Underground Thoughts

I was not surprised when 1pm EST arrived and the Ca court ruling was announced. I was relieved that the 18,000 marriages would remain legal, however of still hurt to hear that prop 8 would not be over turned. The text and emails began ti come in announcing the protest being organized at Union Square. Exhastued physically and emotionally the idea of joining didn’t sound exciting but I knew I needed to be there.

After work Darren and I met in Grand Central and headed down toward the West Village. We found the marching protestors and joined. There was a good number of people. We were lakes about two lanes wide and trailed back for at least 4 blocks.

The procession reached Union Square park where a number of short speeches were made.

Participating helped me a lot emotionally. I was able to find a productive and respectful outlet for many of my pent up emotions.

The overwhelming message of the rally was the plea to contact our NY state senators to implore them to pass the pending marriage equality bill. To all my friends in NY: PLEASE call and write you congressmen. We have less than four weeks left.

–9:58pm in line at Wholefoods–
Back when I was home in Tulare, Ca. with the family for Christmas I met up with Joseph Ramos, a friend from high school. We swapped stories of what it was like to be closeted and in high school, expressing how we wish we had known about the other as it would have helped much of the anguish we were experiencing. We then had a long talk about how we had grown up only seeing the negative and over stereotypical personifications of gays. the rainbow waving, thong touting, hand flicking, tongue piercing boys that we were terrified we would eventually become if we accepted our sexuality.

–8:50am Downtown 4 Train–
It was then that we started to discuss how basic equalities such as gay marriage would never be supported in communities like our hometown unless these good people were able to see first hand the healthy, productive and normal citizens that most gays are. Both Joseph and I had escaped our conservative farming community to larger cities. But we realized that it was our hometown of Tulare California that needed to witness our healthy and moral lives.

Being in online PR I naturally brought up the idea of starting a blog. One that would host the profiles and stories of guys like us. Making them accessible to the many students now in high school, who’s only window to the outside world and hope of a better life was their computers.

–8:41pm Uptown 6 Train–
we then talked about how guys (and girls) like us need a channel to communicate back to the community that raised us. A way that they could see first hand the good adults we had matured into and that we were not ashamed of our sexuality. It would be our goal that next time an amendment like prop 8 was up for vote many more Californians would realize that they are voting against their very own children, siblings, grandchildren, cousins, and friends. Gays are not the crazy people they see in movies and on the news, we are them.

Borrowing a pen from the waiter I started outlining our thoughts, we wrote a mission statement and began brainstorming domain names… we originally were thinking StandOut.com but being that it wasn’t available we are now thinking, OutwardView.com. I think it adequately describes our mission. Giving the next generation stuck in our hometowns a view of the outside world, as well as the older generation who need an opportunity to see beyond their illogical fears and biases.

I have had a blog for years and yet failed to keep it updated… So here’s the new plan. Everyday I spend close to an hour beneath the streets of NYC. so now that I have an iPhone this is how I will blog. This will also help me condense my thoughts down to their minimum as typing on an iPhone is still not that easy.

This will be an online journal. And knowing me it will likely be about: vegetarianism, Mormonism, exploring NYC, and my realationship with Darren.

So the goal will be to write all the entries on my iPhone, and take all the pictures I use on my blog from here as well.