176. aleatory

So after my friends’ wedding in Stillwater this past weekend, several wonderful chats with friends, and being around more gay couples, I’ve been thinking more about what it is that I want in a future partner.

This has been something on my mind ever since I came out gay in August of 2008, and since I accepted the notion that a romantic relationship with a man was indeed possible – and that I could have one. Back then my list of must-haves was probably a mile long, as was my list of things to avoid. Somewhere on that list was faith in God, and we can safely say that’s not on the list anymore. (If anything, it’s something for me to avoid!)

My recently expired relationship with Jason also taught me a lot of things about what it is that I want in a partner, and things that I want to be for a partner.

At the top of that list is being active – socially and otherwise. Jason had the disadvantage of suffering from fibromyalgia, so being physically active wasn’t as easy for him. But it did make me realize how much I missed being with people, and just doing things – going to plays, concerts, fundraising events, and so on. And I like doing those things with a person who means a lot to me. Currently I’m leaning on close friends to fill that role, but that’s not quite a substitute for being at a concert and your boyfriend holding you while you listen to a band you both love. I was at a Cloud Cult concert on Sunday night, and a boy standing next to me was holding his girlfriend for most of it. And as much as I balk at public displays of affection, I’m secretly jealous because I’m a closeted über-romantic who really loves that shit.

I’ve also been volunteering a lot more as of late. Last Thursday I participated in an event called Dining Out for Life in which various restaurants donated a certain percentage of their proceeds towards helping people living with HIV/AIDS. My friend Adam and I were on site for lunch and dinner and two local participating restaurants, going from table to table handing out donation envelopes and telling people about the event. It felt amazing to be part of, and to be doing good, and I want to do more of that. And I want to do more of that with a special guy who also enjoys doing good, so that we can do good together.

I also want to be with a fellow gay atheist. This is one area that I’ve waffled on a little over the past two years, but the more I think about it and the more dates I’ve been on with gay guys who believe in God, the less likely it seems that we’d be able to sustain a meaningful, long-term relationship with that as a difference. Because how you view the world as an atheist is vastly different from how you view it as a theist. I should know – I used to be one.

A couple years ago my sister went into the hospital with some serious health problems. My mom called to tell me about it, and she asked if I’d pray. I said, “Mom, you know that I don’t believe in prayer.” And I don’t. I don’t believe that anyone is looking out for us, that things will necessarily work out for the best, or that there’s some grand purpose for life on this planet. She seemed flummoxed that I wouldn’t pray, so I explained that I believed my sister was in good hands with doctors who have years of medical training, and that they’d figure out what was wrong. And they did. And, of course, my parents gave all the credit to God.

I don’t want to have that argument with my husband when one of our parents gets sick or dies – or when one of us gets sick or hurt. Because it inevitably will.

I also want to be with someone who’s as big of a geek, and as deeply curious about the world as I am. Last night I got to hang out with two guys who’ve been married for eighteen years. Our conversation ranged from classic Doctor Who episodes, to music history, to politics, to confusion over pop culture references. They balanced each other in many ways, but there’s a mutual passion and love for learning in both of them that I realized I desperately want in a husband – someone whose initial reaction to something new isn’t “That’s weird” but rather, “Oooh!” I committed myself a long time ago to living my life with my eyes wide open, and I want to be with someone who has the same love for knowledge – a fellow philomath.

Another thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m not monogamous. I’m all for getting married and committing myself to a guy I’m madly in love with, but the idea of sexual exclusivity for both of us is one that I think is unnecessary. There are many gay couples who want to be monogamous, and good for them; but I personally enjoy sexual freedom and being able to get to know other guys intellectually as well as physically.

Maybe it’s just that men view sex differently than women, but if anything I’ve found that many of my friendships have been enhanced for having a sexual element, probably because it’s not some unspoken, forbidden thing between us. Because there’s a major difference in having sex with someone you care deeply for, and sex with someone you enjoy being with.

As Dan Savage has said on his show, cheating is only cheating if you’re sneaking around on your partner. The couples I know who aren’t monogamous communicate more, are more attuned to being safe and staying healthy, and have deeply committed relationships.

And more than anything, that’s what I want.

175. hellion

Going into Monday after a hectic weekend is never a great way to start the week.

This Saturday I was the best man in my friends Beckie and Mike’s wedding. Overall, it was one of the more low-key affairs I’ve attended and been a part of. It was maybe ten minutes long. The bride wore blue (almost TARDIS blue!), her brother officiated, and the wedding processionals were both songs by Christina Aguilera that I arranged for two violins.

The reception was also low-key and started about an hour after the wedding, with an open bar and beautiful weather for sitting outside while we waited. Per tradition, I delivered the opening toast, which ended up being a two-and-a-half page essay that included mentions of the United Nations, evolutionary biology, and an excerpt from The Little Prince (which I’ve quoted on this blog once before). Surprisingly, it was relatively well-received, and the bride has even titled her Facebook photo album from the wedding “The United Nations of Mike and Beckie’s Wedding”!

It was also an emotionally difficult weekend for me to get through, partly because it came barely a month after Jason and I broke up (the bachelor party happened the week of the breakup), and almost everyone was there with their spouses or significant others. Aside from me and the maid of honor, everyone there in the wedding party was coupled. Even the one bridesman was there with his boyfriend Roy, who took all of the wedding photos. So I was constantly being reminded there of how single I am, and of how incompatible I am with most gay men my age, so I came away feeling less confident that I’ll ever find a guy to marry.

Eager to get away to get some emotional room (and so that the middle-aged women wouldn’t keep trying to make me dance with single girls—apparently they didn’t understand what “gay” means), I left the reception early to visit a friend of mine. He’d texted me earlier that evening that only eight people had come to his birthday party, and his husband was out of town, and I needed some cheering up too so it was rather perfectly timed for both of us. I ended up feeling much better for the visit, and we had a great conversation that got me thinking about the qualities I want in a future husband, which I’ll write more about later.

Another element that made the wedding weekend difficult was running into the last person I was expecting or wanting to see—Seth, the guy who broke my heart on my birthday in 2011. Last Wednesday I was attending an LGBT networking event at a local restaurant where Seth is apparently a bartender there—a fact that nobody thought to mention to me. I arrived at the place, and was saying my hellos and ordering a drink when I heard someone say my name. I turned around, and there he was, looking sheepish and slightly surprised himself. I’m not sure what the hell possessed him to speak to me when I’ve made it clear that I want nothing to do with him. Probably the same thoughtlessness that allowed him to intentionally ignore the fact that he knew I was in love with him so that he could keep having sex with me. (Very convenient for him. Not so much for me.)

It was an inevitable moment that I’d been dreading. For its size, the Twin Cities is a relatively small place; and for the gay community, it’s an even smaller world. So that he and I would run into each other, or even possibly date some of the same people, was bound to happen.

My reaction to seeing Seth there was to respond with a curt, “Ah,” quickly turn away, and pretend I’d barely noticed him. It was the same tone I’d used when seeing him a few weeks after my birthday in 2011, when I’d snarled “What the fuck are you doing here?” at him.

I spent the evening ignoring him, which was difficult as he was behind the bar for most of it, often chatting with some of the cuter guys at the event. I found myself wondering how many of their numbers he’d managed to get, and how many of them he’d be fucking soon. Part of me found my jealousy after over two years ridiculous and hilarious, but his presence there made it difficult to concentrate or even think.

When the event started to wind up, I closed my tab and left as quickly as possible. I was about halfway home and at Starbucks when I realized that in my haste I’d left my card. Fortunately, I had my tablet with my Wallet app on it, so I was able to pay for my beverage; but it did mean I’d have to go back. When I got there Seth was on the phone. I walked past him to find someone to ask about my card and was waiting for about a minute to talk to another bartender when Seth walked up with my card and handed it back to me, saying quietly, “Here you go, David.” I had the twin impulses to say something snide and cruel in response, but also to get as far away from him as possible. So I hissed a “thank you,” and virtually ran back to my car.

So that was the Wednesday before the wedding, when I was already feeling lonely and undesirable, and there was Seth, looking handsome and charming as ever.

The theme of my romantic life is that I can never fall in love with anyone who is able to love me in return, and vice versa. And seeing him last week when I was feeling single, miserable and pathetic was another cruel irony of coincidence.

All that loving must’ve been lacking something
if I got bored trying to figure you out.
You let me down. I don’t even like you anymore at all.
- Fiona Apple

 

174. flashforward

So it’s been a rather eventful last couple of weeks for me personally since last I wrote regularly.

My creative nonfiction class is over, and my writing project is slowly starting to emerge from the star nursery of invention. I’m gradually starting to put bits and pieces of my history together as more memories emerge from my childhood and young adult years that I forgot about. So it’s been a useful process.

Many of those memories I buried because they were too unpleasant and turbulent to think about, but it’s good to revisit them now as an adult, with a broader and more knowing perspective. The ultimate goal is to develop about fourteen essays on the themes of survival, acceptance, all around the dual journeys of coming out gay and atheist. From various reactions so far it sounds like a marketable story, but who knows.

Hell, who knows if I’m even good enough of a writer to tackle it…

The other big piece of news is that, as of a month ago today, I’m a single man again. This last relationship lasted for just about eight months. I’m feeling good about the split overall. It was the right decision and call to make, but it was still hard, and I’ve still felt like shit over it.

There were a couple of challenges to the relationship to begin with. One, he lives about an hour north of the Twin Cities, and for most of our relationship he didn’t have a car so every weekend I drove up to see him. He did get a car a few months before we broke up, but there was something wrong with the brakes or something and he didn’t feel safe driving it.

Another challenge was fibromyalgia. In case you’re not familiar, fibromyalgia is widespread chronic pain that’s usually accompanied by fatigue, trouble sleeping, and joint stiffness. During the summer when he was able to spend time outside he was mostly fine, but when any kind of weather shift happened he’d be knocked out flat. So once winter came along he was in a rough state.

As Esther Perel says in the TED Talk below, “There is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is . . . a powerful anti-aphrodisiac. I have yet to see somebody who is so turned on by somebody who needs them. Wanting them is one thing. Needing them is a shutdown.”

I enjoy how she summarized responses she got from people talking about their lovers: “I am most drawn to my partner when I see him in the studio; when she is onstage; when he is in his element; when she’s doing something she’s passionate about; when I see him at a party and other people are really drawn to him; when I see her hold court. Basically, when I look at my partner radiant and confident, [it's] probably the biggest turn-on across the board.”

With Jay, I so rarely got to see him in his element, or see him passionate about anything. When he was passionate, it was about sustainability or something that had to do with the outdoors or systems thinking. Which is great, but not something that got me excited.

Once we started getting serious, he started talking about marriage and moving in together. (Mind you, this is after about four months. Big red flag.) I was on the fence about whether or not I was ready to commit, but given my attachment issues, I wanted to give our relationship a chance and see if the feelings followed. (They didn’t.) My mistake was not being more honest about that.

When we talked about where we wanted to live, the primary factor he was considering was staying out of the urban circle of the Cities – as close to rural as possible. Since he was the one with fibromyalgia, his needs apparently outweighed mine. His argument was that since I plan to be a writer, I could work from anywhere.

A couple months later he was talking about moving to a dryer, warmer climate. I said that I wasn’t too keen on moving to the middle of nowhere, as it’s in the middle of nowhere and far from culture and resources. He dismissed that, saying that I need to be less reliant on stores and start growing my own food, and that I don’t need culture as much as I think I do.

Aheh.

So I was initially attracted to Jay because of his passion for the environment and the fact that he’s an unabashed nerd and a Whovian, like I am. And he’s an attractive guy. But the more our relationship progressed, the less we really seemed to have in common. There was also the fact that he never really wanted to do anything with my friends, or meet the people in my life who are important to me, even though I’d met most of his friends and family.

My biggest regret is letting it go on for as long as it did, and not listening to myself that it wasn’t the right relationship for either of us. Truth be told, I was afraid of being single again, because this time I’d be single, gay, and thirty. And I didn’t want to be alone.

What it comes down to for me is less about age, and more about the fact that I don’t feel desirable. I feel awkward, crippled by my fundamentalist Christian upbringing, mangled by my inability to flirt with guys I like, and hugely undermined by my brain, which usually makes me feel old and weird around the guys I’ve dated. In reality, they’re probably just not very interesting and consequently not right for me.

I also feel like a failure for still being single at my age. Most of my friends are paired off, and have been with their partners for years. So I wonder what’s wrong with me that I haven’t found someone.

Truth is, I’m just not good with uncertainty. Or being alone with myself.

173. machinate

Here’s a surprise bit of news from the FCC: it’s considering dropping current broadcast decency standards that ban explicit profanity and “non-sexual” nudity. Apparently they’ll cut their backlog of pending complaints significantly (I think by about 70 percent), and save a ton of money in the process.

Translation—we’d be hearing a lot more “shit” instead of “shoot” or “crap”; “fuck” instead of “frack” or “fudge”; and seeing more boobs and (fingers crossed everyone) cock on television. Naked breasts I could care less about. Cock, however…

Not surprisingly, the “family” councils (e.g., American Family Association, my local Minnesota Family Council) are up in arms over this “outrage.” I guess while they were focused on keeping gays and lesbians from getting hitched, the Gay Agenda snuck this one through the backdoor to finish its job of stripping the United States of its morals.

Their response: send their legions of panic-stricken Christians to the FCC website to file complaints. Some of the responses are unwittingly hilarious (taken verbatim from the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System page). Like this one:

Philippians 4:8 says – for the rest, brethren,whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatver is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virte and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things (fix your minds on them). F words and nudity would cause my to discontinue television.

The old fundamentalist Christian standby—when there’s no rational argument, quote Bible verses! That one always works. Or this one:

By allowing the F word and nudity on to television you are striking very damaging harm to the already seriously wounded culture in the United States. Our sex saturated culture harms especially young people and deprives them of hope that their lives can mprove when they experience the reults of a culture which places sexual gratification as the ultimate game. When many young people realize that they have been deluded they will be tempted to increase the already alarming statistic on youth suicide.

So if the FCC broadcasts words like “fuck” and (non-sexual) images of nude women (and men!!!) … young people will commit suicide?

Some comments make wild use of punctuation to drive home their point:

Do you think more FILTH on TV is good for our country???????????????

Or this one, from a gentleman who claims that the United States will somehow be overthrown and its citizens enslaved if the FCC airs “naughty” words:

Your advocacy of nudity and profanity on public TV are the signs of the terminal moral decay of America, as this nation turns from its moral foundations to puruse its own direction free from the moral and religious standards that once made this nation great. You are part of the sweeping tide that is bringing about the destruction of our nation through the advocacy of pornagraphy and profanity; an advocacy which only 20 years ago would have been unthinkable. Freedom abused and misused wiil be freedom lost,as we lose this country to the results of moral decay – which will be our enslavement. Be forwarned.

The FCC wouldn’t be advocating nudity, profanity or pornography, any more than it currently advocates batshit crazy Evangelical theology by allowing lunatics like Pat Robertson and Bryan Fischer to air their hateful ideology on their television and radio shows.

Then there are comments like this one:

Please do not relax the FCC standards. If anything, tighten the standards and enforce them. TV and radio have gotten too filthy and violent. It’s already too indecent and repulsive and needs to be cleaned up. Our culture is in rapid decay, every little bit we can do to reverse the damage would be a step in the correct direction.

With one breath, these Christians tell the government to stay the heck out of their lives and their religion. With the next, they demand the FCC enforce some kind of moral police state. Which do they want—a small government, or a Big Brother state? (We know the answer: they want nothing short of an Evangelical Christian theocracy.)

Of course, I know plenty of Christians and other people of faith who won’t be flummoxed at all by this. They drink, swear, fuck, and enjoy a good nudie show as much as the next godless heathen. And I know plenty of atheists who are just as offended by profanity and nudity as many of these Christians (albeit for different reasons).

Point is—if you don’t like what’s on TV, don’t watch. With the exception of activities that really do harm people (e.g., cigarettes, stabbing people with knives), just because you feel offended by or don’t like something doesn’t give you the right to try and outlaw or ban it for everyone.

—

More on this from the International Business Times: http://www.ibtimes.com/fcc-may-finally-relax-draconian-bush-era-indecency-rules-parents-television-council-not-happy-about

172. leeward

Several weeks ago I discovered that a friend of mine had never seen the 1964 film version of Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady, with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. It was rather shocking because A) I grew up with it and can’t imagine anyone else not having seen it; and B) he’s gay… and, well, musicals seem the particular purview of the gays. Hell, it’s one of the qualities that all but gave me away back in the day. (My friend Emily said, “You got way too excited about Sondheim to be straight.”)

My friend and I were talking about the moment that language goes from being merely parroting to true acquisition, when words go from sounds to meaning, and I brought up this iconic scene:

He had a percipient observation about the show: namely, that it’s a picture of imperialism. Eliza Doolittle is taken from the gutter by the chauvinistic Henry Higgins, dressed in the garb of the upper class, and taught how to speak and behave “properly.” In the same way, Native American children were taken from their homes by Christian missionaries and taught how to speak, behave and dress like proper Christians (i.e., Western Caucasian culture).

The reason we were talking about this scene, and this song in particular, is that it illustrates that “light bulb” moment. My college French teacher told my class that her’s took place one semester while studying abroad. She was reading in a tree one day, she said, and all of a sudden everything just snapped into place. She didn’t have to translate from French into English anymore. The words carries meaning.

Writer David Sedaris describes a similar moment in Me Talk Pretty One Day, from the essay collection of the same name:

It was mid-October when the teacher singled me out, saying, “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.” And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.

Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it. It’s a small step, nothing more, yet its rewards are intoxicating and deceptive. The teacher continued her diatribe and I settled back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult. . .

The world opened up, and it was with great joy that I responded, “I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus.”

These moments came to mind because several weeks ago I finally stopped believing in God. That’s not to say that I haven’t been an atheist these past two years. I still see no evidence or reason now to continue believing in God. The difference is that, a couple of weeks ago, I finally stopped missing God. It’s like that moment when you finally get over someone you’ve held a torch for, and one day, for whatever reason, those feelings stop. The memory of the love and the feeling is still there, but the gravitational pull doesn’t yank you out of your own orbit every time it wheels around.

Walking to work one morning a couple of weeks ago, the part of me that missed having a God to believe in went away. I’m not sure why it happened just then, but it was as if a balloon had popped, or a string were, and I wasn’t tethered to those feelings anymore. I didn’t feel the need to get angry or mean when someone talked about God or faith. I still get upset when hearing about someone being hurt by Christians, but then I get upset when anyone is hurt by anybody, for any reason.

I’m still passionate about the separation of church and state, about promoting secular and humanist values in society and throughout the world, and encouraging people to think for themselves instead of letting their thinking be done for them by those who want to fetter everyone in the world to a 2,000-year-old book. But I’m not doing it out of some revenge fixation, like a jilted lover railing against an ex.

None of us had a choice about being born in the proverbial Christian missionary school and taught the clean, holy Christian ways of the White Man. Neither did any of us have a choice about being attracted to members of the same sex. Eliza Doolittle chose to become the pupil of Henry Higgins, and accept his narrative of being a “proper lady.” But in the process she maintained her sense of self, and at the end of George Bernard Shaw’s original play, Pygmalion, she does indeed go off to marry Freddy and become a teacher of phonetics. Her final words to Higgins in the play show her to be a truly emancipated woman, unlike the chauvinistic ending of Lerner and Lowe’s musical: “Buy them yourself.”

I didn’t have a choice about being raised a Christian and saddled with all the negativity. But I’ll be damned if my parents’ choices are going to steer the course of the rest of my life.

You dear friend who talk so well: you can go to Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire.

171. tensile

Sorry it’s been a while. My nonfiction writing class started at the end of January and that’s been pretty writing, as well as emotionally, intensive. The focus of the class is on personal narrative, so (naturally) I’m writing about the experience of coming out gay and during the process of that losing my Christian faith as well. Coupled with therapy, it’s dredging up a lot of memories – some good, some painful – but already I’ve experienced quite a bit of healing. It’s going to take some time still, and it’s odd becoming your own archivist, but it’s a fascinating experience.

I’ve also been digging into my family tree the past couple of weeks and have made some really fascinating discoveries that are crying out for further investigation. (This has the strong likelihood of becoming another book after the one about my dual coming out story.) I’m contemplating a trip to England just to do some digging and maybe even find some original genealogical records.

The past couple of years I’ve attempted to trace my 3rd great grandfather, John Miller (or Mueller), my great grandmother’s grandfather. It appears that he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland at the age of 18 on June 5, 1850 with his brother (whose name I haven’t been able to uncover – yet). He embarked from Bremen, Germany about six weeks earlier on the passenger ship Adolphine. According to records from the 1850 census, he lived in Ward 5 of Baltimore, Maryland with the Wigar family. That’s where the trail runs cold.

My third great grandmother Mary Barbara Giessler (or Geissler) arrived in Baltimore, Maryland in November of 1854 on the passenger ship Minerva. She was born on September 3, 1829 in Bretzfeld, a town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She was 25 years old when she first set foot in the United States. I’m still not sure when or where they were married.

That’s as far as I’ve been able to go with the Millers (my great grandmother’s maiden name). So last week I decided instead to trace the Norris clan, which is my great grandfather’s name. That tree was actually much easier to trace. (I’m starting with Ancestry.com. Yes, I know it’s owned by the Mormons, but who better to start with than people who have a genealogy fetish?)

The first interesting discovery was that my 8th great grandmother, Mary Norris (b. Jun 1, 1689), was murdered on Feb 1, 1760 by Cherokee Indians in an event known as the Long Cane Massacre in South Carolina. She was 71 years old when she died. All of the adults were slaughtered, and two girls were carried off, one of whom was rescued years later (think John Ford’s The Searchers).

Thomas James, first librarian of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Second interesting discovery was that my 15th grand uncle, Thomas James (c. 1573 – 1629), was the first librarian of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. He began his appointed duties on November 8, 1602.

As close as I can tell, the first of my grandparents to come to what was then the American Colonies was Thomas Edward Norris (1608 – 1675). He was born in Congham, England, and arrived in the Colonies in the early 1630s. There are apparently a number of interesting stories about him, some of which may be true. The gist is that he ran away from home around age 10 or 11, went to sea as a sailor, and landed in Nansemond County in Virginia around 1630 or 1631. (By the math, Thomas was at sea for about twelve years! What a badass!) He married his wife, Ann Hynson, in 1637. Curiously, their seventh child, Cuthbert, drowned at sea near Sulawesi, Tengah, Indonesia in 1668 at the age of 23. Fortunately, Thomas’ eldest son Thomas Jr. (1608 – 1675) survived long enough to spawn my 9th great grandfather, John Norris (1672-1752), along with 10 other children by two (consecutive) wives.

Note that all of these dates so far are pre-Revolutionary War! Most of my relatives were probably Loyalists to the Crown.

Next interesting fact I discovered is that Thomas Fleming, husband of my 15th great grand aunt, Mary Fleming (née James) (1554-1614), was a judge in the trial of Guy Fawkes. Yes. Guy Fawkes of the Gunpowder Plot. Mary’s grandmother was my 17th great grandfather Thomas James’ wife Alice Porter (1502-1547), the daughter of Dr. Mark James, who was personal physician to…

Elizabeth I.

QUEEN. ELIZABETH. THE FIRST.

The Virgin Queen. Gloriana. Bess. The Faerie Queen.

After that I kept expecting to hit a dead end, but the branches just kept going up. Starting from my first true English ancestor, Thomas Norris (10th great grandfather), the line continued. Geoffrey Norris (1559-1609), John Norris (1528-1572), and then to where the story starts to get more interesting, Geoffrey Noreys (1490-1572). Noreys is an earlier spelling of Norris, which we will see the origin of in a moment.

His father was Robert Noreys (1460-1572)… and then we enter the very confusing period of Everyone And His Father Is Literally Named Geoffrey. (No joke.) The interesting thing is that after 19th great grandfather Geoffrey, the surname went from “le Norreys” to just “Norey” or “Norrey.” This was around the middle of the 14th century. Plague time in England.

Skip several generations to a guy named William de Noers, which is where the story keeps getting interesting.

William de Noers was a steward to William the Conqueror. He fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and apparently for his loyalty was granted thirty-three manors along with lands in the areas which became known as Lancashire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk, making him a tenant-in-chief. His name was important enough to record in the Domesday Book of 1086, where his surname is spelled “de Noyers.” The book tells us he had charge of lands in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Buckinghamshire for the King that had once belonged to Archbishop Stigand of Cantebury.

William’s father was Sir Gilbert de Noers (990-c.1024), a Norman knight and Baron of Missenden in what is now Buckinghamshire. Gilbert was born in Normandy, in the northern part of France (Norris means “man from the North”).

Here I thought my family was boring…

170. atavistic

So apparently two of the Phelps granddaughters, Megan and Grace, have left the Westboro clan. They even issued a public statement expressing regret for their actions as members of the family and the church. And everyone seems to be really excited and happy about that, ready to welcome these women with open arms into polite society.

And while I’m certainly glad that they’re out of that awful place and that there are two less Phelps in that clan to cause harm, I’m not entirely pleased with the reactions to this story.

Before I delve into my own feelings on this, here’s the statement they released:

We know that we’ve done and said things that hurt people. Inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, but it was one of the outcomes. We wish it weren’t so, and regret that hurt.

We know that we dearly love our family. They now consider us betrayers, and we are cut off from their lives, but we know they are well-intentioned. We will never not love them.

We know that we can’t undo our whole lives. We can’t even say we’d want to if we could; we are who we are because of all the experiences that brought us to this point. What we can do is try to find a better way to live from here on. That’s our focus.

Up until now, our names have been synonymous with “God Hates Fags.” Any twelve-year-old with a cell phone could find out what we did. We hope Ms. Kyle was right about the other part, too, though – that everything sticks – and that the changes we make in our lives will speak for themselves.

Okay, basic rules of public apology-making, as summarized on Billosophy:

1. Ask For Forgiveness
2. Admit What You Did
3. Do Not Excuse
4. Do Not Place Blame
5. Do Not Justify Why
6. Acknowledge The Consequences

I know as well as anyone who grew up in a fundamentalist home the regret that comes with wishing you had come to your senses earlier. The way things are is normal. You don’t know that you have a choice not to participate. But we’re not talking about just any family. This is the “God Hates Fags” family, just a step below the Manson clan in terms of notoriety. So it bothers me that not once in this statement did either Megan or Grace say, “I’m sorry.” The whole thing is essentially a non-apology.

We know that we’ve done and said things that hurt people. Inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, but it was one of the outcomes. We wish it weren’t so, and regret that hurt.

“Regret” is a word you use when saying that you wish things had turned out differently: that the other car hadn’t run the stop sign; that you hadn’t sunk all your money into the Ponzi scheme; that you hadn’t wasted a year of your life pining after a guy who would never return your love. However, it’s not a word you use when talking about having intentionally caused pain and misery for so many people. Because if inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, I’d sure as hell like to know what was.

It’s as if a rapist-murderer said at the trial: “I know that I’ve done things that hurt people. Inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, but it was one of the outcomes. I wish it wasn’t so, and regret that hurt.” We shouldn’t be surprised when the jury comes back with a guilty-on-all-counts verdict.

When it comes down to it, Megan broke pretty much every rule of apology making that psychology has identified as being integral to the healing process. She justifies her actions by laying the blame on her family, and on us by saying they were somehow misunderstood. She glosses over the painful consequences of those actions, and dances around the specifics of what she actually did (e.g., picketing military funerals, thanking God for AIDS, telling everyone God hates them). Then she justifies her actions by having the unbelievable gall to say that she didn’t mean to hurt anyone.

Personally, I’d have been satisfied with something like this:

I’m sincerely sorry for all of the pain and suffering I inflicted on innocent people as a leader of the Westboro Baptist Church. There’s no way that I can ever fully undo the damage I caused or unsay the things that I said, but I promise to spend the rest of my life working to heal the hurt I imposed on gay and lesbian people, on the families of the brave soldiers who gave their lives defending this great country, and on anyone else my family has directed their hatred toward.

That might have convinced some of us of her sincerity—not that we doubt that she’s not a member of the Westboro cult anymore. Rather, that she grasps the gravity of who she was and what she did. At the bare minimum, I expect some real tears here.

Some of the anger I’m feeling comes from the fact that I’ve never been offered an apology by my family, or any of the people who unwittingly taught me how to hate and view myself as a disgusting, perverted, broken faggot. And probably never will. Even after I shared those feelings, no one apologized for the pain I suffocated under all those years, terrified and unable both to articulate that pain or to share its cause. So I’m left to heal all by myself, like the victim of a psychopath with a scalpel, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’m angry (particularly with the atheist and LGBT communities) with those who seem quick to welcome these women into the fold without so much as an apology that comes close to being adequate or forthright. I don’t expect anyone to crawl over broken glass, but I do expect them to own up to who they were and what they did. They owe us that much.