot of Halloween costumes and make-up, because back then I was obsessed with monsters. He even got a big refrigerator box for me to sleep in as a coffin, believe it or not, because he was an amazingly supportive dad. There was one outfit in particular that I like to put on - maybe once a week or more - that had a black curly wig, a pointed hat, and fake plastic nails. I would dress up like a witch - an evil, spell-casting female witch - and dance around the house cursing things and making potions, and my father would high-five and hug me, or counter-curse and banish me, depending on what character he was playing. I reminded him of that in my e.mail, hoping he would see how harmless my current cross-dressing is. Here's hoping.
-Riley-
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