Paganism, Personal Development, Sexuality

My Journey from Christianity to Witchdom

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While talking with Stephen Bradford Long over at his blog, he expressed an interest in hearing my story about how I left Christianity and came to a Pagan path. I realized that while I’ve occasionally talked about it, I’ve never fully written out the story or tried to capture the various factors that contributed in a single post. I thought it might be good to do exactly that.

As I think is true for so many queer people, my journey out of Christianity started with coming to terms with my sexuality, a topic that I have covered quite extensively elsewhere. While I left my church and Christianity in 1998, the first step in that direction occurred in April 1996, when I decided to quit trying to deny or change the fact that I was attracted to other men — a decision I literally made for the sake of my own survival at the time.

Like so many young evangelical people, at the time I came out, my circle of friends almost exclusively consisted of other Christians, most of whom had the same evangelical leanings that I did. And while a few of my friends were probably sympathetic to LGBT people and possibly even affirming or on their way to being affirming, I felt that I needed to find new friends to support and affirm me as well. So a month before graduation, I started reaching out to another group on my college campus, a volunteer group dedicated to helping students with computer problems. It happened that a lot of people involved with this organization happened to be Pagan, into New Age spirituality, and Pagan-friendly. They were also very welcoming and encouraging of me. Some of them even ran a Telnet-based BBS, which I become involved with (and eventually the main programmer for) when I managed to get Internet access at home.

So I moved back to the rural part of Pennsylvania that my parents lived with (and I lived with them for most of the time until I was 31, moving into my own place for roughly two years starting in 1998). My new friends online and back on the college campus (many of them graduated after me) became my lifeline for the first several years I was stuck in rural conservative-land, having to hide myself. I often made many trips back to school during the next two years.

During this time, I also found myself re-examining my faith. After all, here were these friends who were helping to keep me from feeling completely lost and isolated, and I had been taught to believe that they were going to hell and deserved it. I could not reconcile these two things. Surely my friends deserved better than this. So i started to re-evaluate more in my faith than just what I believed about my own sexuality.

At this time, I was also starting to deal with a lot of emotional turmoil — repressing my sexual feelings as well as going through the cycle of guilt and shame when I gave in and allowed myself to find sexual release by myself messed me up — and lingering doubt and guilt over my sexuality. In 1998, I met someone through a friend and we had a complicated and less than ideal relationship. To be blunt, it wasn’t really a healthy relationship and that was mostly my fault.

The relationship ended abruptly and painfully when i made some hurtful choices, costing me my first relationship and the friendship of the person who introduced us in the first place. It’s perfectly understandable, mind you. I hurt them deeply and it’s one of the few things in my life that I will unequivocally state that I regret.

This caused another huge wave of guilt and shame — a spiral of it no less. Partly because of the hurtful choices I had made and partly because I was still in a purity culture mentality at the time. Sure I had accepted that it was okay to be gay at the time, but I still had this notion that I should save myself for that one person I would spend my life with. Like so many people, I foolishly had believed that my first boyfriend would be the one I would spend my life with and had had sex with him. This meant that I felt like a failure, because now that wasn’t going to happen. I had “given myself away” to the wrong person. And what’s worse, it was all my fault that we weren’t together anymore.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t go on living with all this guilt and shame and keep spiraling. I realized I was headed to that same dark place I had come out of the closet in order to escape from back in 1996. So it was time for another change.

I don’t rightfully remember if I actually intended to leave Christianity in November of 1998, when I asked one of my online Wiccan friends what book she would recommend I read to learn more about her beliefs. I just knew that I asked her and she recommended that I read Scott Cunningham’s “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner.” So I bought it and started reading it. Then I devoured it. Figuratively speaking.

The book a balm to my soul. Here was a religion that told me that I was okay. It told me that I could and should improve myself as a person, but it ultimately believed that it was possible for me to improve and become a better person because I had it in me. Compared to a faith that essentially told me that I had to try, but was guaranteed to fail and would have to grovel for mercy, it was a thing of beauty.

And Cunningham’s description of energy and magic spoke to me on a deep, visceral level. I always felt like such things existed, but was not permitted to truly believe in them in a faith that insisted such things were “of the devil.” So after reading the book and thinking about it deeply, I actually prayed a tear-filled goodbye to Jesus, telling him that I loved him, but I needed to find another way, one that lifted me up and allowed me to live a healthy life. And then I reached out to the (nameless and nebulous at the time) God and Goddess and began a new journey.

That journey has also been long, complicated, and filled with many twists and turns. But that will have to wait for another day.

Paganism, Podcast, Religion, Witchcraft

Podcast Episode: Recognizing the Everyday Sacred

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For those of you have been reading my blog for some time, it may interest you to know that I have just started producing a podcast called “The Bed and The Blade.” It’s a podcast that will explore witchcraft, Pagan spirituality, and living life passionately, three things that are incredibly intertwined in my own life. I’m both excited and nervous.

For those of you who may be just now finding me through the podcast, welcome! This post is for the very first episode of the podcast, “Recognizing the Everyday Sacred.”

I think that the understanding that the sacred is something to be discovered in everyday life rather than something that has to be sought out in special places is central and essential to my Craft and pagan practice on a number of levels. Listen in using the embedded player before to find out why.

I would like to take a moment to thank Ana Mardoll for xer help when I reached out to xer with my concerns about erasing or otherwise harming people who live with chronic illness or disability or are trans or nonbinary during my discussion of sacred bodies. I suspect that even with Ana’s words of wisdom, I probably failed in some ways and I take responsibility for that. Thank you Ana (if you read this) for helping me do better and I promise to keep striving toward further improvement in the future.

As a final note, I hope you enjoy the music that introduces the show and closes it out. It’s all from a wonderful track that I found and was able to buy a license to use in the podcast. In accordance with the license agreement, here is the information regarding it:

Esther Garcia — Outdated Time — Provided by Jamendo.

I hope you enjoy the episode. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments.

http://bedandblade.libsyn.com/recognizing-the-everyday-sacred

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Gender and Sexuality, Politics, Rants, Sexuality

Yes, men CAN control themselves. Men like me have been proving it for decades.

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[Content Warning: Rape culture, anti-LGBT violence]

Hello dear readers. I’m about to go on a rant. Strap in and enjoy, because there is a bit of bullshit that I am phenomenally tired of hearing and I need to go off.  What’s that bullshit? It can be summed up in a simple statement.

Men cannot control themselves.

It’s an underlying belief in our society that crops up everywhere. It’s a great it of rape apologia. Men can’t control themselves, that’s why they violate boundaries. How dare you shame them for it. You hear it in the modesty movement: Men can’t control their sexual thoughts and urges. That’s why women need to dress in a way that doesn’t cause them to have such thoughts in the first place.

And it is bullshit, dear reader. Men can control themselves. How do I know this? Because I’m a man and I control myself. In fact, the vast majority of LGBT men have spent our lives reeling in our sexual thoughts and urges whenever it was appropriate — and maybe even at times when we could have been more free with our thoughts and urges. We’ve done this not only because it’s the right thing to do, but for our own freaking survival.

Here’s the thing: If I stared at my male coworkers the way some men stare at their female coworkers, there’d be hell to pay. If I make an unwanted advance on a guy, it could get me into a lot of trouble — in some cases, it could result in violence. (And half our society would actually take the side of the other guy even if he hospitalized me!

Now, I’m not saying I should be allowed to do anything of the sort. I actually like being a decent guy. I don’t want to be some entitled asshole who gets away with preying on uninterested and unwilling guys. I think consent in sex is a huge part of what makes sex worth it and want everyone involved to be a willing, contributing participant who is also getting something they want out of it. But the fact that society expects me an men like me to respect other men’s boundaries and treat them like humans rather than slabs of meat is relevant here.

Because it means that everyone knows men really can control themselves. It proves any claim to the contrary and absolute lie. It demonstrates that what people who say “men can’t control themselves” really mean that they believe men shouldn’t have to control themselves around women.

But if they came right out and said that, they’d have to accept just how monstrous their point of view really is. And they should have to own that, so I’m calling them on it.

Religion

My Perspective on People of Other Faith Traditions and No Faith

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After my previous post, I thought it only fair to explore my own theological views regarding people who follow a different religion and the nonreligious. I will admit up front that what I’m about to share is fragmented and tentative. It’s not actually something I think about because, for me, my spiritual tradition is about my own relationship with the Divine. Other people’s relationship with the Divine (or lack thereof) is none of my business, and I’m inclined to trust them to find their own way through this world as long as they don’t devalue or harm others.

To explore this question, I need to talk about my most abstract and “highest” understanding of the Divine. If you peel back all the “isms,” I think that ultimately, the Divine is the universe itself. In my old coven, we would acknowledge this ultimate form of the Divine when we spoke of “The One Eternal Reality, in which we live, move, and have our being” or “The One” for short. All life — divine, human, animal, plant, micro-bacterial, and other — is a part of and flows from that One Eternal Reality. And each individual relates to that One Eternal Reality in a way that is appropriate for them.

For atheists and agnostics, that relationship is a purely materialistic one. For pantheists and many mystics, they develop a relationship with The One by seeking union with and/or connection to it on a spiritual level. For other theists, we find one or more expressions/manifestations of the One that we relate to on a more personal level.(1) We pray to them. We talk to them. We draw them into our bodies and attune our energies to them. We obey what we understand/believe their commandments to be. Or some combination of those things.

I believe that the way in which each individual connects to the Divine is something that they are ultimately drawn to by the Divine for itself. It is something that they and The One Eternal Reality understand is appropriate and best for them.(2) And as every individual’s needs are different and complex, it makes sense that the “right relationship” would also look different for every individual.

I will say a bit about monotheistic religions like Christianity. Yes, I believe there is a god that responds to their prayers and all attempts to reach out. I do not, however, believe that said god is actually the only god and I doubt it’s exactly like many of the followers it draws to itself envision it to be.(3) I’m not sure why said deity allows them to continue to believe some of the things they do, but I mostly trust that to be a matter best kept between those believers and their own deity to be resolved as they see fit.

As I mentioned previously, all I care about others’ religious paths is the fruit: how do they treat others in this world? Are they loving, affirming, and a seeker of dignity and justice for all? Or are they othering, dehumanizing, tearing down, and harming others? Because if they’re doing any of the latter, I have a Divine mandate to call that out.

Otherwise, may you have a blessed journey as you find your own way through this wonderful world we share.

Notes:

(1) There are probably other ways to relate to The One and/or its many manifestations that I’m not even thinking of — and maybe that I’m not even aware of.

(2) It occurs to me that I’m actually suggesting that a Divine force that atheists don’t believe in is actually drawing them toward being atheists. I’m curious what atheists might think of my presumption here. I hope they can at least forgive me on the grounds that I believe that they are drawn to that because it is the proper and best path for them to take.

(3) Then again, I’m not convinced my favorite goddess, Freyja, is exactly like I currently envision her to be. At the very least, I suspect she’s much more than I currently understand her to be.

Religion

A Test for Progressive Christians Who Might Want to Befriend Me

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I pride myself on the fact that I can associate with, talk with, and even be friends with people from a wide range of religious backgrounds and beliefs. I have friends and associates who are atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Hindu, Pagan, Heathen, and even Christian. That last one can be difficult, and I will admit that anyone who is an evangelical and/or conservative Christian should count themselves lucky if I consider them a valued acquaintance. That’s really probably the best you can hope for, given your theology.

Recent events on Twitter, however, have reminded me once again that the few Progressive Christians I count among my close acquaintances and friends are truly rare finds and I should definitely appreciate our relationship more. Because a lot of the Progressive Christians are reminding me that they are no more trustworthy or safe to be around than the average evangelical/conservative Christian.

So if you are a a Progressive Christian and you want to know how I feel about you and how much I will ever trust you, read the following and consider the questions I ask:

I categorically reject the notion that there is only a single deity (or any deity) that is personal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni-benevolent. I emphatically hold a complex view of the Divine which includes the belief in multiple gods (the exact nature of whom I only claim to tentatively understand and expect my understanding to change over time). I categorically reject the notion that I am separated from the Divine and need any sort of mediator — not even a divine being — to connect with and enter into relationship with the Divine. I categorically reject the notion that my soul or any other part of myself needs any sort of “Salvation” from any external source — again, not even the Divine itself. I believe that communion with the Divine is simply a matter of me reaching out (or within) and making contact. And I believe in magic as an inherently morality-neutral discipline that I can tap into.

The above statements of belief are firm and absolutely unlikely to change. Nor are they negotiable. So, dear Progressive, what does your theology have to say about me? My value? The state of my soul? My eternal destination?

How you answer those questions will go a great way in revealing how much I can and will trust you and how open and vulnerable I will be with you. And just for the record, trying to shy away from those shy away from those questions are an answer in themselves.

Magic/Magick, Witchcraft

Free Magic Lesson: What do You Want?

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In my previous post, I mentioned that a witch’s magic starts the moment she decides to set her will toward accomplishing a given goal. That means that the first step in any magical endeavor is answering the following question:

What do I want?

True story: Over a decade I started taking an online course in spiritual development under a given tradition. The first lesson in that course was defining what I wanted. One single goal that I hoped to accomplish. The lesson was all about how to go about selecting and refining that goal. That’s basically what this post will also be about, because I find it is an essential first step in any magical endeavor.

So what do you want? Do you want money? Do you want to be a successful author? Do you just want to get your kids to go to bed on time for once? (Considering no magic can actually short-circuit another person’s free will, that’s some truly complex and difficult magic, right there. I’m not sure I’d even try it!) Or do you want to find someone who will love you?

For the sake of this post, I’m going to focus on that last one. Besides, love spells seem to always be in high demand, so it’s probably worth exploring anyway. So what do you mean when you say that want someone to love you? What does someone loving you look like? What exactly is it about yourself that you want them to love?(1)

How long do you want them to love you? Forever? A year? A month? A week? Until the end of your first date? Okay, if you answer yes to that last one, you may want to admit you’re probably not looking for love. That’s perfectly okay, by the way. just be honest with yourself, the universe, and everyone else about what you really want. Then look for it without shame or guilt.

Now that we’ve talked about what we’re looking for, let’s bring the goal in a little closer so it’s a bit more manageable. Looking at the big picture was helpful because it helped us define what you’re looking for and what qualities you’re looking for in that “someone” who will love you. But now it’s time to acknowledge that doing magic to bring you someone who’s ready to get married next week (assuming we can even book a reception hall on such short notice) probably isn’t going to work out well. So maybe we should think about just finding someone that you can hang out with or go on a first date with. You know, trying to meet someone who has all (or most of) those qualities you think would make them your perfect partner who happens to be available Friday night. So now let’s think about what you’d like to do on that date or while hanging out for the first time. Do you want to have dinner? Should that person be a bit of a foodie or just be happy to munch on some McDonald’s? Do they need to be vegan? Or do they have to understand and respect food allergies so that they understand you mean it when you say you absolutely cannot eat anything that came within ten feet of any milk product? Do you see yourself going to see a movie? Are there any genres of movies you’d really like your date to be into? Are there any you cannot stand, so that someone who considers those kinds of movies their staple would not be a good fit for you?

Okay, now consider the end of the date. Do you want someone who is all about those romantic notions of the good night kiss? Or do you want someone who will end the first date on a hug and a handshake and still express and/or welcome interest in a second date? Or are you one of those who are hoping the date will end with both your clothes scattered throughout one of your bedrooms?

Knowing exactly what you want and why is important to effective magic, because it offers clarity and focus. It ensures that what you are going after is what you want, leaving nothing to chance or miscommunication. Also, clearly understanding what you want helps you when it comes time to think about the symbolism of any spell or rite you might perform. You can make sure that your symbols — words, phrases, color choices, herbs, and/or oils — all reflect what you are aiming for without ambiguity. And it does the same for your unconscious mind, which should be on the lookout for opportunities to achieve your goal.

Notes:

(1) I would like to take this moment to gently point out that if you have trouble answering this question or it makes you uncomfortable, it may be time to gently put the search for someone else to love you on hold and work on figuring out how and why you can love yourself. I’ve seen it plenty of times. Hell, I’ve been there a few times myself. It’s frustrating to realize that’s where you are, but the work to build self-love can be extremely rewarding. Trust me. Or better yet, don’t trust me. Try it and find out for yourself.

Magic/Magick, Witchcraft

“I found this spell on the Internet.”

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I’ve heard that statement and others like it a number of times. The source wasn’t always the Internet. Sometimes it was a book. Or a print copy of a teen magazine. Or some other source. Anyway, whenever I hear a statement like that, I feel like reaching for a good alcoholic beverage. Because nine times out of ten, the person is going to either continue by saying that they tried it and it didn’t work or that they’re going to try it. If the latter, I can almost bet that they will come back later and report that it didn’t work. In my experience, the type of people who can actually make a spell they find from some source like that work don’t need to find such spells in the first place.

The problem with spells on the Internet is that they are usually written up as if they’re recipes, like a recipe for baking a cake or making old fashioned goulash. The problem is, it encourages people to think about magic and spell-work like it’s formulaic, which it really isn’t. Lighting the right candles in the right sequence and saying just the right words just isn’t enough. In truth, by the time a witch lights her candles and utters her incantation (assuming she even does either of those things), her magic has been building up for some time.

Magic begins the moment a witch decides to set her will and her efforts toward accomplishing some goal. She invests focus and energy as she refines just what it is that she wants to accomplish and considers the ramifications if she succeeds. She invests more focus and energy as she considers what tools, components, and symbolism to use in her working. If she decides to light a red candle, she has considered why a red candle is her best choice rather than, say, a green one.(1) Again, this clarifies and focuses that build-up of magic and boosts it.

All of that focus and energy builds up and is released in the act of the rite or spell, but it’s been building before then, possibly for weeks if the witch in question decides that the work needs that level of attention and consideration. Grabbing a spell off the Internet or from any other source tends to short-cut that process, and therefore often results in a magical working that lacks any real focus, forethought, or build-up of energy.

This does not mean that spells off the Internet (or from other sources) are completely useless, mind you. If they’re well crafted, they are a great way for witches, especially those relatively new, to gain inspiration and understanding. One can take such a ready-made spell, break it down, analyze it, and try to understand why its creator wrote it the way they did. Why did they choose those ingredients? Why did they choose those exact words? What layer of meaning or understanding do they attempt to get across? Are the words rhythmic and repeatable, suggesting a way to really deepen one’s focus as one repeats them (definitely a handy technique in magic, though not required)? If a person puts that kind of effort to understand a spell they found, then they might be able to use it effectively — though I’m willing to bet that anyone who does this regularly will often find themselves “tweaking” such spells before they actually put them to use, and that’s a good thing.

But just following the instructions as written without doing the up-front work rarely pays off, in my experience.

Notes:

(1) I know someone who actually prefers to use green candles when working with love magic, and can make a perfectly compelling and consistent reason for choosing one over a red or pink candle.

Gender and Sexuality, Introspection, Memories, Religion, Sexuality

Growing up evangelical and my family’s approach to discussing sexuality: A personal reflection

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[Content Note: Sexuality, evangelical approaches to (not) teaching kids about sexuality, brief mention of exploring my own body as a young child]

Twitter user @TheVictoryTori tweeted a great question earlier today:

[tweet 1118517593839755266]

I offered my own experiences in a thread and got into a short conversation with Tori.  I want to rehash and expand upon those thoughts here, because this is an area I struggle with to really recall and understand just what I was taught and how.

My parents were not against sex education.  They didn’t really believe in abstinence-only education. Sure, they wanted and expected my siblings and I to remain celibate until we got married. But they didn’t think that keeping us from learning about how sex and condoms work was the way to ensure that happened.

My family — and my church, for that matter — were also not deeply into the purity culture. We didn’t get inundated with books about the importance of remaining celibate until marriage. I don’t recall hearing many lectures about how having sex  would make us used up tissues, previously chewed chewing gum, glasses of water that had been spit into, or any of the other harmful metaphors other evangelical kids have been stewed in while growing up. (One of my junior/senior high Sunday school teachers may have invoked one of those metaphors once upon a time, but that’s it.)

Instead, the messaging I received was more subtle and often even unspoken. It created a sense that sex and all things sexual simply were not talked about and a sense of discomfort was left over the entire topic.

To give a concrete example, I bring up a memory from…early elementary school age (I think? Maybe a little younger?) My parents, my sister, and I were all in the living room, watching television. I was sitting on the floor cross-legged with my hands in my lap. At one point (I don’t remember why I originally did it), I ran the edge of my thumb along the head of my penis through my pajama bottoms. It felt pleasant, so I did it again. I repeated this several times, enjoying the sensation each time. After a couple minutes, my mother noticed and said sternly, “Jarred.  Stop that.”

My sister, having no idea what was going on, asked what I had done?  My mother simply said, “Don’t worry about it.”  And that was the end of the conversation.  There was no follow-up conversation after the fact.

In hindsight, I suppose (and hope) the message my mother meant to get across was that touching myself there in the middle of the living room in front of everyone wasn’t appropriate, and I should really do that sort of thing in private. (Indeed, I’ve met many parents since who do a great job of affirming their children’s desire to explore their own bodies while gently reminding them that it’s a thing best done in private.”)  But to a young boy in the early-to-mid single digits, my take-away was more like “touching myself there is bad.”

I’ll also note that my parents never really talked about this part of my body.  Other than how to make sure I got it cleaned well. So my understanding of my own penis that I got from my parents could really be summarized as (1) it’s where my pee comes out, (2) I need to make sure it’s clean, and (3) I shouldn’t touch it (except to clean it, of course).  So I think this left me feeling like that part of my body was “dirty.”

Then in fifth grade, we watched a health video that talked about puberty and sexual reproduction. I learned about how men’s bodies produce sperm which fertilize the eggs that women produce, which then becomes a baby, which the woman then gives birth to nine months later. (I don’t think the film really got into fetal development or the various stages therein. But hey, it was just supposed to be a video to give us a basic understanding of how our own bodies work and reproduction.) When I went home, I mentioned to my mother (I think) that we had watched the video, and she nodded and said an off-handed remark that if I had any questions, I could ask her.  I never asked her anything. That was partly because I had no questions and partly because the way she said it made it seem like it would be an uncomfortable and awkward conversation that she really didn’t want to have anyway.

We ended up watching the same video in sixth grade as well.  This time, as I mentioned on Twitter, I noticed something I hadn’t the previous year. The video explained (and demonstrated with crude animated drawings) just how the sperm managed to get from the man’s body into the woman’s body. (My brain at the time: “He sticks his [penis] where?!?!”) I found the revelation shocking, disturbing, and maybe somewhat traumatizing (given my understanding of my own penis as I discussed above, who can blame me?). Of course, a number of classmates noticed my shock and discomfort, and they found it amusing and took a few (mercifully brief) seconds to tease me about it.

I  never did talk to anyone about my reaction or my feelings. Again, I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my parents, given the general “we don’t talk about this” vibe I always got in the rare instances the topic had come up.

And that “we don’t talk about that” vibe and what I had internalized about my own genitals kept with me. It affected how I felt about myself when I discovered masturbation as a teen, given the intense sense of guilt that I was doing something wrong, but knowing it felt way too good to ever stop. It also meant that anything I learned about non penis-in-vagina sexual activity came from classmates rather than my family (and my school’s sex education department sure wasn’t going to cover it!).

So that’s what my own experiences growing up and learning about/discovering my sexuality. As I said, it wasn’t so much any explicit messaging that was a problem for me, but the unintended messages I took away combined with a lack of feeling like I could truly talk about these things.

In closing, I hope this post wasn’t too personal or explicit for anyone.


Gender and Sexuality, Personal News, Politics

personal update 2019/04/13

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[Content Note: Harassment, misogyny, war on agency]

Since I dropped a post on here about a week ago and have been getting a small but steady trickle of traffic, I decided to do a “personal update” post. Especially in case any of my long-time readers (all five of you) are still around.

I’ve actually been wanting to blog more but have been struggling. There are a number of reasons for that. (Have I mentioned that I have a growing and possibly obsessive love of lists lately?)

  1. I’m trying to figure out what my “voice” should be. That is what I want to communicate and share with people.
  2. I’ve struggled with that process because it’s leading me to wonder what I’m really qualified to talk about.
  3. I’ve also struggled with it because it’s leading me to question what i can say that hasn’t already been said better by others.
  4. I’m married now and I need to balance my blogging time with spending time with my Hubby.
  5. Most of what I feel I want to and am qualified to say fits in a tweet or a string of tweets, but would not really make a good blog post (in my opinion at least).

That last point is why I’ve been spending a lot of my time on Twitter and Ive been pretty active over there. In fact, here’s another list (told you I was obsessed with the silly things) I’ve been up to on Twitter.

  1. As I mentioned in my previous post, I made an effort to get Pete Buttigieg, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, to acknowledge how some of his “defenders” are harassing and attempting to silence his critics, particularly those who face oppression in ways Buttigieg does not (nor do I) and speak out against such harassment. At this point, I am declaring my attempt ineffective (other than hopefully making some of those who have been harassed feel seen). I’ve tweeted at him. I’ve emailed the only account I could find associated with his campaign. I just don’t see what more I can do.
  2. After watching people promote the anti-choice propaganda film, “Unplanned,” I started promoting counter-proposal and alternative to seeing the movie. [tweet 1115216412488892416 ]
  3. I’ve been getting much more involved with the exvangelical community and have enjoyed both hearing about other people’s experiences with evangelicalism and sharing in bringing people’s attention to the toxicity of evangelical culture.

On a more personal note — and because I realized I never actually blogged about it — I’ve been a happily married man since August 2016. Hubby (I have not asked his permission to use his name on this blog. He’s a fellow geek, a gamer, and a fellow witch. That last one is absolutely amazing to me, because he was only the second guy I’ve ever dated that was a Pagan (and the other relationship I had with a fellow witch lasted like a week). He’s also given me my first chance to actually play Dungeons and Dragons, and I love it.

So, that’s my life in a nutshell right now. What’s going on with all of you, dear readers?

Politics

mAYOR PETE, HIS SELF-APPOINTED DEFENDERS, AND rELATIVE pRIVILEGE. aLSO, AN oPEN lETTER.

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As the presidential primaries have been gearing up, I — like many — have taken note of “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg, a gay white man who grew up in and is now the mayor of South Bend, Indiana and running for the Democratic nomination for president. As I’ve followed him, my concerns about what kind of president he would be, as have many other people.(1)

So many of us started to talk about our concerns and criticisms. One associate started asking for input from Black people living in South Bend regarding their experiences with and impressions of Buttigieg since the available information suggests that his policies and actions as mayor of South Bend have been disproportionately harmful for Black people. These are the kinds of things people do as a normal part of engaging in a presidential election cycle and the political process in general.

Well, some people didn’t see it that way. Fans and self-appointed defenders(2) of Buttigieg began to descend into conversations expressing these concerns and criticisms and began attacking and harassing some of us — that word “some” will be important as this conversation continues. In fact, in many cases, some of these harassers started leveling accusations of homophobia in an attempt to silence such discussions.(3)

I think it’s important to note that I personally have not been accused of homophobia or otherwise attacked. In fact, I’ve been in the exact same thread where others have been attacked, expressing my agreement with those being attacked. But the attackers gave me a free pass and continued attacking the others. So what’s the difference.

The difference that I observed is that unlike those attacked, I was a cisgender gay white man. Just like Buttigieg. The others were women and/or People of Color. In other words, the people being attacked are people who marginalized and oppressed(4) in areas where Buttigieg and I both share relative privilege. That’s an important thing to note in a world where many white cisgender gay men seem to not care about supporting or defending others who face struggles and oppression that we are personally immune from.(5) In fact, many such men will throw others under the bus and even attack them. So the fact that Buttigieg’s attackers seem to be specifically focusing their attacks on women and/or People of Color is of special concern

Watching this unfold in real time on Thursday afternoon upset me. As I fumed, it occurred to me to reach out to Buttigieg. I figured that given how much alike we are — particularly in terms of the areas of oppression we endure and areas of relative privilege we enjoy — I could make a plea as a kindred spirit. So at roughly 2pm on Thursday afternoon, I addressed a series of tweets to him, asking him to publicly and unequivocally condemn those who are harassing and attempting to silence his critics. I have periodically re-tweeted and quote-tweeted the thread, as I notice that his mentions are extremely full. Because of how quickly his mentions are so active, I also decided that maybe an email would be better, so I reworked the thread into and email which I sent to the info account for his “Pete For America” website, the only email address I could find associated with his campaign.(6) I sent it out at 5:45pm on Thursday.

So far, I’ve received no response, via neither Twitter nor email. realize that it’s hasn’t been quite 48 hours, but it seems like I should have received at least an acknowledgement that my message was received by now.(7) So I continue to infrequently send a Tweet Buttigieg’s way to remind him that people are harassing certain classes of people in the name of “defending him” and I would really like him to speak up about it.

In closing, I have also decided to turn the email I sent to him into an open letter. To that end, I have included the full text of my email in below. I would also ask any white man — especially if you happen to be cisgender and gay like Buttigieg and me — to help boost the signal on this issue. We have a responsibility to both women and People of Color to speak out when they are harassed and silenced, even when criticizing or expressing concerns about Pete Buttigieg’s political record and views.

***

From: Jarred Harris [email address redacted]
To: [“info” account” at PeteForAmerica website]

Mr. Buttigieg,

I hope that this is the correct email address to which to send my concerns. Unfortunately, it was somewhat difficult to find an email account associated with your presidential campaign.

My name is Jarred Harris. I am forty four years old and live in western New York. I have many of the same qualities as you.
1.I am a man.
2.I am white.
3.I am cisgender. (To the best of my knowledge, this also applies to you. My apologies if I am mistaken.)
4.I am gay.

I come to you as someone who shares these four qualities with you. While the fourth one has almost certainly been a source of oppression for both of us, the first three grant us certain kinds of relative privilege when compared to those who do not share all of those qualities with us.

Sir, some of your supporters and self-proclaimed defenders on Twitter — and I suspect this is happening elsewhere — are using accusations of homophobia to attack, harass, and silence people — especially women and people of color (acknowledging that there is significant overlap between those two groups of people) — who are expressing concerns and/or offering criticisms of your political views and activities. This is unacceptable behavior, and I hope that you wholeheartedly agree. People — especially people who experience oppression in areas where you and I enjoy relative privilege — must be free to engage in criticism, which is an essential part of the political process. I ask that you find a way to unequivocally communicate the message that you do not approve of the weaponization of accusations of homophobia in order to silence your critics. I ask that you publicly condemn this behavior full-throatedly and with unquestionable conviction.

In closing, I would again draw attention to the fact that many of the critics being attacked thusly are women and people of color. Historically, many cisgender gay white men (and therefore organizations run by them) have fought hard to end our own oppression while ignoring or even worsening the plight of those who are oppressed in other or additional ways. I would note that this moment is an opportunity for you to demonstrably break with that history and meaningfully demonstrate that you are not such a man and other forms of oppression matter to you.

Regards,
Jarred Harris
[email address redacted]
Twitter: JarredH

***

Notes:

(1) I do not intend to go into detail about what my or others’ concerns are. However, if you read this article and this one with a critical eye, you should at least start to get a picture.

(2) For the record, I am including one individual who insists he was actually a Kamala Harris supporter until all our mean “attacks” against “Mayor Pete” angered him, so now he’s going to quit supporting Harris in retribution. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Harris is Buttigieg’s opponent in this primary. I would expect one of her supporters to be delighted to see honest criticism of and concerns about Buttigieg taking place. Furthermore, I’d expect them to see this as an opportunity to show us how Harris is better at addressing the issues that obviously matter us than Buttigieg.

(3) Let me say right now that I 100% believe that homophobic attacks have been leveled against Buttigieg since he started running for the Democratic denomination. I’ve seen such attacks and i’ve spoken out against them whenever I’ve seen them. I will continue to do so. But I know a thing about homophobia, and I can definitively say that “I’m concerned that Buttigieg doesn’t seem to care about Black lives or the particular struggles Black people face” is not homophobia. Neither is “I’m don’t feel that Buttigieg doesn’t has sufficient experience to be a good president at this time.” If you consider those kinds of statements to be homophobic, then I’m betting good money that you are one of the harassers and silencers I’m talking about.

(4) It’s important to note that some of the people being attacked and silenced are part of the LGBTQ+ community, so they actually experience the same oppression as Buttigieg and myself in addition to racism and/or misogyny (or the intersection of the two, misogynoir).

(5) In fact, my own concerns about Buttigieg’s run for the presidential nomination started out because various quotes by and articles about him left me with the impression that Buttigieg might be such a man himself.

(6) Thanks to a friend who was willing to do a little sleuthing for me, I also have his email account associated with his position as mayor of South Bend. I may send the email there as well, but I want to discuss it with someone far more familiar with the political process and political activism regarding the appropriateness of such an act.

(7) Those more experienced in this sort of political engagement are welcome and encouraged to set me straight regarding my expectations if needed. For that matter, I’d be grateful for any advice on how to be more effective in my endeavor. From those who have more experience with this kind of political engagement, mind you. If you think that you have wisdom to offer the solely flows from the some innate trait you possess (*cough* fellow white men *cough*), please save yourself the time.

The thoughts of a gay witch living in upstate New York.