Every action you take touches someone, in some way.
Timing Is Everything
A Gay Opinion 9/05/00
by R.A. Melos
In an episode of the original Twilight Zone, Rod Sterling describes a malcontent
as someone born either too early or too late in the century. If I am at all
a malcontent it is because I was born too early in my own time.
When I see the teenagers of today coming out of the closet and accepting themselves
for themselves at a young age, I feel pangs of jealousy. My life, I think, would
have been so different if I had been out as a teenager. But when these thoughts
cross my mind, something will happen to put things more into perspective for
me.
The latest occurrence to bring things into perspective for me happened over
the Labor Day weekend. I was on line clearing out some old e-mails when I received
an Instant Message. The rectangular box appeared in the upper left hand corner
of my monitor and I opened it.
The message, as it turned out, was from a teenager who wanted to know if he
could ask me a question. I replied yes, bracing myself for some practical joke
or worse. His question, awkwardly built up to with a pause and explanation of
his seeing my on-line profile, was "Are you gay?"
I replied with a yes. Since he read my profile he already knew the answer to
my question, but I felt he was trying to build up to something more. He responded
with the words, "I'll pray for you."
Now I had my own question, as I considered the possibility of some religious
nut offering to save me. "Why?" I inquired. I saw no reason to need
prayers, but I was curious, as I wasn't getting the feeling he was just some
punk kid trawling the web looking for homosexuals to insult.
"Because, you won't get into Heaven," was he reply.
As a pagan the concept of Heaven differs greatly from the Heaven taught to me
during my Christian childhood in the Methodist Church Sunday School. The Heaven
they taught of was a world beyond imagination, with streets of gold and all
my family waiting there for me. The place I have come to believe in is not called
Heaven, but Summerland. I've also heard it referred to in song as Gloryland
and Beullahland, but I like thinking of it as Summerland.
Summerland is a place where all the energy of the universe, the spiritual energy
which makes up everything around us, as well as us, flows from and returns to
in a tidal motion. The returning energy is revitalized and then returned to
reform in the physical plane.
It is from where we are born, and where we return to upon our death to await
rebirth. For me, Summerland is a weigh station, not a final destination. The
Heaven I was taught to believe in is a very complicated place with a hierarchy
of angels, some called Seraphim and Cherubim, and the Christian Heaven has a
place called Purgatory where souls go before being judged worthy of Heaven,
and if the soul isn't worthy then it goes to Hell for eternity.
Summerland, on the other hand, is a place where the soul-energy goes to rest
and recharge before reincarnation into another life time. It, for me, is the
place where we go to study the lessons of our previous lives, to rejuvenate
by joining with the full body of universal energy, and revitalize the soul-energy
before starting another lesson.
My response to my young Internet friend's comment about my not getting into
Heaven because I'm gay was to tell him I don't believe in a Heaven or a God
who discriminates against people based on sexual orientation. The deities I
believe in love and accept everyone as they are, and would not discriminate
against me, since they created me.
I was asked if I would answer another question. I gave an affirmative reply.
The next question was "Were you born that way?" "That way"
meaning "gay".
I answered yes. Later on that night I thought about this question, and wondered
why it is assumed everyone is born heterosexual and that homosexuality must
be chosen? Not everyone is blond or has blue eyes, so why should their only
be one sexual orientation?
I now have the urge to ask a straight man if he was born "that way,"
just to see the puzzlement on his face as he ponders a question to which he
never before gave thought. Hopefully the comprehension of what is totally natural
to him being completely foreign to me will clear up some of the misguided confusion
he is subjected to as part of the societal brainwashing we all undergo from
birth on.
The question my young Internet explorer asked was posed in all seriousness,
and my answers were given with the same respect.
He then asked me if I have ever "dated" a woman? Possibly he was looking
for some bad experience in my life which would have turned me gay, but there
were none.
I replied that I have never found women sexually attractive.
This replied was followed by another question. "Is it hard to find another
gay man?" I replied no, it's hard to find the right man. I think this response
may have throw him, and it got me thinking about other misconceptions heterosexual
society teaches the youth of today. After all, isn't heterosexuality all about
sex and nothing more? Aren't all straight men willing, able and wanting to have
sex with EVERY woman they see?
The way many straight men act you would think, as I thought while growing up
in a heterosexual society, that straight men should want to have sex with absolutely
every woman they lay eyes on.
Obviously I am wrong in this thinking, as I, a gay male, do not have the urge
to engage in sexual activities with every man I see, despite how some gay men
may act.
Although looking at this question and my response from another angle I can see
my own past and how I knew, at a young age, I was gay because I didn't find
every woman I saw sexually attractive. Nor could I relate to the concept of
women as sex objects, since my natural born instincts guided me to see men in
this light.
I don't know if I helped this Internet explorer with his quest for a better
understanding of homosexuals, but it did help to get me thinking about myself
and the present.
His initial offer of a prayer is a response to societal conditioning, and my
not accepting that conditioning by not believing in the same form of Heaven
or God he has been taught to believe in opens up a whole new world to him and
to others who are questioning societies teachings.
His questions also got me to thinking about being a malcontent. If I were a
teenager in today's society, under the assumption I would still have been born
gay, would I do anything different with my life?
I got the impression from this young man society has changed very little in
20 years, in small town USA. While some of the teenagers of today are braver
and bolder than I was at that age, society is still misguiding and confusing
for young people.
I don't know if I would come out any earlier than I did, or if society would
be any more nurturing than it currently seems to be where self-acceptance and
self-truth and honesty are concerned, but I get the feeling it isn't.
Perhaps by my reaching for my own level of self-acceptance when society would
prefer me not to accept my natural born instincts, I am rebelling against years
of careful zombification of my true self. I make waves in the gene pool, and
show others like myself I am not a societal puppet staying within the lines,
but an individual who makes a contribution to change the world for the better
by encouraging honesty and truth to self and society.
By my not accepting or pursuing a life of lies and illusions, taking a wife
and fathering children in an attempt to blend into society, I am setting an
example for others to be themselves, to love as they feel is natural for them,
and to accept themselves as they are without the need to blend in and fade away.
When I view things from that perspective, I realize I'm not a malcontent. I
was born at precisely the right time.