Closing things out...

Hey All,

As I read over this blog, I realize that it represents a time and place in my life that I no longer feel accurately reflects who I am. As I glace back over this blog, and realize that it's been almost two years since I started it.

When the blog was started I had recently come out of the closet. I was plunging myself into the unknown world of being a gay man, coming out to my friends and family, and gauging reactions of the people close to me. As I became more confident in being who I am, I started to see the large dichotomy between the world that I grew up in and the world that I was entering. Many of these example--which are written about in this blog--made me very angry and made me feel like I was fighting an uphill battle for the hearts and minds of many in my family and childhood friends. It was frustrating, and the tone of many of the entries reflect that.

However, I feel that I am in a different place now. Referendum 71, which was the subject of my last blog post, was passed by a margin of 4 points last Tuesday. Slim margin to be sure, but it marks the first time in the history of this country that LGBT rights have won at the ballot box. It's a significant moment. The same night, gays and lesbians in Maine lost the right to marriage--extended to them by their state legislature and their governor's signature--adding a bittersweet tinge to the victory in Washington.

I realized last week that I am living in very significant times for the gay community. I live in a city that has a large population of gay people. I come from a community that remains very conservative and closed off to this movement of people seek equal rights under the law. They are not simply passive observers, but in many cases active in their desire to see to it that these rights do not come to fruition.

The desire to record what is going on with this movement--both with the hopeful activists and the opponents of gay rights in this country, as well as human rights abuses against LGBT people internationally--prompts me to leave this blog behind and focus my attention on the world of gay rights. To help tell the story as I live through this significant time in the expansion of gay rights domestically and the continued hardship of gay people world wide. It will not be this way forever, and I think it is important enough to record, to offer my perspective.

As for this blog...I suppose it will stay posted, but will no longer be added to. It will collect dust on the internet until someone dusts in off and looks at it again. It's been a good ride.