By:
On:
With: 1 Comment

anti-discrimination ordinance

Round Three!

I don’t know the outcome of tonight’s assembly meeting, but the testimonies and the images of people with signs has me thinking.

One of the most striking things — and the most obvious — is the separation of folks into blue shirts (those supporting the anti-discrimination ordinance) and red shirts (those opposing the ordinance). For some reason, my mind keeps going back to the time two of my closest friends chose ignorance over me. At the time, there was a day on campus when those in support of the GLBT community were told to wear jeans. My friends, fearing what others might think, wore khakis that day. They did at least feel guilty enough to confess to me that they had done that, but I’m sure they didn’t realize how hurtful it was for me to hear. I’ve never been able to get past that event. It is clearly one of the things that has pushed us apart as friends.

Seeing large groups of people whose agenda is to spread intolerance is difficult enough, but when they involve their children it is even worse. These kids should not be spending their time protesting people they’ve been taught to not understand. They appear bored, or in the case of the ones who are young enough, excited to be a part of something that seems so important. It is unfortunate that they don’t understand what it is they are doing. It saddens me that we live in this world.

I know far too many people from the “red shirt” side of things. These folks are family or have been close friends of mine over the years and I suppose it never dawned on me to be offended by this behavior. I guess I thought knowing me would eventually be enough, but it isn’t anymore. Those whose ignorance taints our relationship aren’t as welcome in my life as they used to be.

John’s blog — including blogging as the assembly meeting took place Wednesday evening
Heather’s blog — including blogging from the previous assembly meetings as well as transcripts.

reading

It has slowed a little, but I’m still on my reading kick. Today I read The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life by Steve Leveen. This little book was pretty helpful for learning how to read and when. It makes a lot of points in a small amount of time. I especially liked the idea of organizing your bookshelves into “book candidates,” “books I’ve read very recently,” and “books I’ve read.” It seems obvious, but I have a tendency to arrange my shelves by genre. I then have to scan my shelves for a new book to read, waiting for one to jump out at me. He also talks about having many more books than you will ever read at home, an idea that has always seemed natural to me, but for which I guess I needed permission.

I’m still making my way through the 4th Harry Potter book, my friends having finished the series already. I find myself easily distracted, reading other things at the same time. My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon has been somewhat interesting too.

I’d like to be a part of a book group again. Maybe I’ll start one up if I can’t find one I like.

By:
On:
With: 0 Comments

The fight continues…

Adding the GLBT community to Anchorage’s anti-discrimination law has been quite the journey. For those who are unfamiliar, this all started in the 70s. At that time, there was a proposal to add sexual orientation to the state’s existing anti-discrimination policy. That proposal passed, but was vetoed by the mayor at the time. A few weeks later, the proposal passed again. Once again, the mayor vetoed. In the early 90s, an anti-discrimination policy including sexual orientation was enacted, but later repealed by a different assembly.

It is ludicrous that we are having this debate. It is absolutely insane that it is so accepted to play with other people’s protections. It isn’t enough to deny actual rights to gay and lesbian couples, these people go the extra step to ensure that members of their own community are not protected from employers or bankers who bring misguided religious beliefs into their business decisions. The proposed ordinance would prevent a person being turned down for housing based on sexual orientation.

Opponents of the ordinance feel that this would be pushing homosexuality on heterosexuals. What they really mean by that thought is they don’t want their right to exclude people they don’t understand taken away. They want to impose their own religious beliefs on others. And that is where their argument makes no sense. This is not a religious matter, but a civic one. Religious belief should keep away from it.

As a Christian myself, this sort of hate-mongering really gets under my skin. It isn’t in keeping with the lessons of love that dominate the Bible. It is such a non-issue. How is it that something so obviously not a part of Scripture has been concluded from it and used to oppress friends and neighbors. What hurts the most from these folks is the very common claim of several gay friends. Why would a person support something that prevents protections from people they refer to as friends. Ludicrous.

And really it all comes back to a larger issue. I’ve been working on some research on gay books and stumbled across a particularly irritating one. The premise of this title was to arm Christians with arguments against the new gay Christian movement. Are they serious? The synopsis claimed that this was an outreach; it stated that there was still hope for these gay Christians and that it was not their goal to push people away from God. Are they serious??? It makes me angry that there are actually Christians out there who are upset that other people are Christians. I think the worst part was the comment by a woman about her gay son. The hate in her comment made me feel so sad for her son that this sort of thinking exists in our world. And I felt so blessed to have the parents I have.

Why does this not make perfect sense to everyone else? How is it that we don’t wish for everyone to be happy and healthy and secure? How can we want anything except love and acceptance for everyone on our planet? I cannot wrap my mind around how parents can send their young children to protest the protections of other people.

Fortunately, the GLBT community is not alone. If we were, concerns about changing laws wouldn’t be as prominently on our minds. We have on our side an army of allies from the straight community who have taken up this fight, having recognized what I mentioned before. This is about friends, neighbors, family members. I owe these allies so much.

Heather & John have done more than anyone I know in Alaska to try to make sure it is a better place for me. I’m humbled by their diligence and cannot begin to express my gratitude. Anchorage Baptist Temple should look to these two as examples of how to treat other human beings. Neither approaches with hate, but with understanding, even when that understanding is for someone whose opinions makes very little sense to their own beliefs.

It is amazing to know people like this.

SOSAnchorage Blog

Enjoying Alaska

Last week, we celebrated Dru’s 30th with merriment at David & Daniel’s house. It was a nice evening, if a bit rainy. I love being surrounded by friends and these moments just seem perfect. We talked into the night in the relative closeness of the dining room and kitchen. But it was nice. Liz & Joan are talkative and enjoyable people to be around and I only regret that I tend to clam up in groups and enjoy the being rather than the interacting. Daniel and David are great hosts.

Tuesday, we celebrated Denis’ birthday with a similar soiree. We’d planned a small cookout, but surprised him with presents and guests. The sun was out and we spent our time on Denis’ deck and around a fire. The food was nice; I rediscovered my love of corn on the cob. The group was similar to last week’s and I once again retreated into myself after a time.

I love Anchorage summers almost as much as I love the winters. It is nice to sit outside with friends until almost midnight in the daylight. It was a good day.

Today was warm. I threw open the doors I could and opened up my windows and just let the air through. It was nice.Continue Reading

By:
On:
With: 0 Comments

Open your arms (and welcome Love)

A fervent plea to those people I’ve seen my Church family morphing into, slipping away from me, from Love. A prayer for the many who’ve seen the backs of their loved ones too often, shivering alone because they were misunderstood or openly judged for being human.

My neighbors turned towards themselves
and forgot my face.
Backs towards me with multitudes of assumptions.
My heart feels the hymns,
feels the joy still.
I’m unchanged.
My image fails me; refuses to take the shape of the mold
[the idyllic life]
the person I was supposed to be.
I’m neither broken nor lost.
I’m Love’s child, regardless of whispers and raised eyebrows.
My home,
our home.
I never felt so unwelcome from a family, silently, passively.
Judgments. Silence.
Silence.
From my perch high above the elders,
the deacons, the little old ladies
who wait for death on the third pew from the back,
my mind stretches, finding thoughts far from my body,
dreamily.
I welcome judgment.
Don’t pray for me in anger
or sorrow
or disappointment.
Don’t welcome be back from depravity.
Be family; be true to Love.
Love. Love.
Open your arms — not only to me,
not to selfish or petty concerns of mine,
open your arms because they should be open.
Because they are there for welcoming,
uncrossed and warm,
welcome the children, your family,
forgotten innocents,
the joyful, the content,
the exuberantly happy,
the depressed, and the angry.
Keep you arms open to those whose lives you don’t understand,
whose lives are full of light and laughter,
but cannot find comfort in rigid conformity.
I’ll join them too — march with them
into the auditoriums across distances,
across situational divides.
Be Love.
Kiss your neighbor on the forehead and have them over for dinner.
There is nothing important like Love.
There is nothing but Love.
There is Love.
Love.
And Love will take our hands — yours, mine,
the multitudes huddled in the rain.
We’ll find ourselves then.
We’ll free ourselves and be family again.
And selfish concerns and trivial differences will never be able to keep us apart.

8.21.2008Continue Reading

By:
On:
With: 0 Comments

10th & Cordova

I’m working on feeling unconventional
in a world of unconventional people.
I’m melding with others,
with those whose lives barely cross mine,
I am again like a loose bit
dangling from a ragged tree branch.
And I feel love. Love.
Quantified love. Finite and sequenced love.
Quantified?
I know I’m last. The love left is different,
the love is coated with a sticky doubt.
Denis is made up in shades of green,
needlessly feeding himself pain, gorging himself on his own thoughts.
His love is ranked, ordered, defined by hierarchy.
Denis uses his love to feel closeness,
and he wraps that love in money. Family.
Quantified? Finite?
David makes diplomatic concessions,
talks in circles and understanding tones, tries to hold together
things that aren’t in danger of slipping away.
He spends his time adding on to the structures, stroking egos,
helping Denis find even brighter green vestments.
I can’t even seem to get attention from myself.
Love? Love. It’s possible.
Expanding, filling the room, I feel uncomfortable
and take up too much space. How can I be ignored?
Sometimes I deflate the elephant and shrink to almost nothing,
transparent.
I shrink into a corner and watch my family below grow ever closer
without me, saddened by my own inability to include myself.
Daniel has come in, found David, taken him down a path I cannot see.
The fields of sweetly scented flowers cover the trail.
There is an increased interest in green.
I try to figure out how to be seen,
how to understand quantified love.
Denis longs to not be green, but I only know about this too late,
after I have purchased green tinted glasses that I wear when I look at him.
David and Daniel playing in the flowers makes me
simultaneously happy and enraged.
Enraged at me, at my ignorance, at how insufferable I’ve become.
Daniel brings back flowers and shares them with me,
and I am happy enough. Family.
Quantified? No.
David keeps tabs on the situation, sometimes,
very occasionally checking to see how I’m doing.
It’s easiest when he speaks about Daniel, about secrets and sex,
about the fields of flowers down the path.
I feel happy when he mentions Daniel, free.
The cracks are forming, and we are all distracted with our efforts.
I’ll soon need to purchase another pair of glasses, this time in rose.

Notes

Written 14 June 2008 in McCarthy, Alaska. Revised 1 October 2018 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “10th & Cordova” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading

By:
On:
With: 0 Comments

Oil Man

In secret places I’ve longed to revisit,
he adds new people to his life and the closeness we never had fades in the sad recesses of time. I’ve been forgotten and replaced.
Hidden away in shadowy restaurants, places I was shown the ways I wanted to be loved, new faces grace tables with conversations that are familiar, the responses changing — improving.
I’ve regretted not finding him again and not loving him enough (not loving him in ways I wanted to and could have).
It is a life I gave up to be someone I grew to hate; a life never offered, but hovering over our friendship.
We traveled to the West, to passions we didn’t share, for a weekend that would change who we had been.
I remember how I longed for something more, not only from him, but from me and how I felt the presence of our fear in the room, breathing deeply and making us sad.
I wish he were here, forgiving me, showing me that love still exists for me in his heart. I want him to kiss me, but still afraid, I’d wish it were a hug.
There are times of mistakes, times that cannot be summoned to this present with all the power of my heart… times that I miss.
But scattering the bones of lives I wanted to live across infinity makes the present sad. I need to hold on and keep them close, reminders of motives that make me who I am.

Notes

Written 19 May 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska.

Brian Fuchs, “Oil Man” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)

By:
On:
With: 0 Comments

To a Lovely Man

Oh, sweet beauty!
sing to me in darkness of how you too have longed to be alone with me.
You are not mine…
my mouth wants to taste you.

Written 2 April 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska.

Brian Fuchs, “To a Lovely Man” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)

By:
On:
With: 0 Comments

Adding Names to a Dog

It is all I can do at times when I see you
to not fall in love because you are so handsome,
It is all I can do at times when I see you
to not giggle in glee at how quirky you are.
You arrived clumsily, drunk on beers you keep hidden,
giving new names to a dog I’d known for seven months.
You arrived on the shoulder of a man who is never happy,
a man who needed to be happy.
You arrived lazily, not trying too hard
because you are so handsome.

I am not trying to covet, failing to think
about things that are not you.
I am losing myself in daydreams,
kissing boys who look like you, boys who are you,
but not so much you that I’d blush when you smile.
But I blush when you smile.

You are forcing me to recoil and giggle,
return to dreams that I have been the one to discover you.
My friendships in jeopardy, I struggle.
My friendships melting away, I want you to kiss me
the way I remember kissing you in my mind.
I want you to arrive at my door, drunk on beer
not trying too hard because you are quirky and handsome,
and when you smile I will blush.

Notes

Written 26 March 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska.

Brian Fuchs, “Adding Names to a Dog” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading