There's no place like home...

For better or worse... it all starts at home. 
Whether children are raised to carry on their parent's homophobia as they go out into the world, or whether they are raised within a safe, loving but non-traditional home -- each next generation often lives their lives according to the framework that was initially built at home.  
One example of the way homes are changing is a 25 year study that shows kids of lesbian couples are the recipients of a great parenting environment in which to be nurtured and reared.

There are many struggles that gay and lesbian families cope with on a regular basis. Such as: not being acknowledged in their communities as “real” families, constant barrage of persecution from ex’s or other family and friends who come to the table with their own acrimony, compounded by the lack of family and relationship protections (“rights”).
All families have challenges! Whether they are comprised of “nuclear” or blended, or LGBT members… safely guiding children to adulthood is not for the faint of heart! No matter how many longitudinal studies there are, there will always be detractors. 

We're Here - We're Queer...

"You know keeping people from saying the word 'gay' is not really going to keep people from being gay. Being Gay isn't like Beetlejuice -- if you say it out loud too many times, you're gay." Jon Stewart

That's just one humorous quote from Stewart's recent segment on The Daily Show covering a measure seeking to prohibit teaching discussion of homosexuality in schools.

same-sex-relationships
gay-life
lgbt
GLBT

one little gay anomaly

I have often wondered about something. Why do “good, conservative heterosexual” males seem to have only one exception to the “gay abomination” deal? Is this their one little gay anomaly?
I remember thinking how ridiculous “straight porn” was when a major component was two straight women spanking each other. Seriously? Who decided that was going to be the ticket?
So... in this American conservative society you have to be straight and married to someone of the opposite sex to be “acceptable” (normal). But if your boyfriend/husband wants to see you do it with another woman–there is your gay (bisexual, bi-curious) “get out of jail free” card? Hmm...

same-sex-relationships
gay-life

What does it take to be a lesbian?

Well, sort of... tongue in cheek anyway.

I’m not exactly sure why, but this scene with the South Park boys trying so hard to figure out how to become a lesbian always makes me laugh out loud!

Tom's Rhinoplasty
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

They make it sounds pretty simple: “carpet licking,” Birkenstocks, and an Indigo Girls CD. Simple as 1,2,3?

Meaning behind my blog name

One of my blog buddies posted on this topic and it got me thinking about how and why I started this blog. Let me see here. It was the Fall of 2006...

One of my 3 jobs at the time was working for a non-profit (Christian) counseling center. I liked working there because it brought in a wide variety of clientele consisting of individuals who needed help, but were not finding objective professional help in the church environment. I had been working there about 6 months when the director called me into his office. Not unusual. But this time he had that foreboding look on his face. He stated that they had gotten an "anonymous tip" via email (how can an email be anonymous?). Bottom line? The email sender stated they were going to withdraw their financial support of that counseling center while they were "harboring a lesbian" (rolling my eyes). My boss then gave me the DADT line (you know, "you don't have to say anything"). But how could I keep working there and hiding who I was? So I did "tell"... and was released from my job. I couldn't believe it. This was a professional place of business who employed credentialed professionals to administer mental health services (this was not a church). And this company was actually in a city that had a well known non-discrimination ordinance. The catch? It was a non-profit company and therefore not held accountable by the law.

Sure, I still had 2 other jobs. But the experience was surprisingly disappointing. My partner noted that I should "write about it." I didn't really have a venue to write about it... until my son suggested starting a blog. Perfect. An "anonymous" outlet on the Internet to write about my experiences and feelings. Would anyone read it? Who knew. Who cared! I had a place to vent. And I did, even citing the city ordinance and discussing how ridiculous it is that the "separation of church and state" thing gives non-profit companies the right to ignore the laws of the land.

The name of my original blog at blogger? "Burning or Building Bridges in the Community." That name came directly from the motto of the company above that fired me solely due to my sexual orientation, which was "building bridges in the community." They were not building bridges in the community.

My blog was actually at blogger for about a year and a half, at which time I discovered that my blog had been unexpectedly “locked” and was viewable only by me (if I logged in). I looked into this in blogger’s help groups, and apparently, there were many other blogger authors in this limbo presently as well! Evidently, at the beginning of 2008 blogger began a crack down. (e.g.: flagging what they thought were “spam blogs”). The problem with their “crack down” is the sheer volume of blogs for blogger to scan left lots of room for error. In December ’08 I received the following from Blogger: “Since you’re an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.” Without remedy I just decided to move my blog.

I was very happy with my new blog home at WordPress from April 2008 until about January of 2010. Around that time, some trolls who "knew" me through knowing my partner, infested my blog. I discovered that my "anonymous" blog space to share and vent and write was no longer a safe space. I still wanted to be able to blog from time-to-time, and hoped that the trolls would have actually have moved on with their own sordid lives and were not still  hunting around the Internet to see what I may be writing about. (It's not like there is a First Amendment to the Constitution of America or anything that would protect my ability to freely write whatever I choose to about my life).   I then chose to make the WordPress blog "private." Those who had access could still read it, but it was necessary to close the windows to the unwelcome.

So here I am back at Blogger. My blog name changed slightly with this move to "Bridge Travels on the Journey." The original reason behind the name of my blog no longer really applied to the content, and since my Bridges blog itself had so many travels and I still wanted to share some portions of my journey -- I opted for the name modification. 


That's pretty much the story right there.  Thank you to you kind and genuine souls who are still walking the bridge with me all these years later.

We’re all lesbians... when...

I just LOVE these clips! I think I spit out whatever I was drinking at the time the first time I heard Karen's comment from one of my favorite clips in the video montage:  "Oh, yeah, honey, we're all lesbians when the right guy isn't around, huh?"

**more about "We're all lesbians when..." (posted with vodpod)

Thank you to Rob for being the only place I could find this clip!

You just may be a lesbian

You might be a lesbian, if… (you know, in the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck.” Think this could catch on?)
…you are a woman who is watching “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and thinking to yourself that Angelina Jolie is way cooler than Brad Pitt in any scene of the movie!
... It's not scientific or anything...

Reasons to leave the lifestyle

I did not author the below “reasons” and to say that I don't agree with them would be an understatement. Several of them are just so far out of left field… especially when the writer of the reasons stated their goal was to: “To bring people to a closer relationship to Jesus Christ. To express and encourage others who may be struggling with a particular struggle and to offer a biblical lifestyle alternative to their struggle.”

As an aside, it always strikes me as funny when someone labels same-sex relationships a “lifestyle.” Lifestyle can be defined as “a person's pattern of living as expressed by their interests, motivations, activities, desired experiences, and beliefs.” I know the reason they label it a lifestyle is so that they can assert their belief that one can simply “choose” not to live a certain lifestyle.

Here they are, “Top 10 Reasons to Leave the Lesbian Life Style” as defined by that author.

*(Comments in red are mine.)

10. In order to get rid of your Reprobate mind. (Reprobate? “not of standard purity or fineness; disallowed; rejected”… who decides what rejects a person and their mind in this manner? Aren’t there a whole list of things that “straight” humans can engage in to be “reprobate”?)

9. No more feeling like everyone is watching you and staring at you (because they are.) (Well now, there are many people who are just that self-conscious… and I highly doubt it has to do anything with their sexual orientation!)

8. No more worring [sic] if you look gay (because you did.) (A show of hands please, anyone who is gay or lesbian out there… is this really a worry for you? And if you did “graduate” from “exodus intl.” would that change how you look?)

7. No more trying to please God and your lover (you can now just please God.) (My mom is a heterosexual… and she could never please God and her spouse. When she came home from church, my father regularly accused her of loving God more than him. This is not a sexual orientation issue, it is a poor quality spouse issue.)

6. No more feeling like your [sic] never good enough (becuase [sic] you were not.) (Many people who reveal that they don’t feel like they are “good enough” do not give sexual orientation as their reasoning.)

5. No more feeling jealous everytime [sic] your lover didn’t phone or call. (This one also is no respecter of sexual orientation! If this exists in a relationship, it is unfortunate, but it is another of these reasons that is not inherent to same-sex relationships!)

4. No more fighting with your abusive lover. (There are as many, or more, opposite sex couples that this would be descriptive of--so it is not simply a "benefit" of casting off a same-sex relationship.)

3. No more feeling like you can’t live with out that person (because you can.) (Pardon me? See any of my above comments as to why this also is not inherent to same-sex relationships.)

2. No more feeling guilty about going to church. (Because now you can go and be guilt free.) …(what?)

1. Heaven it’s a wonderful place. (Now you can feel good about going there.) (For anyone out there who is gay and Christian… do you have a thought on these last two? Sounds like “works salvation” to me.)

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