Box Turtle Bulletin

Al Reynolds: “I Am Not A Homosexual”

Jim Burroway

July 16th, 2008

Star Jones’ soon-to-be ex-husband has announced that he is “not a homosexual.” I know! But you can believe it this time because he took 397 words to say it.

Google Pride

Jim Burroway

June 27th, 2008

Google’s celebrating along with the rest of us. To see what I mean, just go to Google and search for something gay. It should look something like this:

Do you see the rainbow stripe between the sponsored ads and the search results? And it’s context sensitive. Search for “gay Paris,” and the stripe’s not there. Very clever!

Movie Warning

Timothy Kincaid

June 19th, 2008

OK, this is WAY outside what we usually post. But I saw a pre-release movie last night that so bad that i have to warn you.

Mike Myers’ The Love Guru is painfully awful.

If you think that puns are the height of wit and the name “Guru Tugginmypudha” makes you roll on the floor laughing you might love this movie. You might also be an adolescent boy.

But if the Indian town name of Hairinmykeester makes you cringe rather than giggle, don’t waste your money. In fact, don’t waste your NetFlix.

The Winner of BTB’s SuperDads Contest

Jim Burroway

June 17th, 2008

Congratulations to Tony K! His entry was selected as the winner of BTB’s SuperDads contest. Since Tony already feels blessed, he asked that we donate the winnings to someone more in need.

So I decided to make a donation in Tony K’s honor to the Wingspan LGBT Community Center for Southern Arizona. Wingspan has a great array of services, most notably their anti-violence project (which includes hate crimes and domestic violence) and the great work they do with at-risk youth. They also have great health and wellness programs, senior programs, transgender support and advocacy, Latina/o outreach, and a public policy program. And since Wingpan has a fundraiser going on right now, this $35 gift is getting matched, dollar for dollar, by a generous donor.

If you missed them, you can read SuperDads essays from Tony K., Garrett, Ben, Jason, and me.

Exactly The Opposite of What The Ex-Gays Told Me

Jim Burroway

June 14th, 2008

This Father’s Day essay is from Jason Cianciotto, Executive Director of Tucson’s Wingspan LGBT Community Center. You can also read Fathers Day essays from Tony K. and Garrett and Ben. If you’d like to share your Fathers Day memories, please send them to Superdad@boxturtlebulletin.com. The best entry gets a free T-shirt or other gift (up to $35, which is just about everything) from our BTBStore.

I vividly remember sitting in the therapist’s office hearing him slam my dad yet again for “not being there for me” when I was a kid. This was just one of the reasons why these experts determined that I liked boys instead of girls. I was 16, depressed, embarrassed, ashamed, and desperate to be the young man that my Christian family wanted me to be. Among the most incredible destinations in my personal journey of acceptance was that it was ultimately my father who rescued me and provided a safe and welcome space for me to become the man I am today.

My parents divorced when I was 2½ years old, and shortly afterwards my mother became a born again Christian. I saw my father every weekend, but the faith I was raised in created a sharp divided that lasted well into my teenage years. I remember hearing my father and stepmother share how heartbroken they were when they had to bring me back home to my mother one weekend because I was afraid of them after I heard they they were going to hell because they weren’t Christians. Though he doesn’t talk about it, I know that my father held back a lot of frustration and anger against my mother because of how her faith created a separation between us.

Growing up, I remember a lot of fun times with my dad and my “other” family, my stepmom, brother and sister; vacations at the Jersey Shore; wresting matches with my father on the living room floor; boxing matches with me wearing my kid gloves and standing on the bed while he stood on the floor and pretended to be knocked out by my glancing blows. These memories run counter to the reasons I was told why I was gay — a child of divorce with the the distant father who chose not to be a “man of the lord.”

By age 19, I was desperate to find the answer to the questions inside of me. Years of therapy and prayers in the basement of my house with my head covered with a towel in submission to God while listening to contemporary Christian music had failed to divert curious glances at my male classmates from high school through my freshman year of college. My father and siblings had already moved from the east coast to Tucson years before and our time together was relegated to phone calls I don’t really remember. My “new” father, the man my mother married when I was 11 years old, was distant and hardly spent time with me. I remember an awkward conversation with him over pizza at that time in my life. I realized that the man my mother determined the Lord had brought into her life was really just for her, not for me.

That became all too clear the day I came home from work and found most of my personal belongings in black garbage bags on the porch of my house. My mother had found the secret stash of gay porn given to me by a new friend I had made in the LGBT support group at the local community college I was attending. They reached the end of their rope with me and felt that the only way they could protect their family from me was to exorcise me from their lives.

When my father realized the extent to which my life had fallen apart, he invited me to drive cross-country and live with him in Tucson. He encouraged me to go to college at the University of Arizona after establishing state residency. I arrived after my 2,000-mile drive, traumatized by the years before and still thinking I was a straight guy with a gay mental health problem. After I found the youth group at the local gay community center and finally came out to myself and my family, I remember him sharing with me how his only concern was that my life would be harder than others because of the discrimination I would face because of my sexual orientation. This was a sharp contrast to the response of my Christian family, who, after I came out to them via telephone, barely spoke to me for three years.

As I approach my 33rd birthday, I look back in awe — the thing that I needed most to heal and become a whole, healthy human being was exactly the opposite of what the therapists and the faith I was raised in told me. I have a superdad because, in him, I have a friend who was really there for me when I needed him most. Thanks dad, and happy Father’s Day.

Jason Cianciotto
June 13, 2008

Do you have something you want to share for father’s day? Please send it to Superdad@boxturtlebulletin.com.

The First Picture I Ever Took

Jim Burroway

June 12th, 2008

It’s not too late to submit your essay about what your father means to you. As I said before, you can do it any way you like: It can be an essay, a poem, photos, video, podcast — whatever motivates you. It can be about your father, your grandfather, your neighbor’s father, your stepfather, your kid’s father, or your favorite father figure.

We’ve gotten three so far, from Tony K. and Garrett and Ben. Yours could be next. Just send it to Superdad@boxturtlebulletin.com between now and midnight Sunday night. The best submission gets a T-shirt.

I mentioned earlier that we have very few pictures of my dad, simply because he was always the one taking the pictures. Like this one of me (left, about six years old) and my younger brother (right) playing in the back yard. Who knows why he decided to go outside and take this picture. Maybe he just wanted to finish up a roll and get it developed. Who knows?

But what I do remember is that it was an unusually bright, spring day, and that we were going to move soon to the town that I would eventually regard as my home town. I also remember on that spring day that I didn’t want my picture taken, but I did want to take a picture of my dad.

And so I asked him. “Dad, can I take your picture? Please?”

Now like I said, he took all the pictures. He had a brand new Kodak Instamatic, a fancy jobber with an automatic winder. This baby was his camera. And so I also remember the sense of awesome responsibility I felt as he carefully placed it into my two small hands, wrapped the cord around my wrist so I wouldn’t drop it, and showed me how to slowly, slowly press the shutter so the camera wouldn’t jerk and take a blurry picture.

And so there I was — with my dad’s camera! — ready to take my very first photo.

And there you have it. The very first picture I ever took. That look on his face? I think he’s still worried that I’m going to drop his camera, but he let me take the picture anyway. Because that’s the way he was, worried sometimes but supportive always.

So, what about your dad?

Update: My goodness, I just looked at the calendar. It was twenty-five years ago today that dad passed away. He’s much loved and much missed still.

A Small Story

Jim Burroway

June 11th, 2008

This Father’s Day message is from Ben. You can also see Father’s Day Messages from Tony K. and Garrett.

This is just a small story.

I was raised by my biological family. My family was (and is) not just a little bit strange — ironically, I think I am the only one of four children that did not come out damaged. My Dad was OK — a good man with strong values and a good mind. He raised me properly, and I think I turned out well. But something was missing with him — I suspect it was what I call the gay Oedipus thing. My Dad recognized that I was very different from him (or entirely too similar to–take your pick) , and so we were perhaps not as close as we could have been, though we certainly had a decent relationship.

When I was 13, I met the boy who became my best friend, and his family became my family. I would escape there every weekend that I could. What a world of difference in how I was perceived and treated! John’s father, Dick, became a second father to me, in many ways, the father I always wanted, though he was far crazier in a lot of ways than my own father. His wife, Virginia, similarly became the mother I always wanted– loving and kind and supportive, not even just a little bit crazy, unlike my mother. They were the ones who showed up for my senior year choral concert– my own parents didn’t like classical music, and couldn’t be bothered. In all ways, Dick and Virginia were great parents to me, as they were with their own children.

Dick and Virginia were also very conservative and Christian. During the Watts riots, he said if “they” came near his house, he’d pull out his shotgun, sit on the front lawn and “pick off his limit”. Yes, THAT conservative.

For this reason, I was very hesitant to tell them I was gay. They were in fact the very last people I told, and I told them because I had made the commitment to myself that there would be no more lies. If I lost them, then I lost lost them.

So, I wrote them a long letter explaining the whole thing. I few weeks later, I received a response. Their words have always been engraved on my heart:

“It makes no difference to us. You are our son and we love you. We’re glad you loved us enough to tell us.”

Do you have something you want to share for father’s day? Please send it to Superdad@boxturtlebulletin.com.

“Thanks Dad!”

Jim Burroway

June 10th, 2008

This Father’s Day message is from Tony K.

My father was an “old fashioned” man. After returning from a long army posting abroad he and my mother were strangers, so they had me to keep them together. It’s not strange that I ended up as a couples therapist.

He learned parenting from his father but decided that he wasn’t going to submit me to the continual brutal beatings that he’d had. Insteadhe needed to toughen me up — after all I was going to have to fight as a soldier, just like he had. Softness of any sort was going to leave me vulnerable and hurt. He didn’t want that. When I was three he decided not to touch me except in anger. To drag, push or hit. He never cuddled, held, praised or showed affection. It’s not that he didn’t love me. The experiences he’d had in Burma and India were so bad that wanted me strong and independent. This was his way of loving.

When he did touch me I would often end up on the other side of the room. I was terrified of him.

When I went to college he told me that I could never return to be at home with my family. I’d left them for an education and would never be able to part of them again. He was proud of me but terribly sad.

On a visit back I came out to my parents. He was standing in the kitchen by the sink. He went silent.

Then he opened his arms, stepped towards me and hugged me for the first time in twenty years. “You’re my son. I will always love you,” and then he went upstairs.

Later I introduced him to my boyfriend. Boyfriend? We’ve been together for thirty years. He and Dad shook hands and I saw my father change.

He loved hugs, he hugged me, my friends, my partner. He trusted Bryan to run his finances, give him advice, and he laughed with him, with me.

So often we do things in love that are totally wrong. My childhood was a nightmare of fear and terror. Not because he didn’t love me but that he loved and hoped so much that he wanted me never to hurt. He toughened me up.

It worked.

Genetics be damned. I learned to be very strong. Anyone who hurts my family, my friends, my people, my children finds out that I won’t stand for it.

I’m walking down the street. It’s “Fantasy Fest” in Key West. I have a friend on each arm — hell, I have a drag queen on each arm. Not, I have to say, very pretty ones and they keep falling off their heels. There’s a group a straight couples on a corner and as we pass they shout out something nasty. One of the girls pushes me forward. “Go get ‘em Tony.”

I step forward. The straight couples run, the women squealing, the men (overweight and drunk) dive for doorways, run across the street. One is sick with fear.

“Thanks Dad!” I say.

He taught me to stick up for myself. I’ve been arrested on marches, sacked from jobs, attacked on streets, in buses, at libraries, bars, boats and bookshops. None of it hurts, not really. I’ve rescued
children, battered women, chained animals, abused gay teenagers, elderly people, the disadvantaged, distressed and derided.

“Thanks Dad!”

Do you have something you want to share for father’s day? Please send it to Superdad@boxturtlebulletin.com.

A Father’s Day Message

Jim Burroway

June 9th, 2008

This letter for Father’s Day comes to us from Garrett.

Growing up with my father was a blessing. He taught me so much. He was my coach and best bud when I was younger. I came out after I graduated from high school and things kind of changed. I know that he still loves me and we still speak; though it seems to hurt him to have a gay son. Here is my card to him:

Dad,

Do you remember when you would let me drive the car, eating Megabite popsicles, and drinking cream sodas during our daily commute? I miss those days scouting the new town to live in before the rest of the family would make the move.

Do you remember jamming out to “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith when you would work on the Jeep? I remember running around occasionally screaming when I stepped on a grass burr. You thought I was singing to the song. Haha

Do you remember when I fell the first and last time on the red track gravel from jumping a hurdle? I guess it only took once…

Do you remember setting up the watering system for the football field grass with the rest of the coaches? I loved helping out with the clasps between each connection.

Do you recall me scurrying around with the wires to your headset during football games? It was so great to hear you instruct from the sidelines and use the signals for formations.

Do you remember how bad we felt when I blew coverage on that wide receiver and lost the game for the season? You made it seem like nothing and taught me to prepare and practice to perfection.

Do you recall how jealous the other students were because I got to each lunch with my dad everyday of school? It was like we were best friends who lived together.

Do you remember writing me passes to show up late to class because I didn’t want to go when the bell rang for the end of lunch? I got to hang out in your class room and watch the students laugh at your funny teaching.

Do you recall the corny face I had when I won the state championship? I remember the 5:30 AM practices and all the injuries, but you were there going through it all with me.

Do you remember when we’d say, ‘How ’bout them Yanks’ in front of the team? It was our way of saying ‘I love you’ without anyone else knowing.

I know that having a gay son is a hard thing for you to swallow right now. Please just know that I am and will always be your son who has some awesome memories to share with you.

How ‘bout them Yanks Dad!

Happy Father’s Day

Love always,
Garrett

Do you have something you want to share for father’s day? Please send it to Superdad@boxturtlebulletin.com.

BTB’s Father’s Day Celebration

Jim Burroway

June 8th, 2008

This is one of my favorite pictures of Dad and me. Whenever I see this picture, it makes me think of two things: 1) how much fun it was to wrestle and climb all over him and 2) aren’t those drapes behind the couch fabulous?

This picture is one of the very few that I have of my Dad and me. Like many fathers of that generation, Dad was always the one behind the camera, not in front of it. And so while I have many wonderful memories of Dad (he died when I was in college), we actually have very few pictures of him. We have whole albums of vacation pictures where one would think he was never there. But of course, it’s impossible to think of those vacations without him.

Like the time we went to Florida for Christmas in 1972. The night before we were due to leave, my mother, my brothers and I all came down with a horrible case of the flu. But Dad was undeterred. He said we could just as easily be sick in Florida as in Ohio, and all in all he’d prefer Florida. So we packed up the Skylark and threw a couple of extra coffee cans in the back seat and off we went.

Ah, yes. Vacation memories…

Anyway, Father’s Day is coming up this year on June 15 — just one week away. I thought it might be nice to turn this blog over to you, and let you post a short (or long) tribute to your father — or gripes (not all fathers are perfect!) or hopes or whatever else stirs you. You can write that letter to your father you’ve been meaning to write, or you can tell us what happened when you did. Your story is all up to you. You can send photos, essays, letters, drawings, videos, podcasts, or whatever else conveys a sense of what your father has meant to you. Your only limitation is your imagination.

You can send your submissions to Superdad@boxturtlebulletin.com, or you can just leave them in the comments and we’ll re-post them with your permission. We can keep your name and other personal details anonymous if you like. Please say so if that’s what you prefer. The best submission gets a free BTB T-shirt.

So tell us. What makes your Dad so special?

Speaking of Satire

Jim Burroway

May 25th, 2008

Have you seen Encyclopædia Dramatica?

If They Outlaw Gay Marriage…

Jim Burroway

May 19th, 2008

This observation comes to us from the Ironic Times:

Reminder: If they outlaw gay marriage, only gay outlaws will get married.

Some Lovin’ From Stacy Harp

Timothy Kincaid

April 25th, 2008

Can it be that Stacy Harp has fallen for Box Turtle’s Jim Burroway?

In a rather weak article on her blog site, anti-gay activist Stacy Harp has this to say about our website:

Or how about Jim, Dan and Tim at the Box Turtle Bulletin…can these homosexual men succeed at being silent for one day? Probably not…and it’s such a shame that some women won’t be able to marry any of them and have a good looking husband. I know a few women who would really enjoy Jim and his handsome good looks. Oh well, his loss…

Wow. I think Stacy has a little crush on our Jim.

So what do ya think, Jim? Want to take Stacy up on her offer? It’s your loss if ya don’t, he he

Another Reason To Love Arizona

Jim Burroway

April 22nd, 2008

It’s a proven fact: our skies are just more colorful than yours.

Health Rubs

Jim Burroway

April 17th, 2008

Did you know that masturbation can prevent prostate cancer? It appears so, according to this new study:

Frequent sexual intercourse and masturbation protects men against a common form of cancer, suggests the largest study of the issue to date yet.

The US study, which followed nearly 30,000 men over eight years, showed that those that ejaculated most frequently were significantly less likely to get prostate cancer. The results back the findings of a smaller Australian study revealed by New Scientist in July 2003 that asserted that masturbation was good for men.

In the US study, the group with the highest lifetime average of ejaculation - 21 times per month - were a third less likely to develop the cancer than the reference group, who ejaculated four to seven times a month.

I wonder if John Smid has heard about this? He’s the outgoing Executive Director of the Memphis-based Love In Action ex-gay residential program who gave an entire workshop on the evils of masturbation at the 2007 Exodus conference last summer. It was definitely the single most bizarre talk have I ever attended in my lifetime. Especially when he bragged, “My wife’s vagina is enough… God created her for my fit” to a room full of struggling celibate ex-gays.

The “good part” is at the 2:18 mark.

Smid also told his audience that he heard from a Brazilian physician that masturbating actually harmed the immune system. This is how Smid described that conversation:

He said, men actually, when they live in sexual self-control and restraint, actually those hormones and those secretions are reabsorbed into the body, which stimulates the immune system of the male. This is a physician. He said that’s something that’s not often taught because the physician world is built up of a lot of men that don’t want to teach things like that because they don’t want to let people know that they can’t, you know, it’s really kind of a secret. He said we really don’t let that out as physicians.

… And I thought okay, now, think about, who are probably the most unhealthy people? Sexually addicted people. Physically unhealthy. You know, because first of all we’re not taking care of ourselves, we don’t feel good about ourselves. But we’re also possibly eliminating a source of our own immune system boosters. I mean it was very interesting when he said that.

I think we’ve met the very definition of “junk science” here.

Meanwhile, back in the world where real science takes place, Dr. Michael Leitzmann at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda found that spankin’ it about every other day ought to do the trick:

More than 12 ejaculations per month would start conferring the benefit - on average every second day or so,” he says.

However, whilst the findings are statistically significant, Leitzmann remains cautious. “I don’t believe at this point our research would warrant suggesting men should alter their sexual behaviour in order to modify their risk.”

But on the other hand, it couldn’t hurt.

Aussie Ex-Gay Humor

Timothy Kincaid

April 4th, 2008

Peterson Toscano has competition in Australia.

We’re Everywhere

Jim Burroway

April 2nd, 2008

Including Sioux Fall, South Dakota. Sioux Falls is home to about 125,000 people, five television stations, four minor league sports teams, three interstate highways — and now, two gay bars.

Easter Wishes

Jim Burroway

March 23rd, 2008

My great-grandmother was born on April 10, 1898. That just happened to fall on Easter Sunday, which is why her parents named her Easter Mary Nash.

Easter was a very important person in my life. I called her “Easter” and not grandma because she said she wasn’t old enough to be a grandma. She was pushing seventy when she said that. She also hated to be defined by any label, which may be another reason I called her Easter instead of grandma.

Yes, she was a remarkable woman. She was a working woman in the 1920’s and an entrepreneur throughout the rest of her life — at a time when women simply didn’t do these things. Living in Appalachian Ohio, this was doubly unusual. She hated being told that she couldn’t do something. More often than not, she’d take such a statement as a personal challenge and she’d go out of her way to prove the challenger wrong. She took up oil painting and she got a short story published, all because someone told her she wouldn’t be able to do it. The only challenge she didn’t meet is that she never learned to drive. It didn’t bother her though — that was my long-suffering great-grandfather’s job. And besides, she was a great story-teller and she loved to regale her audience with the hilarious misadventures of her lone spin (literally) behind the wheel.

But that small failure didn’t slow her down. Easter took pride in being an independent and shrewd business woman. She operated shoe stores, and she owned a grocery store and rented houses all over town — all on her own. She was also told that women couldn’t do these things, but she proved them wrong as well. You’d be tempted to say that she was a feminist but she’d just scoff at you for it. Remember, she didn’t like labels. And furthermore, I never heard her talk about politics. The only political statement I ever heard her offer was that she thought JFK was very sexy. Other than that, she regarded feminism as silly and politics boring. She just couldn’t be bothered. Her only interest was in the things that she wanted to do, and she was determined never to allow anyone to stand in her way.

I guess you could say that Easter was a post-feminist woman in a pre-feminist world.

Easter also loved the age in which she lived: 1898 to 1990. We lived just a few blocks from her house, and I’d often go over there and ask, “Easter, tell me about the olden days.” That would always get a laugh out of her. She’d tell me about her childhood and the many things she did and saw. Her stories were as captivating to me as any movie. And she’d always end with the observation that she couldn’t have been born in a more fascinating time. “I’ve seen us go from the horse and buggy to the moon. No one will ever witness a greater span of progress than that.”

My Easter was very special to me. She’s been gone for eighteen years and I can still hear the sound of her chuckle. As I grow older, I appreciate and honor her more and more. I hope your Easter is just as precious.

Scottish Catholic Bishop Spews Homophobia

Timothy Kincaid

March 14th, 2008

A dodering senior level Bishop is convinced that there’s a secret gay “huge and well-orchestrated conspiracy” against Christian values.

Rt. Reverend Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell, said, “Rant rant rant vent drool spittle…”

Well, really I don’t care what he said. I just marveled at the idea that there actually is a Bishop of Motherwell and that his name is Rt. Reverend Joseph Devine. I mean, really, isn’t that the sort of name and title you’d expect of a nefarious chuchman in a Shreck movie?

But if you want to know more you can check out the bile that abides in the brain of Father Devine or the response of the non-drooling crowd.

And enjoy your weekend.

“The Only 100% Effective Treatment for Curing Homosexuality”

Jim Burroway

March 10th, 2008

Eunicure.