Written: 02/26/2011

I’ll be back with more thoughts soon, a lot has happened that I want to write about, but for now, enjoy this video:

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 02/20/2011

Facebook is a strange, strange place.  One of the current annoying trends is people posting on their wall and asking others to pass it on, about how 3% will repost.  This tactic has been used for good causes, things like soldiers and fighting cancer, funny things, Browns fans, and stupid thing, people that need to be punched in the face.

Last week, one of the bartenders posted an anti LGBT bullying message.

I was extremely grateful.  One truth that I’ve learned, is that it’s hardest to come out to those you care about the most: you have more to lose, the stakes are higher.

I don’t really care about acquaintances, co-workers (aside from the fact that I would lose my job) or family (my close family I know will love me no matter what).  But I’m really worried about a couple close friends, I don’t want to lose them, I care about them.  So it was nice to be reminded that I’ll still have a seat at the bar, and still have a friend to drink with (and watch Wipeout with).

Maybe it’s a turning point, maybe I can relax a bit, or at least, be in a better place.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 01/22/2011

We have this thing at work that allows employees from across the country to submit ideas.  Users can then comment and vote on ideas.  More often than not, there are a lot of duplicates, and some are, of course, just veiled tirades of bitching and moaning about something.  Note: ScoutNet.  Seriously, fix ScoutNet.  But to be fair, there have been some good improvements made from it, and I love watching this version of crowdsourcing working in action.

An idea came across last week about changing the membership standards.  It wasn’t really a step in the right direction, it was a lateral move at best, maybe even a step backwards.

I will step back for just a moment to add something.  In the latest edition of the Boy Scout Handbook, there is a page about sexual responsibility.  And that is fantastic.  We can’t be so sex-negative as a society or organization to believe that people are not having sex, that is what has led us to the abhorrent abstinence education, which has been proven time and time again to be a determent to people’s health.

So this idea was basically to make any expression of sexuality forbidden.  I’m going to guess that the person suggesting it, while having their heart in the right place (he or she mentioned that it was unfair that the BSA only specifically mention homosexuals), I can’t help but wonder if there was some kind of scandal with a Scoutmaster and a Committee Chair (or any other combination) that caused him or her a lot of headaches in a unit.  But I digress.  Also ignoring the fact that when people get up in arms about gays “flaunting their sexuality,” they forget that heterosexuals flaunt theirs constantly, but it is taken for granted.  Talking about your wife being pregnant is flaunting your sexuality.  Complaining about your husband is flaunting your sexuality.  Discussing where you, your spouse and the couple next door are going to go to dinner on Saturday is flaunting your sexuality.  It is flaunting your sexuality, but it is taken for granted, so the double standard continues.

Well, someone from another council jumped in the comments and was railing against the homosexuals, once again bringing up the wrong, outdated and hateful “research” that states that gays just want to prey on boys.

That really put me in a funk.  And it was like a car crash, I just kept looking back at it to see if there were any other comments.  The first commenter jumped in again after a few comments and said that in his ideal world, any sex outside of marriage, from a youth or adult member, would automatically kick that person out of the program until they had completed a probationary period.

I really hope someone can get some sense into his head, the national organization is moving forward, at a snail’s pace, but forward none the less and accepting reality.  Maybe it is too much to hope that that would trickle down to everyone.  Or you know, they would listen to the sixth point of the Scout Law: A Scout is Kind.

So all of that leads to one of my bosses talking with a coworker while I am at my desk.  They are out of sight but within ear range, and I hear them talk about this idea in particular, which was originally floated due to the end of the federal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  I hear the coworker, whose brother is in the military say that he is totally against the repeal of DADT because his brother thinks there will be wasted time on training to end the policy.

Needless to say, I will be talking even less to that coworker (who I really didn’t like before, so this just makes it easier I suppose).

Anyway, the stunning truth is that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has cost over two hundred million dollars…since 2005 alone.

Forgive me if I’ve written about this story before, but even so, it bears repeating.  Also, I’ve asked him multiple times about different things that he feels comfortable talking about, and I always end up apologizing because I don’t always know the proper terminology, so I apologize in advance for any details/terms that are incorrect.

Note: I did mention this before, but I write about it in greater detail here:

One of my best friends is a veteran, he served in Afghanistan after graduating from High School.  Every week, his unit would gather, usually on a basketball court or something similar (large, flat) and if anyone had a problem with anyone else, they would beat the crap out of each other.  Any reason at all.  It got rid of any drama, made them a better unit, made them cohesive and able to rely on each other for absolutely anything.

To a pacifist like me, it sounds crazy, but the more he talked about it, and the more I thought about it, it’s brilliant.

Well, at some point, a laptop was borrowed from a member of the unit and they found some gay porn.  They confronted the soldier and he said that yes, he was gay.

Well, the next week when they got in their circle, he got the shit beat out of him.

Not for being gay.

For lying.

My friend said it with words so eloquent, that I can only hope to remember how he put it: “We had to be able to trust each other with our lives.  And he was lying to us, we had to make sure we could all trust one another, no secrets.”

They could have cared less who he loved, who he slept with.  Because they are adults and they are professionals.  They cared about the trust they had to have with one another as they put their lives on the line for us back home.

And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank him enough for that.  He always brushes it off, but I’ll keep trying, but that’s a discussion for another blog.

So for those who say unit cohesion will be destroyed, or that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has helped the military: they are wrong.

For now, I just have to keep hoping that cooler heads will prevail while I keep remaining silent.

Until those cooler heads can finally lead,

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written 01/15/2011

So, something that’s been on my mind lately is how much trust I refuse to give anyone, specifically those I work with.

Normally, I trust everyone and give everyone the benefit of any doubt, usually to the extreme, which of course, has gotten me in trouble before.  To a fault I’m loyal, even to those I barely know, and it takes a lot to lose that trust.

However, I find myself distrusting everyone at work, and specifically walling myself off from them.  I don’t like to interact with anyone for fear that something might slip.

On top of that, I find myself being suspicious of everyone as well, fearing that anyone at any time is trying to get me fired.

I hate going through life like that.  It’s tiring, and not me.  But as much as I want to try to change, I can’t take that chance.

Hopefully, something will change soon, and I can be myself again.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 01/09/2011

Maybe I’m delusional, maybe I’m a freaking eternal optimist, but I thought things had gotten better at work.  I was just ignoring people more and more, and people had actually made a few comments that were tolerant.  Guess I was wrong.

I had my earphones in one lunch, but heard over my music some of my coworkers talking about the People’s Choice Awards.  I didn’t watch, I typically don’t watch award shows, I find them boring.  So I hear one of them say, “I stopped watching after that Doogie Houser won, watching him thank his sons was too much for me.”

Because someone thanking the man he loves and acknowledging his new twins is so horrible.  Check it out below:

I want to be sarcastic, I want to be enraged, but sometimes I’m just too tired of it all.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 12/29/2010

Note: DADT still exists for trans service members, so our work is not quite done yet.

So DADT was finally repealed and signed by Obama.  The law itself is still on the books and will be for a little bit longer, but it is on its way out.  I will write as though it is gone, just for ease of sentence structure.

Of course I’m excited that the policy is gone.  It should have been gone years ago.  The move however, from many people around me, was largely unknown.  Maybe the people around me don’t care that much about LGBT* issues (and isn’t that the truth), but no one really talked about it.  Friends of Facebook commented on it, and that was heartening, and in some cases surprising, I’m always excited when I find allies in unlikely places.

I had hoped that somehow this would inspire a change in the Boy Scouts.  No such luck there.  At least not yet.  Maybe people will still see that I’m not a monster, admit that I have worth.

And that applies in some cases to people, as well as the organization.

But for now, I continue to work, continue to be awesome at my job (and with the crazy day that I just completed, I know I will be sorely missed when I leave).  I toil on, knowing that some people would love to be able to hold the fact that I could be fired over my head, but with the knowledge that things can change and get better.  I need to remind myself that there are people who support me, and of course, the opposite is just as true.  People can even change, and prove to have a giant heart.

I celebrate for all the gay and lesbian service members, and am happy for them, and look forward with hope.

All my best,

The King of Spades

 

*Just a quick side note, you can keep adding all kinds of letters (Q being the most common), however, in my head, I like to use GBLT, because, no joke, I like BLT sandwiches.  But I only use that in my head.

Written: 11/07/2010

No person should ever have to justify their very existence.  No one should be forced to apologize for living.

And believe me when I say it is hard to type those words.

I dealt with a lot of anti-gay bigotry at work and in college (and school before that).  And yes, that comes with the territory I suppose.

But I’m done.

You have a choice.  You can understand that I am a second class citizen.  You can understand that I do not have equal rights, solely because of how I was born.  You can understand I was forced to stay in the closet because I would have lost my job the moment I was honest.  You can understand that I lived in a constant state of fear, that I made myself sick, that I could not have a normal life.

You can take that information and you can support me as I fight for equality.

Or you can get the fuck out of my life.

And when you get rid of your bigotry and hate, I’ll give you a huge hug and welcome you back.

But until then, I’m not dealing with any more hate from people who I choose to be around.  I will choose to walk away, and I will make that decision in a heartbeat.

I’m not asking you to go to protests, leave your house or even talk about equality, but I am demanding your support.  You cannot tell me you do not support marriage equality without me walking away.  You would be telling me that you agree that I am, and deserve to be, a second class citizen.

And I’ve gotten to the point where I can write that I deserve better.

All my best,

The King of Spades