Josh submitted the note he sent to his friend Guy.

It’s not something I’m ashamed of or proud of. It’s just what I am and to a large extent something that has formed me into the person I have become, whether for good or for bad. I’ve tried to tell you in my own small ways, so by know I am hoping this isn’t coming as such a shock to you.

A very sad story about a misguided mother at talking in circles.

The domain registration for outnotes.com is due next month and I have to pay for the web hosting for the site, and I am totally broke. Please help keep Out Notes alive by donating here.

We don’t need much money to keep things going. The goal is only $300, which will cover the domain registration and the next year of web hosting. I’ll update this post with progress towards that goal. Thanks!

Comment spam deleted!

New notes from Rachel and Richard.

Tasker responds to Michael Jones’ confused homophobic rant about gay marriage:

I support gay civil unions (not marriage)

What exactly do you mean by civil union? How is it different than marriage? Isn’t the difference between the two a religous point? A civil union should mean that the couple basically forms a two person corporation where they share their finances and insurance and that sort of thing. The marriage part should mean that they have perfomed whatever religous ceremony they believe in and are now considered married by their church and have the blessing of their God and religous brethren.

The government shouldn’t be sticking it’s nose in the religous side.

For this we overturn thousands of years of marriage tradition

I don’t know about that. There have been all kinds of marriage traditions over the years.

The essence of marriage is the creation and nurturing of the next generation.

We’ll have to disagree on that. By your definition an infertile man or woman would not be able to get married because they couldn’t have kids.
Is there a minimum number of kids a couple must have to be married? What if they have one and the kid dies? Do they have to either divorce or have another kid at that point? What if they get married and don’t have a kid right away? Will we have marriage police that check to make sure they are at least *trying* to have kids? How often do they have to try?

The essence of marriage is sharing your life with another person. For example. lets look at a traditional marriage vow:

I, (Bride/Groom), take (you/thee) (Groom/Bride), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; and I promise to be faithful to you until death parts us.

No mention of children in that vow. Read the full marriage ceremony at the page I linked to. No mention of kids anywhere that I saw.

The vows concentrate on being loyal and supportive of each other, through thick or thin. That is what marriage is about.

Both of you seem to be hung up on having some sort of scientific proof that being gay is genetic and not a choice.

I don’t know what science has ‘proven’ on this so far. I don’t pay much attention to it. I don’t care what science proves or disproves about it. I know what I have witnessed.

Gay people that hate themselves because they are gay. Gay people who torture themselves and despise themselves because they have been taught they are perverted or possesed by demons because of their feelings. Gay people who kill themselves because they are gay.

You think that’s a lifestyle choice?

Gay people born and raised in small rural towns in the midwest. Parents fine upstanding straights, everybody they know is straight. They aren’t molested by some gay uncle when they are young. They don’t have pictures of Madonna or Boy George on their walls. They have *nobody* influencing them to be gay, no contact with gay culture, no desire to be gay and yet, they are.

You think that’s a lifestyle choice?

50 years ago non-closeted gays were beat and punished for being gay. It was a crime in most places. You would have been better off being black more than likely. Yet there were still plenty of gay people. You think they chose to be gay? You think these people choose to be shunned by their families, have their father disown them, people they grew up with spit on them? Why do you think they would CHOOSE this?

I grant that these days there probably are some people out there calling themselves gay who are being trendy or something. I don’t think they represent the vast majority of homosexuals.

The average gay lifestyle for men in the US much more of a health risk than is the average heterosexual lifestyle.

Do you have some proof that?

Hepatitis and HIV are easily spread

By heterosexuals too. You don’t really think straight people are immune to HIV do you?

The argument would go that therefore I should be critical of promiscuous heterosexuals too. OK, I am. From a public health point of view, the idealized virgin-until-marriage, faithful-marriage-for life is the safest.

You’re going off on a bizarre tangent now. Do you also think we should euthanize defective children? Or maybe just be sterilized so they don’t pass on their broken genetic material? It’s all public health, right Doc? And some cultures have a tradition of leaving their defective children exposed so they would die so you even have those “thousands of years of tradition” on your side.

But personally, I would be very, very offended if gay monogamy is called “marriage.”

Public policy shouldn’t be based on how offended you are going to be. I’m sure many people were very, very offended when we let blacks start voting and then more were very, very offended when we let women vote. I’m very, very offended that my gay friends that are devoted to each other and have been together for years and seem to have every intention of being together their entire lives aren’t allowed to share their lives the way a straight couple could because of bigots like you and Nick.

I for one would be interested to see if a study has been done which can determine if homosexuality ever takes place in any species except humans.

link or just search for ‘homosexuality’ and ‘nature’ in google. You’ll find lots of stuff to read.

Letter to Jay Leno

I think of a group of people who have undergone a brave act of inventing themselves. Every single out-of-the-closet gay person has had to say, “I am not part of mainstream society.” Mr. Leno, that takes bigger balls than stepping out in front of TV-watching America every night. I daresay I suspect it takes bigger balls to come out of the closet than anything you have ever done in your life.

Just quick note on why some notes end up on the blog in the letters section and the rest go to the home page. So, the scoop is that the site was created with the idea that it would be a place for letters people had written to friends or family as a way of coming out. In the meantime we have also received a lot of other inspirational and heart warming letters and stories of other formats. We would like to keep the main notes section true to the original idea; but there is always room on the site whatever else you want to send our way! As always, feedback is appreciated on this stance as it also our intention that this be a community driven site.

Encouragement to move forward…

This is such a hard thing for me to discuss, however I feel this is a start. I am a mid 30’s typical married guy with a loving wife, two kids and a huge mtg…lol

From the outside many people see us all as being a happy family, leading the typical American dream.
However, deep inside I am a much different person than what people see. I lead a double life as strait married husband, and bi-sexual male.
I urge you all, whoever reads this in the future to think deeply about the life you live, and the plans you make. Be true to yourself, and the rest of the world will
need to come second…

Aunts and uncles, parents and friends weather behind you or not, will still wake up in the morning and go about their busy lives weather you are gay, strait, black,
white, or Bi..

Dont be afraid to be who you really are.

I love my wife and children, and would not give them up for the world. But a broken heart filled with lies can do terrible things to ones sole.
In a world full of decete and hatred, it is easy to go along with the “popular” way of thinking and acting.

I encourage you all to live from your heart, be yourself, find love, run barefoot on the beach, gaze at the sunsets…..with the person who is right for you and makes
you happy.

If no-one ever replies to this letter, atleast I will know that hopefully someone has read it, and it has helped them to be the person to which they truely deserve to
be…Happy…

Me

Welcome to BiPass. My thoughts, my feelings, and occasionally my rants. I’m 22, Bisexual, and hopelessly in love, with a man; yep a wonderful, smart, handsome man. I have been with this man for 8 years, I couldn’t be happier. This relationship has created an interesting path for my life. I have always sensed that I was attracted to women, and yet I have been attracted to men also. I seem to have looked at them both equally in a sexual way. I have, however, always dated men; and I intend to marry and spend my life with a man. I just get along better with men. I came out to my boyfriend about 6 years ago. I am lucky that I have a secure and loving boyfriend. It wasn’t easy to tell. I had denied the way that I was for a long time, and even thinking about telling him was daunting. But I did tell him and he was amazing: not only was he ok, he was supportive, and communicative, without judgment. He loves me.

That is why I simply cannot understand what is going on in our country at the moment. Most people spend a life time trying to find what I have with him. Yet there are people that are trying to deny others with love like mine the right to express and share their love and lives. There aren’t many people who know I am bisexual; so nobody questions the validity or strength of my relationship with my boyfriend…we are being pushed to marry and procreate as we speak. I wonder if that would change if people knew I have sex with girls. I wonder if it would change if they knew my boyfriend knew about it and supported it and has encouraged my to truly be myself. Saying that a loving, healthy, committed relationship is a travesty to the fine institution of marriage based on the couples sexuality is a crock . It is a fallacy of the worst kind. Who are we to judge someone else’s relationship? Who are we to say who can be bonded in love, finance and law? Yet there are quite a few people in this country who seem to think GLBT marriage will disturb or destroy the sanctity of marriage. Well I will ask this: What do an over 50% divorce rate, prenups, and The Bachelor do for the sanctity of marriage? How will equal rights for all people and the ability to be beholden and bonded to the person you love harm the sanctity of marriage beyond was is already being done? Beyond that, how does the relationship of strangers effect the strength and love of your relationship? Do these people have answers? Please, give me answers. Give me an answer that justifies this denial. No? Couldn’t come up with one? Didn’t think so.

~Liv

New letter!

…

I still haven’t come out to more than a small handful of people, but now that I realize how it has caused me to be so afraid of life, I intend to change that, very soon. I’m hoping that by typing this now it will make it easier in real life. After all, my heart is beating a lot softer now than it was when I first started typing this. And the sense of hope I’m feeling right now is overwhelming.

…

See the rest: Jim’s letter to the world.

We got a letter from Corey Hidlebaugh recommending we link to soulforce.org. Here’s Soulforce’s mission statement:

The purpose of Soulforce is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.

Corey also sent us a letter, which doesn’t fit the main OutNotes section (coming out letters to friends and family), so I’ll post it here:

Dear Friends,

Let me tell you my story.

I’ll never forget the night a man named Dennis Jernigan came to minister to my church. I was only thirteen, but I was passionate for an experience with God. He led
the congregation in songs that he had written, and each one seemed as if it had been written for me. There was something about this man that seemed so familiar to me
but I could not pinpoint it. It seemed as if we both had a secret we wanted no one to know. During the middle of his presentation, Dennis stopped singing and began
to tell his story. As I listened I could feel blood rushing to my face. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. It seemed he spoke directly at me. He was telling my
story. Dennis was talking about being gay.

(more…)

Silent Bob (a.k.a. Kevin Smith) reviews Brokeback Mountain:

This ain’t just the gay cowboy movie: it’s the saddest flick I’ve seen all year. And I love sad flicks - particularly well-made/well-acted ones about people not living their lives the way they really want to. Heath Ledger didn’t give a performance in this flick: his Ennis exists - that’s how genius his non-performance was. Not since Billy Bob Thorton in Raimi’s underrated “A Simple Plan” has an actor been buried so deep in a character that you forget there’s acting going on. Ang Lee, whose film directorial choices are always all over the place in a great way (”Wedding Banquet” to “Sense and Sensibility” to “Hulk” to “Brokeback”) made a great, great film.

Donna was there when our little girls were conceived, there for their births. She’s changed diapers, bandaged boo-boos, soothed bad dreams.

She’s Mama, no matter what.

But the reality for families like mine seems increasingly lost on lawmakers around the country, who appear to have little better to do than try to legislate us out of existence.

I already knew that there are people in the world, including some notoriously anti-gay state legislators here in Georgia, who would like to stop my partner from adopting our daughters.

Now, in what may be the next wave of attacks on gay families, it appears some lawmakers would stop them from being born at all.

…

Rep. Robert Marshall (R-Manassas) sponsored the measure that would forbid medical professionals from providing to unmarried women “certain intervening medical technology” that “completely or partially replaces sexual intercourse as the means of conception.” The bill provides a list of medical procedures, including “artificial insemination by donor” and invitro fertilization.

Equality Virginia, the state’s gay political group, accurately denounced the measure as a “direct attack” on gay families. But unfortunately, it isn’t a novel idea.

From Washington Blade

The Cherokee Nation decided to recognize a gay marriage between two of its members:

The top court of the Cherokee Nation has declined to strike down a gay marriage in what is seen as a pioneering case in American Indian country, the couple and officials said on Wednesday.

Cherokee tribal members Kathy Reynolds, 29, and Dawn McKinley, 34, married in May 2004 in Oklahoma, just weeks after the city of San Francisco ignited a national debate on gay marriage by briefly allowing same-sex couples to wed.

Gay rights advocates say the pair are the first registered same-sex marriage in Indian country.

…

The lawyer for the Tribal Council, Todd Hembree, said the tribe would no longer fight the marriage. “As far as the Tribal Council is concerned, that is the end of the legal proceeding,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

He said it was also possible that the U.S. government would have to recognize the marriage because of the sovereign status of Indian tribes, which could, in theory at least, make them eligible for federal tax benefits denied to date to gay couples.

Lena Ayoub, an attorney who represented Reynolds and McKinley, said the federal government has not recognized any same-sex state marriages to date and called the federal obligation to recognize sovereign tribal marriage “a very complicated area of the law.”

Full Article found via AMERICAblog

If a gay kiss-in is a “credible threat” what does that make OutNotes?

Towleroad has a Brokeback Mountain review (he loved it!).

Lee’s adaptation is everything I wanted it to be — stunning visually, emotionally solid, true to the original story — but at its core it expresses a knowledge of the secrecy and the gut-wrenching pain that gays experience when required to abide by society’s heterosexual models for fear that their true feelings, if exposed, will engender shame, humiliation, or violence. This film begins in the early 60’s but we all know that even today there are men who live entire lives in the closet, never able to allow life its full expression.

Be warned: there are spoilers in this review.

Ford has bowed to pressure from the AFA and is cutting off advertising in gay publications such as the Advocate:

Ford Motor Co. said it will stop running ads for its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in the gay press, helping to avoid a confrontation with conservative Christians but setting up a fight with gays and lesbians.

The American Family Association, a conservative religious group, launched a boycott of Ford this year for extending marriage benefits to same-sex couples and giving “thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda,” the group said in written statement. The group criticized Ford for supporting gay commitment ceremonies and gay pride parades.

from the Washington Post

AmericaBlog says secret meetings and former senior Bush White House officials were involved:

Oh doesn’t this get interesting. The two Ford execs who sat down with the extremist gay-hating organization to work out the secret deal, who do you think they were? Why, two former senior Bush administration officials. Aren’t things getting interesting.