Those of you who live in Portland have probably already caught wind of the media blitz I have, once again, found myself in with regard to my ongoing small group dialogue project between members of the queer community and members of the Mars Hill Church. After this past week’s vandalism and threats (video below) Pastor Tim and I decided to go on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” today and talk about our experience together thusfar. It first aired this morning live at 9:00am and will air once more again this evening at 9:00pm, so tune in!

You can download the MP3 HERE.

If you care to catch up on everything that happened to get us here this week, follow the links and watch the video below:

Q Center’s Executive Director Speaks Out Against Threats of Violence
KGW News (NBC)
Fox 12 News
PQ Monthly (Article 1)
The Christian Post
PQ Monthly (Article 2)
The Oregonian
The Portland Mercury
KOIN 6 (CBS)
Rev. Chuck Currie

(Originally published on The Huffington Post on 2/2/2012)

As you probably have heard, the Washington State Senate passed a marriage equality bill Wednesday night, clearing the way for a vote in the House, which looks poised to legalize unions for same-sex couples throughout the state. This means that if I walk out of my house in Portland, Ore. and drive across the I-5 bridge to Vancouver, Wash. (less than five miles away from my front door), I am now considered equal to my heterosexual counterparts and can legally marry the man I love, but once I drive back over that bridge to my house in the state I pay taxes to, I become a second-class citizen once again and cannot.

Well, fuck that, Oregon — and fuck that, America! How can people hate me and my love so much? All my life I have just wanted to be myself. I have wished for others to respect me as a human being in return for respecting them, but instead, I have been made to feel like something less than by my country, by my fellow man and, once again, just moments ago, by my home state.

I smell freedom across the I-5 bridge to Washington, and I want it. I deserve it. I am thrilled for my brothers and sisters in our neighboring state, but being able to see equality now just over the river has added insult to injury. Equality is mine to have as a citizen of this country and is, quite frankly, no one else’s to give. Marriage discrimination, as with any form of discrimination, is truly a cancer on our society. It destroys everything we work so hard to protect, and it weakens us. It strips away our freedom and is just plain un-American.

We are entering into a political vortex this year, with campaigns and agendas flying by every which way. I encourage you to stay focused on equality. Keep fighting to be yourself. Demand respect as a human being, and in return, respect others. Do not let your country make you feel less than any longer, because you are not. You are exactly who you are supposed to be, and don’t let the state of Oregon or any other bigots who “aren’t ready” for marriage equality tell you otherwise.

This is your country, and your love is just as beautiful as anyone else’s love. The end.

We are going to win this. All of us. Any day now…

To get involved in the LGBT community where you live, click here. Change starts with you.

I can barely make out the words on the screen through my tears as I am typing this. I’ve hit a wall with being able to push down my anger about the cruelty and hatred that’s directed at me and my friends just for being ourselves. Last night a group of my friends got jumped by a bunch of gay bashing Rose Festival hill people. Everyone is alive today with much to be thankful for, but I’m fed up. This is not a political post. It’s not about fucking politics at all, actually. These are the words that are going to turn to cancer in my body if I don’t let them out, so I have decided to do it now. FUCK IT.

As you can see from the photo above, I’ve always been different. There has never been a time in my life where I walked into a room and instantly felt like I belonged there. I’m just not wired that way or something. I grew up in a very conservative home in a very conservative part of the Midwest. Other kids started calling me “girly” at an early age. This morphed into “sissy” which morphed into “gay” and sort-of spiraled out into violence from there. At the time, I didn’t really know what any of those words actually meant. I just knew that the other kids (and sometimes adults) didn’t like ME. I got beaten up for the 1st time for being a sissy when I was 8. I ran all the way from downtown York, Nebraska to my Mom’s friend’s house, crying, scared out of my mind. This would be the 1st of many encounters with mean boys to come.

(This is a photo of me getting my very first Barbie & Ken dolls. My parents did the best they could with me at the time. Looking back, I think it is very sweet that they loved me enough to let me play with dolls in the privacy of our home. Most boys like me without sisters back then weren’t that lucky. Have you EVER seen a face so happy?)

Things went terribly wrong in my life around that same time and I went inward. It became clear to me what I was soon after…that what they had all been talking about that whole time was true. I was a sissy. I knew this by the time I was 10 years old and had already begun to seek out ways of taking the edge off chemically, making myself feel better through lies, and protecting myself by being totally fucking fake. By the time I got to high school the torment had moved to torture. I was constantly ridiculed by the guys in my class and had to be removed from gym during Sophomore year at York High because they were harassing me. Eventually, I was removed from the school all together when we moved to Kansas. I decided to come out of the closet in 1994. It was a very unpopular decision. I could probably go on and on forever about how horrible it was to be an out teenager Pre-Will & Grace and how I couldn’t get from class to my locker without having my books knocked out of my hands for a full year my last year of high school, but tiny violins are not really the point of this post.

My message to all of you homophobic gay bashing pricks is this: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??? Why has it always been such a huge problem for me to be myself? Why do you care whether my male friends are wearing wigs and dresses to a gay bar? What’s it to YOU? I feel like I have been fighting you my whole life because I HAVE BEEN. You have never once let me be myself without the fear of being attacked or made fun of and I’m just fucking sick of it.

LEAVE US ALONE. IT’S ONE THING TO NOT ALLOW US THE SAME BASIC RIGHTS AS YOU, BUT IT’S ANOTHER WHEN YOU WANT TO SEE US BLEED. IF IT’S BLOOD YOU WANT, IT’S BLOOD YOU SHALL GET…BUT IT WON’T BE OURS. FUCK OFF, NAZI PIGS. BITE YOUR TONGUE OR WE’LL BITE IT OFF FOR YOU.

…and to my brothers and sisters who’ve been fighting back their whole lives, too:

KEEP FIGHTING. WE ARE GOING TO WIN THIS EVENTUALLY. THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER. STAY STRONG, KEEP YOURSELVES SAFE, BE WHO YOU ARE, AND KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU. I’M HERE WITH YOU. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

-Logan