SPEAKER_00 0:06

Wow. I can't believe I'm back. I'm out of TikTok hell. Which is a good thing. That's Arthur's pillow. I've got Arthur here tonight with me. Yes, he's he's here. Arthur is here. He's watching. He's with us. Yes, you can lay right there. There. You can have the pillow, buddy. I know you're a pillow baby. All right.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Alright, go ahead. There.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

You're a pillow. Alright, you don't have to sit next to me and sweat. All right. Wow, I was in TikTok hell, and hooray, hooray. I've been set free. Hallelujah. I feel the Holy Ghost. I'm using that as a metaphor.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

So cheers, Peroni from Italy. Praise the Lord. Three cheers for getting out of TikTok. Hell. I'm so excited. I could almost pee myself. Well, I mean, the chair could handle it. I think it would be fine. Yeah. I used to say to my students. They'd be like, Are you excited, Mr. Afate? I'd be like, oh my god, I've already peed myself twice. Yes, I'm excited. Of course I'm excited. I've almost peed myself twice. Yes, I'm going to pee myself tonight. Isn't that? Oh, wait a minute. Am I allowed to say that? Is pee a bad word? You know, I gotta have a lexicon of all the words you can't say because if you're a gay creator, you're not allowed to self-deprecate and call yourself names because if you do. Hold on, there we go.

unknown 2:30

Hold on.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

This thing is like a large penis in my mouth or something. Okay. That's kind of large even for my mouth. Um, I mean, we'll give it a whirl, you know what I'm saying? Oh, are you allowed to say penis? Oh my gosh. So I need a lexicon of all the words that you cannot say on TikTok because my god, you know, what happens if a gay creator, oh duh, like me, self-deprecates or not defecates. I I don't self-defecate. We're not that old. You see what I'm saying? We don't we use the word mature, we don't self-defecate, we self-deprecate. As an English teacher, you gotta get that right. You don't want to self- you don't want to self-defecate, you want to self-deprecate. Make sure you get your uh consonants um appropriately placed. But I need a lexicon of all the words, and I can't I can't self-deprecate. Now I want to say defecate, I can't self-deprecate too much because we can only use certain words. I can say I'm gay, I can say I'm queer, but I gotta leave it right there. You know what I mean? I mean, because if I say anything else, I'll have to allude to it. You know, the F-word with three letters, there's an F word with four letters. I'll just kind of like indicate which one I'm talking about. I was so mad. I gotta say this. I was so mad when that thing ended in the middle. I was like, you gotta be out of your fucking mind. I was bummed out because I was already doing family rejection that week, and then I felt rejected by TikTok. I mean, seriously, it was like on the heels of like doing a week of family rejection of the most unusual and fun kind. I always feel like my shirt isn't doing right. I'll just have to take it off. Oh, wait a minute, I'll get kicked off. Oh, wait a minute. I've had my shirt off, I didn't get kicked off. Ticked off, ticked, kicked off. At any rate, I was so mad because I was like in the middle of something really good, and it was like boom, it's gone. And it's like, and now I've got a penalty, and my my TikTok page says first warning or something like that. I had to take, I had to take a little class so that I could be have that little red warning thing removed, and you know, and I mean, I'll I was furious because the algorithm does not know that you are a gay person. But if you look at my my uh TikTok profile, um it's kind of obvious I'm there, you know what I mean? Not because of the way I act or anything, I'm pretty masculine and all that, but I mean I'm just talking about in terms of let me do this there. In terms of just being, excuse me, thought I'd have a little drink. In terms of just being the topics, if you just look at the topics, you'll see that like it's all about coming out. So if I use the word or a word, it's not because I'm hating on people. Uh I was so, so mad. So I'll recap my week briefly and then I'll oh shit. And then I'll carry on the saga of what happened with my daughter. Um, oh, it gets funnier. It gets better. It's like family is so full of shit. I'm telling you, family is full of shit. All right, so here's the uh I'm gonna preface by saying here's the cardinal mistake that I made. I created a new Facebook page, and I uh oh, I should have brought my t-shirt down. I have a new t-shirt. It's called Adorable Abomination. I'm gonna hang it right here behind. I think it's what I'm gonna call. You know, the podcast name is Wake Up Gay with Astro Scott, right? But I think I'm gonna call like the series or something adorable abomination because that's what I am. I'm an adorable abomination. Can you say that? Abomination? Okay, so anyway, I put something on the Facebook page because I got rid of the other one because it was all my old religious member. I'm the retired educator and a formal former farmer ordained pastor. So all of my old Facebook page was all of these Christian friends and people that I built relationships with for years, and so I didn't want all my shit going out on there. So when I created the new one, I put my new banner for the podcast, Wake Up Gay, because one day I just woke up and I was gay. Oh shit, what happened? I hate when I just wake up gay, and so and I put something about my mission on there, mission, you know, being to you know basically help gay men and our quest to grow, to love ourselves rightly, to um love others, to grow in relationship, and all things pertaining to the issues that we deal with as gay men. It was just kind of an all-per all-inclusive kind of topic. Well, of course, of course, the day that I put that up, that's the day that everybody got the little notification. You have a friend. I've I got rid of all my damn friends, I got rid of them all. I have Facebook is the most cumbersome, convoluted thing to use ever, okay? I didn't want my friends to follow me. Me and my daughter went through all the little settings to make sure. Well, they all got notified that I had a new page, and sure enough, even if they weren't my friend, they were able to find it. And when they found it, they found it and they saw this boom gay thing. So that's when my brother-in-law, praise the Lord. That's this is why I got the t-shirt, okay? The t-shirt is in his honor. My brother-in-law, okay, so wait a minute. A few days before the brother-in-law, one of my best friends who is straight, Christian, praise the Lord, called me and he didn't know what to do with me. He felt like the Lord had a woman for me. And um, I have to watch what people do on here because some people are, if they're a hater, I have to kind of block them real quick because then it flags TikTok again, saying that you're I don't know. So, at any rate, and I and I and I said earlier in my post, by the way, if you have questions for me, ask the questions. You can ask me anything. I'm an open book. I'm very vulnerable. I'll I'll I'll answer anything. I mean, I think. Um, anyway, so what was I saying? Everybody got the little banner that said that I was gay and I had this podcast, you know, whatnot. And everybody started finding it. So my brother, oh, that's right. I was talking about my my friend, my straight friend. He called because he got a phone call because that's what the Christians do. They start calling each other. Did you know that Scott was gay and he's fucking new age now? He's not even a Christian, he's new age. Okay. So we got a phone call. He he knew that the Lord had a woman for me and he was and he loved me, but he needed closure. Closure. Over 20 years you've known me, but you need closure. Because you've he somebody saw that page and sent it to him as a little thing, screenshot. And then he was like, but I don't know what to say. He said that three times, and I said, Well, let me help you. I don't want to keep having this conversation. You don't know what to say to me after 20 years, and um whatnot. So we'll just end the conversation. So we hung up. Um he called my other best friend who's straight, who actually loves me, has no problem with me, and he was all distraught. My other straight best friend for over 30 years was like, you know, so-and-so, he's calling me. He's like, he's blowing up my phone. I said, well, here's why, you know, because this my best, my best friend who's straight, knew, and he was fine. And he knew too that my other friend must have been figuring something out or gotten something. So he called all the flutter and all worried about me. I feel touched. He was worried. I was losing my salvation. Anyway, um, whatever. So I found myself and I got saved. I came out. Um, at any rate, um, so then my brother-in-law was supposed to be here this past weekend. Praise the Lord. I always say praise the Lord when I'm referencing religious people. Um, so he evidently somebody, well, no, he went, he got the fucking notification himself. And he's like, he sends me the screenshot of my Facebook page about wake up gay. I was like, I created that thing. I had it up for one day. You dumb ass, Scott. You really you are a dumb ass. I mean, like, uh oh, wait a minute, am I allowed to say that? I'm not making fun of my, I'm not saying I'm not intellectually challenged. I'm not saying I'm intellectually not challenged. I'm very bright. I'm very bright. I'm gonna clarify and I'm gonna get get kicked off. So he's like, what's going on? This thing says you're gay. And well, he didn't call me brother, he called me Scott. Scott? I'm gonna do an English accent. Scott? We're no longer brothers. We th we thought we treated each other like we were actual brothers. My wife's my late wife's brother. What now? What are you talking about? Oh my gosh, this is like so this is like ridiculous. My life is being restricted for the next ten minutes. I I I don't understand. I don't understand. Is somebody saying something on here? Some comments. Okay, what are people saying? I do not understand. I I truly, truly, truly do not understand. I I I I don't know. I don't know. I guess if it's like asking me questions, I guess you guys gotta be quiet as nice. I am so baffled. Anyway, I'm gonna continue because I'll get I'm gonna get really angry if I don't. So um I I sorry, I don't know why this throws me off, but it just throws me off a lot. It's like I'm so sick of getting messages from TikTok about either my audience or the comments of people, like what what is wrong with you? Like, really, what is wrong with you? It's like am I that censored? Is the audience that censored? Like nobody is allowed to talk? Anyway, I'm I it really undoes me, it unhinges me. But anyway, so little Miss Muffet sat on a Tuffet eating her curds and whey. And along came beside her a spider and sat down beside her, and little Miss Muffet, I don't know, ran away. Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run, see how they run.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Sorry, I'm love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

I don't I I don't get it. I seriously don't get it. It's like I I I don't get it. Uh oh no, I said Muffet. Here we go. I mean, oh, is that like a um is that like a slam against you know people who anyway? We're not gonna go there. All right, so hi everybody. Love, love, love, and little Miss Muffet sat on her Tuffet eating her curds and way. So my story. At any rate, so my brother-in-law um basically um he got it and then he replied and he said that I was an abomination and that they were praying for me. And I thought, oh, that's so sweet. The Christians are praying for me. So I bought a t-shirt on Amazon called Adorable Abomination. I think I'm gonna hang it like right here. So anyway, he needless to say, they did not come this weekend because, and I told them, I said, look, I didn't mean for you. I'm coming out. That's allowed to be said on here. I'm coming out, I'm coming out, I'm coming out. Okay. Um, I said basically that um I didn't want him to find out that way. I'm sorry for the bombshell that got dropped on him. And I said that um, you know, my biggest fear was that you would not have anything to do with me. Fear realized, but closer than a brother. And so um they were coming, and I knew that, like the last time they were here month previous, you know, he sat me down. Like we were in the roof, one of my favorite restaurants here. And essentially um he said, I don't want this lifestyle um, you know, of drinking, and um I'm reading the messages now. Um, I'm reading about Miss Muffet. Can you see your messages? Do you have pets? Yes, I have a dog, and he's sitting right next to me. Uh maybe someone said the 3G word. I don't know. Anyway, I did see those messages. So, anyway, um, it says recounting a family reaction to sudden unexplained coming out. I guess you're allowed to say coming out. So, anyway, um he, you know, I'm on the abomination, and so um they didn't show up this weekend, and so I knew that. And the time that they were here last, he said to me, he didn't want my identity because he saw my tattoos. Well, he saw one tattoo, the Phoenix. He didn't see the other one, I didn't have it yet. And basically was like, didn't want that to become a lifestyle because I'm a Christian and I'm supposed to look and act like a Christian, and I didn't say anything. I said, I hear what you're saying, but when I said goodbye to him and my sister-in-law, and she said the last thing she said to me was, now Scott, behave. And I said, I'll do my best, but I knew that I was saying goodbye. That makes sense. I knew they weren't, I wasn't gonna see them or hear them again. And so when this trip was coming, when they were gonna be up here, I kept thinking, uh, I don't know. I've I I I anticipated that they would see something or hear something before they came. I just kind of thought they would, and they did. And so I pre-grieved that one, so it didn't really bother me as much. The one that got me a little bit, and it's kind of interesting, is like is my I have four children, two of them talk to me, they love me, they're totally fine with me. They they I came out to them. I came out to them because my TikTok video, the original one about coming out, has like 90,000 views now. And it was it had gone to somebody who was sitting with my wife at the end of my wife's life, and she would come over. I would never leave her alone because she wasn't mobile and all that. Not very mobile. And I would go to the grocery store and I saw something where she was like, congratulations on coming out, no judgment, you know, whatever. And I was like, oh crap, you know, like if that's out there. So I went ahead and I came out to my um my youngest daughter and my son. And so, and they were totally fine. The older two, another, another issue. So when I um had that other, when I had that Facebook page, I took down the stuff that was on it that said, wake up, you know, gay. I took that down. And it was plain. But I think my middle daughter had already seen it. So she I blocked her immediately because she sent me a friend request. Okay, well, this is somebody who basically isn't going to be sending me a friend request because she doesn't talk to me. So, like, why are you saying so, in other words, it's only about information, it's only about being able to see what's going on in my page. So I blocked her, but I went over to Messenger and I noticed that there was one comment from her, and it was, it's about time. And so I was asking my younger daughter, I was like, okay, so what is she saying? She's saying, basically, it's about time you came out. We all knew you were gay. But here's the thing that I was talking about the other night is that people will always project onto you. The church does it all the time. The reason the church projects onto gaze and makes us the worst possible thing, they let everything else come through the door. But when it comes to gaze, they stop you at the door. And basically, it's because you, you, and I confront them with their own sin. We confront them with the fact that the inside of their cup is not clean. Okay. The Pharisees had this problem. You know, Jesus said, You guys are whitewashed tombs. On the outside, you look great, but on the inside, you're you're full of deceits and murder and all kinds of things on the inside. So you're you're filthy on the inside, but you look great, which is a classic narcissist, okay? Narcissists care more about the appearance of health than health itself. Okay, so they they look good. A narcissist can never do anything wrong, nothing can stick to them, right? It's always going to be projected back onto somebody else. They a narcissist, ironically, biggest issue is shame. Okay. Shame comes from experiences of rejection, abandonment, neglect, abuse, trauma. Okay. When those things happen to us, we internalize it as shame, which says I'm defective. There's something wrong with me. I'm not right, right? For me, it was the ADHD. It was the fact that I was coming, that I was, you know, a young, sensitive boy who cried over things at school rather than got in fights and, you know, was very sensitive. And so, you know, most gay men, we grow up feeling very different. You know, we know that we're different, which is the gender insecurity that we feel because we're not fully connected to our same-sex gender because of the fact that we are attracted, right? And we we don't bond in the same way because a lot of the things that bond our gender have to do with things like sports and whatnot. And if you're creative, not saying gay people can't play sports. What I'm saying is if you're creatively geared and sensitive, you're not going to fit the traditional masculine mold. And that is the mold that most gay men were kind of coming up against growing up, right? So we weren't validated in a lot of places. We were we were told that the way that we were made was wrong. I've talked a lot about the movie Billy Elliott, you know, growing up in a mining town in Ireland. And essentially, you know, so he's supposed to be boxing while he's off doing stuff. And instead, he finds himself peeking into a ballet school and ends up wanting to do ballet instead of boxing in a rough and tough, you know, tumble, very masculine mining town where he gets called a poof and all kinds of things, right? And it's because that he wants to dance instead of wanting to, he feels alive when he dances. He doesn't feel alive in boxing. And so I love the movie because it epitomizes what it means to grow up alienated from your gender and being very unaffirmed by your creativity and not being the status quo, et cetera, et cetera. So, at any rate, um, so you know, we grow up with a lot of that that that kind of shame and you know, feeling like there's something wrong with us, and that's just part of the you know, our mo, if you will. And so people are going to project onto you when people feel shame, meaning they feel like there's something wrong with them, they tend to project their hurt onto other people, or they internalize it as self-contempt. The example that I always give is the rape of Tamar in the Bible by Amnon. Amnon does that to his sister, he violates his sister, and then he sends her away and makes her out to be the devil because he's projecting. He feels bad for being a bad person, and he projects that onto her. And so that's how that goes. It can be project, usually as projected outward, but it can also be projected inward as feelings of self-contempt. So, or both, either could go either direction or both at the same time. So, at any rate, because there are places, you know, whenever you have divorced family, okay, and you have parental alienation, you know, where there's a concerted effort to turn the kids against the father, you know, I was never a deadbeat dad. I paid my child support until I was 49 years old. I was always involved with my kids. Went through 10, my wife and I went through 10 years of custody battles for my kids, okay? So it wasn't that we weren't involved and we weren't trying to protect their interest or we weren't for them. Okay. But whenever you have divorce and you have parental alienation dynamics going on, and the other parent is a narcissist, and basically that's what they're, you know, they're projecting their contempt for men very well, and the your daughters are internalizing that contempt as a norm. It's like it's okay. And also at the same time, here's the hypocrisy. We're Christians. Well, honey, let me tell you, there's one verse in the Bible that Jesus talks about. Maybe it's Paul. It's Paul. Well, he talks about here's the biggest litmus test for a Christian, okay? Biggest litmus test ever. Because religion masquerades as Christianity, okay? Religion masquerades as Christianity, it dresses up nice, it says all the right things, it's always trying to earn favor. Religion creates the illusion of separation from God. And when when the enemy, religion, loves to partner with our shame to keep us in a place of always trying to have to earn it, right? As long as we're trying to earn it and we are sinful, and our sin consciousness is the primary consciousness that we're living from, then we will continue to try to earn our way back to God, which the church relies on, okay? Because it relies on creating this illusion of separation and this need to always get right with God, to get back with God, to get back into his presence. And they create language around all this. Oh, if you're not hearing God, it's because there's a brass heaven over you, brother. Really? I believe the heavens were open the day Jesus was baptized. I don't think they closed since. They create language around hearing God. You're in the wilderness. Really? I thought Jesus died for all of it. He died in the in the temple when he was crucified, it was torn. The Holy of Holies was now open and you could actually go in. So the the rending of the veil was the access that we had to the Holy of Holies. So, how can I be separated from the holy if Jesus' death made the rip the veil of the temple, symbolically opening up everything to us? That suddenly there was no barrier. There was no veil, there was nothing blocking us from God. But the church capitalizes on the separation and the perception that you're separate. You know, read your Bible more. You need to pray harder if you're not hearing God. Really, it's all works orientation. Okay, it's all works orientation. And if I can keep the illusion of separation from God and you always working to maintain it, then you'll come to church every time the doors are open. You will be a good tither, and the and the bank role in the church will look really great, and the light show can go on. It's always about power and money. Period. The Pharisees had the same issue. Jesus threatened their power and financial base, and they didn't like it because they were the ones that looked good, that were the religious leaders, and he confronted their system of control and toxicity. He confronted it and told them that their father was the devil. And that you guys searched the whole book looking for me, and I'm right here. That's how fucking blind you are. Okay. So there's nothing that's changed in the church today. It's still the pharisitical gatekeeping, earn your salvation organization that that that relies on your shame and this perception of distance and separation with God in order to keep you fully engaged in trying to get it right. And in trying to get it right, you will do the do's and you'll do everything you need to do to maintain this sense of being connected. If Jesus died once and for all, who was not included? The gays? Gaymen. I think it said he died for all. If we were all with Jesus, if we were all with Christ before the foundation of the world, who wasn't included there? Exactly. The concept of sin is a man-made concept. Jesus did talk about sin, I get it. His concept of sin was he who is without sin, go ahead and throw a stone. His reference had more to do with the condition of fallenness that was inside of man, not in pointing out as sin itself as a separator. In fact, with the woman caught in adultery, he restored her identity by saying, Do you see this woman? I'm sorry, that's the that's the woman that washed your hair with Jesus' feet and poured the perfume. But basically, with the woman caught in adultery, he's like, Where are your accusers? And he said to the audience, if those of you that are without sin, meaning the condition of being separated from if you don't have that, if you if you don't have any of that, then go ahead, throw away. I'll follow right behind you with my stone. Okay. So the concept of sin is a very convenient one because it ties, it tethers us to religion, which tethers us to performance, which tethers us to getting it right, which tethers us to the idea that we are separate from God, which tethers us to this whole thing of us trying to get back to something that we never left. If we were all included before the foundations of the world with Christ, when were we not included? This whole concept of hell and sin are horseshit created by a toxic religious system to maintain power and control and to keep people outside the gate. Jesus said to the Pharisees, talking about hell. You make your the your converts are twice the son of hell that you are. Hell is the metaphor for separation from God. Who was he saying was separate? The religious the religious are the ones that are separate from God. It's the religious that are separate. Who did he point out as being separated from him? The Pharisee. You can't see me, I'm right here. The Pharisees, your father is the devil, he said. The ones that he pointed as being separate from God were the religious, not the sinners. That's a very interesting thing to think about. So think about it. The religious pharisitical church is separated in some form or fashion from God because they don't carry the heart of God in them, because the heart of God is inclusion and reaching out, and it's always love. The gay community has more of that characteristic of love and connection and acceptance and allowing people in the gate than the church does. The gay community does a better job of loving people than the church. And that's why they don't, the gay community doesn't walk through the doors of the traditional church. Number one, they're not allowed. Number two, there's more love in their own community than what they're going to find inside the church, because all they're going to find inside the church is that they are going to be the object of projection because everybody inside the toxic system has their own shame. They've all had their own experiences with rejection, trauma, right? Abandonment, etc. They all have their own experience, everybody does. You're not a human and not have a sense of being defective or having shame. Because if you've been wounded, rejection, rejected, abandoned, have any form of trauma, there's something about all of those experiences that tell you that there's something wrong with you. So everybody has it. The difference is in the church, they have it, but they don't want you to see theirs. So they project onto you and say, yours is worse. Who the hell came up with that system? Jesus didn't. Isn't as bad as this one. He never counterweighted the sins and categorized them as being better or worse. Never. The Pharisees do that. The Pharisees have a sin level system. We let levels one, two, and three all come through the door. And that includes fornication, adultery, it includes all of it. They're all about in addiction of every kind. You come right on in, right? Level four is where we put people like me and people like you and anybody else, along with the axe murderers and pedophiles, we're all in the same bunch. Level four is the catch-all group of everything that's worse than level one, two, and three. And they call level four the bad level. So what is it? It's all about projection. I don't want when I stand in front of you as a level four, I confront your level three, your level two, and your level one. Because you have it and I have it. But you don't want me to look at yours. You don't want to be exposed, so you will expose me. Ouch. You don't want to be exposed, so you will expose me. It's like a sacrificial system. You you sacrifice me at the altar of you looking good. So your shame is covered, and mine is fully exposed. Mine is out there where you can see it. Yours, you keep it hidden. It doesn't make you better than me. According to Jesus, it certainly doesn't make you better than me because it makes you a Pharisee. And the Pharisee, he said, their father was the devil. So draw the analogy. Who is in charge of most of Christendom when it comes to judgment and the failure to include and love? Go back to the fruit of the tree. You will know them by their fruit. What is the one commandment Jesus gave? Love your brother as yourself. In this, he said, all the walls, the laws are summed up in this one thing. Take every law of the Old Testament and sum it up in this. Love your neighbor as yourself. It's all summed up in love. I have to have a healthy self-love, healthy self-acceptance, and the degree to the degree that I love myself, I will be able to love others. You cannot take anybody beyond where you are. I cannot show you the way of love if I do not love myself. I cannot lead you in love. I cannot bring you or beckon you into places of greater love if I do not love myself. If the only thing that's inside of me is self-contempt and I have no love for myself, I will not be a good lover. You can't give away what you don't have. I can't give away what I don't have. If I have not received it, we love because he first loved us. The capacity to love is a God-given, inherit, designed by God, created in God's image thing. It's inherent. Come here, Arthur. Come here, baby. Come up here. Uh-uh, up here. Listen to me. Come up here. Come on. It's thundering and he gets afraid. So you just stay right here with dad. Okay. He doesn't always listen when he's confused. So as an image bearer, I'm made for love. My capacity for love is because I'm made in the image of love. To the degree that I have love for myself, I can give it away. That's why it has to be so. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. So then I told my daughter. Um, I said all that to say it's a projection. What she what she wanted to project and has an investment in projecting is that because I was in a heterosexual marriage to the woman that I loved who died of cancer, that essentially my marriage was a sham because I'm gay. Now, you and I know there would be no such thing as pansexual or bisexual if people were not able to function on various parts of the continuum as sexual beings. And because I'm demisexual, meaning I fall in love because of your ideas, because of your ideals, because of what you believe, because of how you articulate, because of who you are and your values and who you are as a person. Like I fall in love because of your character, your personhood, right? And when I engage, when I when I engage you there, then my sexual love becomes quite intense because I love who you are. I loved who my wife was. And she desperately and fully loved who I was. It didn't mean sex was perfect. What it meant was if you look at a relationship and 70% of it is demisexual in my in my circumstance, then we always have the 70. If 30%, uh-uh, stay. You can't go nowhere, baby. And it's not you can't go nowhere. You gotta stay here. He wants to cut and run, but there's nowhere to run to. Little thunder. So my point is there is a broad continuum of relational capacity that we have relationally and sexually. And so her whole goal, because of her own shame, was to delegitimatize my marriage and to say that I was gay and my wife was a lesbian. Really? And that she didn't have cancer, we were just faking it. Well, she's dead, so that takes that and proves that, okay? And the idea of trying to illegitimatize my marriage is basically this. It's an attempt to basically delegitimatize my life, it's a way of shaming my whole life, if that makes sense. In other words, I have to invalidate you to validate me. That's what projection is. Projection, go back to Amnon and Tamar. You know, um, when he kicks her out after he does the violation, what is he doing? I'm validating me, but in order to validate me, I have to invalidate you. I'm projecting my shame onto you. I don't feel like I've been a great daughter, and I feel shame. So, in order for me to not have to face what's here, I need to project onto you and invalidate you in order to validate me. It's an equation like math, okay? So invalidate to validate. That's what Pharisees do, that's what projection does, that's what shame does. It's I have to invalidate you to validate me. For me to feel good about me, I have to say, you're you're the imposter. So basically, I've been living an imposter life, and that's the agenda behind the whole thing of this thing of like it's about time. And so what has been surprising for me, and I you know, I'm sensitive, so it's kind of like I know the right answers. I'm very highly emotionally intelligent, very emotionally present person, so I get it. And you can be emotionally intelligent and still be like and and know the right answers behind people's behavior, but to not have it affect you would it still does. And here's the thing that I'm always affected by. If you want to know the thing that affects me more than anything, if you want to get me, if you want to get me to pause and over like overthink something, it's when people are mean. I don't understand meanness, I don't understand intentional meanness, and I don't understand um people trying to hurt other people while at the same time posturing yourself as righteous, really. You're the righteous one, I'm the unrighteous one, and you are being mean. And so the part that got funny that, and again, and I also have to say this I forgive, I forgive my children. I learned a long time ago to make forgiveness my favorite sport in a family where there's divorce, and the narcissistic parent is the one who's doing parental alienation, trying to get the kids to hate the other parent, which has been going on for years and years and years. When you have that dynamic present in a relationship, there is going to be perpetual offense. Okay, there's gonna be perpetual stuff. So for me, I've had to learn how to forgive and let go a lot. My wife and I both did through the years. If we got to the place where we could not let unforgiveness eat us alive because it wasn't eating anybody else alive, it was just eating us alive. Okay. So the part that got me a little bit more tweaked, besides the meanness that was involved, which I forgive. I because here's the thing about this: you don't know who you are. I know that I am pure light and consciousness, that the Holy Spirit is in me, that there is an incorruptible place in me. So trauma, rejection, abandonment, meanness, all those things are things that that really get projected onto us or are the products of things that happen to us. And those unhealthy beliefs about ourself, unhealthy ways of viewing self, labels that we wear, all come from those things. But when I realize who I am as pure light and consciousness, I can detach from the things that I have allowed to be labelers in my life. I can detach from the lies. It's all lies. I can attach to truth and detach from lies when I know who I am. That I am pure, unadulterated, holy spirit-filled, kingdom of God inside of me, that nothing can corrupt. Okay. That is all good. When I know who I am, I can detach from lies and untruth. When I don't know, I cannot separate those two. They're I don't know how to draw those lines or their distinctions. So because I do, I can detach from that. Again, it doesn't mean that I don't, you know, we don't eliminate suffering by detaching from the lie. Sometimes we have to feel the impact of the lie in order, and the suffering that goes with that in order to, we have to sit with it, we have to be willing to sit with it, and then we can detach from it. And we have to detach from it, and we have to attach to the truth. Your projection is not my reality. Your projection is not what defines me. That's truth. You don't have the power, nor do your words have the power to define me unless I give it to you. Okay. So the part that tweaked me a little bit more was then my mom, who's 84 years old, I have not come out to. I wasn't planning on it. I've lost my father. She's a widower. I don't think she needs a lot of things to be worrying about at this stage of her life. It's kind of like, you know, there's there, you know, sometimes in Christian circles, well, you always tell the truth, really? If the SS men come to your door and ask you, how many um Hebrew people are you hiding in your basement? I have to say it that way because I don't know if I get thrown off. And you know that they're here to get them and they're going to annihilate them. The truth, if you're always a truth teller, well, there's four and they're in the basement. There are higher laws than truth, and the higher law of truth is called love. Love always trumps. Always love trumps everything. Love is above all the things. Love is above do not lie. Love is up here, do not lie is down here. So when those people come to the door and they're going to apprehend those people that I'm hiding in my basement, and they say, Are there anybody in there? Is there anybody in there? I say no. Nope. Why? Love prevails over the lie. There are some truths that are higher than other truths. Not everything needs to always be said. Sometimes we preserve people by what we don't say. Who's gonna be worried about me having a spouse before she goes and whether or not I'm going to remarry after my wife passed away. Like she's going to worry about those things. So why tell her anything different? Well, that same daughter suddenly who does not have my mom. I'm an only child. She doesn't have if if the older two don't have relationship with me because of their issues, my mom, old school, is going to take the same the side of her son. Okay, so she doesn't have anything to do relationship-wise with the older two, but with the younger two, she does, like me. That's an old school mom-son thing. Whatever it is, dysfunctional, whatever it is, it is what it is. So they don't have relationship. Mom calls. Well, you know, my daughter called her three times. She said, I just wanted to give you a little tidbit. She's like, and finally she left a message. I just wanted to catch you up. I haven't talked to you. And she's like, I don't know what she wants to catch me up. I'm like, I don't know why she's doing that. And I'm thinking, should I do? I do. She's calling to tell you that your son is gay. And then he came out. And do you know? Now here's my problem. You can throw darts at me. I can manage that one. I'm emotionally intelligent enough. I've been around for a while. I've learned to forgive you quite a bit. And I'm very practiced in forgiveness and letting go. However, when you hurt somebody else because you're trying to hurt me, namely try to hurt my mother because you're trying to hurt me, which means you don't give a shit about her because you're selfish and narcissistic. And the only thing you care about is yourself. And you yourself can do nothing wrong. And she can't. Nothing sticks to her. If I said to you, you're being mean, I'm not mean. I'm just trying to tell the truth. I'm not being mean. It wasn't mean when I said, Well, it's about time you came out because your whole life has been a sham, you know, implied. That wasn't mean. It was just the truth. Religious people can justify everything, all in the name of being righteous. She's a Christian, for heaven's sakes. So is the brother-in-law. Really? Go back to fruit. What is the measure of being a Christian? Going to church? Saying you're a Christian? Um I think the measure, the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, love, love, love. First Corinthians 13, love, love. If you have all these things and have not love, the fruit of the because see, I've had people ask me this question. Well, religious people, you know, how do you know? Like they they they say they love Jesus. Well, of course they do. Of course they do. The Pharisees loved God. For heaven's sakes, they loved God. You will know them by their fruit. So here's my what I postulate. Just throwing this out there. If you don't know love, you're not a Christian. Sorry. I'm sorry. You're not. If what you do consistently is devoid of love, in the name of righteousness, in the name of everybody else being an abomination like me, in the name of whatever, if what you are demonstrating is exclusion, exclusivity, and failure to love people because of their sexual orientation or whatever, if you're not loving them, I have to say, I don't know if you're a Christian. A religious conscience is different than a real true conscience. A religious conscience is based on religious law and shame. A true regenerated conscience does if you have a true regenerated conscience inside of you, you don't hate you you love people. You don't do mean things to people, you don't do mean things to your parents, and you don't do mean things to your parents' parents. You don't you don't tell your brother that he's an abomination and that you're praying for his repentance. I'm sorry, brother. I hate to say it, but I might be the bigger Christian than you. Now, it doesn't mean that he I'm not making a judgment. I'm not the one that judges who's a Christian, who's not. I don't want that responsibility. My point is, is oftentimes we say that we are, but our behavior and our ad and our position of love or lack thereof is not indicative of what Jesus said was a Christian. Love your neighbor as yourself. What part of that time you came out is loving your neighbor? What part of I'm gonna call grandma and tell her her son's gay and I don't care what that does to her at all is loving your neighbor. Sorry, sweetheart. I don't think you're a Christian at all. I don't think that you are even saved. Because if you were, your actions would consistently demonstrate love. And if they didn't, it's not that we do it all right. You can be messy, but be messy and be love. What do messy people do? Does it mean I can never say anything to hurt you that makes me not a Christian? No, it means that when I do, I feel like shit. And I'm gonna not go to sleep tonight until I track you down and say, what I did hurt you. I'm so sorry. Being a Christian is not the absence of sin or the absence of being a messy human, being a Christian has to do with the persistence and of your love and the consistency of your love. If I'm a Christian, I will be persistent and consistent in love. Period. I won't qualify my love. I will not be a judgmental person. I will not say that because you're gay, I can't have anything to do with you. That's not love. Now, I'm not saying every person who doesn't love gays, doesn't love me, is not a Christian. What I'm saying is there's something wrong with your Christian status if the hallmark of who you are is not love. And if you're deluded by a religious toxic system that says some people are worthy of love and others are not, there's something wrong with that equation. Period. Period. Do not say you are love and cast me out. That's not love. Don't say that you are love and that you're a Christian. Like, leave your Christian horseshit at the door. Do not, in my presence, please, please, please, call yourself a Christian and call me an abomination in the same breath. Uh-uh. Doesn't work. Talk to the hand. Go to the door. Get out. I'm not the judge. Hear me. Hear me. I am not the judge of who is and isn't a Christian. I'm not asking to be the judge. I'm not trying to be the judge. What I'm addressing is don't put the word Christian out there and have your behavior be unloving. That's fucking bullshit. It's total fucking bullshit. Leave me alone if you're gonna put the word Christian and then be a piece of garbage and be bad and do things that aren't Christian. If you're gonna be unkind to me, then leave. If you're not going to love, then please do me a favor. Leave the word Christian out. Why don't you just be a human? I don't want to hear it. Do not use the word Christian around me and treat me like that. Do not use the word Christian around me and call me an abomination. Sorry, brother-in-law. Do not be a Christian around me. And you have to understand something here. My anger is not at the I do not have contempt for my brother-in-law or contempt for my daughter. My contempt, I want you to hear me and I want you to hear where it's placed. My contempt is against religious bullshit. My contempt is not about people, it's about a toxic religious system. So please don't I don't hear that I despise my daughter or my brother. No, I despise your religion. I despise what you think love is because it doesn't look like love. And I don't like you calling yourself a Christian and using words like abomination with me. I don't like you calling yourself a Christian and trying to defraud my entire life. I don't like you calling yourself a Christian and not caring if you try to out me to my own mother because you care nothing about her. All you care about is hurting me. That is not Christian, my friend, at all. It is not love. So just separate the two. Do me a favor. Again, hear me because I'm sure this will go full circle back. And you'll parse my words. And not talking about the general audience, I'm talking about my little family members. Do not hear that daddy does not like daughter or dad or brother-in-law does not like brother-in-law. Do not hear that. Not what I'm saying. What I don't like is your toxic religious bullshit system. And I don't like you calling yourself a Christian and acting unloving toward me. Just drop the word Christian from your vocabulary and be a messy person because here's the truth. You can be a messy person and be a Christian, but here's the difference. Messy people, when they fail to love, make it right. The only difference. Are you consistently being love? And if you're not, then shut the fuck up. Just saying. Get out of my face. Because if you're not love, I don't like your Christianity. I don't like your little religious system. Again, you can be a Christian and be messy. Hear me. What I'm saying, not what I'm not saying. But when you are messy, you recognize that you're not being love and you need to make it right. Being a Christian is not being devoid of mistakes or being unkind or being messy. It's what you do when you do those things that makes a determination in my mind and heart about whether or not you really are a Christian. Because at the end of the day, love must be the banner that you are flying. And your actions have to demonstrate love. You know, my son, what you know, we we did the thing, we push each other buttons, you know. Everybody knows what that's like. You know, you trigger me and I trigger you, and we both have we spout off. And that's normal. Every family does that, right? But my son would say this about me. He would say, Dad, make sure that's still on. You know, your first response is kind of messy, but your second response is really good. That's Christian. There's more of us gay Christians than there are Christians in the church. Oops. Right. Because it wasn't the absence of being messy that was the problem. It was where you go with the mess that becomes the problem. And it's the love factor that comes through, even when you blow it, that makes the diff makes a determination in my mind about whether you are acting consistently with love. And if you are, then that to me makes you more of a Christian than someone who is not. Jesus said, Love your neighbor as yourself. I can handle Christians that don't even understand me. That's fine. You don't have to understand me. See, it's not contemptuous if you don't understand who I am as a gay man. Then ask me a question. What a novel idea. I don't think you're un Christian for not understanding me. What what I'm valuing your Christian response and your Christian who you say you are is based on one criteria alone. And it's love. Period. Not if you understand me. You don't have to understand me. You don't even have to like what I do. But do you love me? You may not like what I do, but I'm not an abomination. I'm not a fraud. You see what I'm saying? Grace is you're free to not understand me. You're free to not understand why I came out when I did. You're free to not understand how I could be married into with a marriage and have a legitimate marriage to a woman for 27 years who dies of cancer that I loved desperately. And then coming out, it's okay. You don't have to understand that I've been attracted to men my whole life. I managed that part in this religious system that I was in. I managed that part of me so that I could be present to a wife for 27 years. And I pushed this part down and I kept it over here. We are capable of compartmentalizing, guys. We really are, okay? You don't need to call me a fraud because I had a heterosexual marriage and came out afterwards, even though I'm telling you, and you always have known that I've dealt with my same-sex attraction my whole life. Just because I have same-sex attraction doesn't mean I can't have sex with a woman. Honey, you can be any part of the continuum you want to be. How many people have gay experiences when they're younger and go on to get married? That gay experience you had with your kids, your little buddies in high school, didn't make you necessarily gay. You went on and got married. How many people that are married have a little like thing that they have like a one-time thing with the same sex? Did that change their orientation? No, maybe. I don't know. Probably not. If you look at the percentage of people that have had gay experiences before they actually got married, it's pretty high. Come on. How many people didn't have the same sex something as an adolescent? Come on. When you were terrified of the opposite sex, who did you experiment with? Come on. My point is what fires together wires together. If I have sex with a woman, that's what's firing together. If I have sex with the man, that's what's firing together. That's what's wiring. It doesn't make you a fraud because you can have sex with a woman, have sex with the man, or whatever. What do you think pansexual is? If you're demisexual and you're attracted to the person, their ideas, their intellect, their all of that, then could I be attracted to a man today and attracted to a woman tomorrow who I'm intellectually stimulated by, spiritually stimulated by, love how she thinks, or love how he thinks? Yes. So my point in all that is we can function anywhere on the continuum we want. We're not limited to that. And if you're gonna call yourself a Christian, then please do the thing that is the absolute prerequisite. Because nobody gives a shit what you think. They will know them by their love. The Bible says we're supposed to know who you are by your love. Then trip over your own feet trying to love. Trip over your own feet loving what the rest of the church doesn't love. You want to know the ultimate test? Love people you're not supposed to love, are not allowed to love. You want to be like Jesus? What did Jesus do? Do you think Jesus would have had a problem with a gay Christian? Do you think he has a problem with a gay Christian at all? If you're in a toxic system, a toxic religious system that will let the fornicators, the masturbators, the everybody else, you know, the addicted, everybody else come in the door on Sunday morning who's having sex with everybody and doing whatever they want, whatever they do. Everybody can come in the door, but because you're gay, you can't. If you're in that system, why don't you buck the system? Stop being a sellout. If you want to know what love looks like, look at Jesus. He's perfect theology. Perfect theology. Never turned away anybody. Who'd he hang out with? Tax collectors and sinners. Really? You would think being a holy man, he'd hang out with the Pharisees. Hell no. Hell no with the tax collectors and the sinners. He said it's the sick that need a doctor, not the healthy. Hmm. So my point again is it's religion that has barred the gate to people like me. Jesus has not. Jesus has not. And if you call yourself a Christian, follower of Jesus, then why don't you start following him? And why don't you start acting like him? Because he sure as hell wouldn't be setting himself against me as a gay man. Love what Jesus loves. By the way, for he so loved the world that he what? He gave himself up for it, right? If he gave himself up for the world that he loved, what part of that world did he not love? Love what he loves. The thing he hated, it wasn't the people. He didn't like religion. He didn't like religion. His attack was against the pharisitical system. If the Pharisee had repented and actually became love, I think Jesus would have been okay with it. Look at Nicodemus. So my point. In the process of coming out, I think the challenge has obviously been more the Christians who say they're a Christian than not. Is it easy for me to forgive my brother-in-law? Yeah. He doesn't know who he is. Can I forgive my daughter? Yes. She doesn't know who she is. The issue is not forgiveness. And the anger is not about it's not about the people themselves. It's about the religious system that they're enslaved to. My ranguor is actually a holy rage against the system of enslavement that religion is. And the way that the system of enslavement prevents and disdains true love. But the system is the one that doesn't want love. Not Jesus. So I don't despise the people, I despise religion. And that's what my reaction is. I am in reaction to your religious adherence to a toxic system and your departure from love in order to honor the system. You are sacrificing me at the altar of religion, and you're not being love. You have sacrificed me at this altar of religion. And you have not taken the higher road, the higher thing, the higher standard, always, always will be love. When in doubt, just choose love. Easy peasy. So you should love me. Not need closure with me. Not need to make me an abomination that needs to be prayed for. That's basically what my brother-in-law is saying is he doesn't think I'm saved anymore. I'm not saved. I'm I'm beyond backslidden. I'm an abomination. I'm back in Leviticus. Um so, anyway, I appreciate your yes, it does. It causes division. Absolutely does. Let me see if there's any questions in here. Ah, awesome, Pathos. I love the fact that you have a degree in that and that you love this discussion. Um I'm from Utah. Lots of gay and straight married people here. Thank God. Okay, I want to make sure I didn't miss a question. If I did, please forgive me. Demonstrate love. I love the DMs, I love the conversations, I um this whole thing, the only reason I'm doing this and I'm so transparent is because I'm all about promoting growth with gay men and helping us love ourselves, accept ourselves more fully, find out what's going on in our interior landscape that keeps us from fully being able to love ourselves, accept ourselves, and love others and be in relationship and grow. It's all about just wanting to be able to grow and be able to do the thing where we actually can say, I have a very joy-filled gay life. And as a gay man, I'm enjoying my life when statistically and anecdotally, gay men have the greatest dissatisfaction and outlook on life as a whole, and the idea that life can be friendly to them and that life can actually be joyful and good. Not true, it is all that. That's not a judgment, that's an invitation to love. That's an invitation to receive love, that's an invitation to become love. So it's all in here. And so, blessings. I love you gays. I love me as a gay man, I love you as a gay man, gay woman. I love you all. So I appreciate this time with you, and it's been an honor.