Thanks, Flip Benham
I would like to thank Flip Benham for attending the 2006 Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade on Sept. 17.
I would like to thank him for yelling things like, “Your parents are going to hell,” and “Your parents’ church is an abomination” to the children who were marching with the Cathedral of Hope.
I appreciated the most when one of his followers stepped out into the parade route in front of my daughter and shoved an anti-gay pamphlet in her face, yelled at her and scared her into taking the pamphlet.
Several of our youth were visibly upset with the taunting from Mr. Benham and his followers, who were screaming and shaking their Bibles at them.
Again, I say thank you.
Like it or not, we in the gay community have families with children. Many times our own children hear us talking about the discrimination and bigotry that gays and lesbians have to endure. And when we try to explain this to our children, they say they understand. But deep down, I don’t think they really get it.
Well, thanks to Mr. Benham, they get it now.
What a great learning experience he gave the youth of our church.
Discrimination and bigotry is so much easier to understand when you see it first hand.
Thanks again Mr. Benham. Our children learned a very important lesson on Sunday and we probably could not have done it without you.
Johnny Bennett
Mesquite
Dallas vs. San Francisco Dallas wins
When I finally made the decision to come out to my family (who already knew by the way), I thought I would find a different type of freedom in the fact that what I felt was a deep and terrible secret would no longer have to hide in the recesses of my mind, actions and soul.
After coming out, I decided that if I was going to be gay, I’d have to live in a city that had an over-abundance of gay culture and would afford me the opportunity to indulge, explore, accept and reject the type of gay man that I wanted to become. I had decided this while vacationing at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, Calif. about 40 minutes south of San Francisco in June, 2005.
In a matter of two weeks after I came back from vacation, I dropped another bomb on my family, telling them that I was moving from fashionable Scottsdale, Az., to San Francisco. My parents were and are very supportive of my quest to find peace within myself and gave me the freedom to do it.
I quit my job, found a fantastic loft in Union Square, shipped my belongings and rented new furniture, so by the time I got to there, everything was in its place and I was ready to start my new life as a gay man in San Francisco.
For the first couple of months, I felt like San Francisco offered everything that I thought it would. I joined a now- defunct organization that, for $500, sponsored dinners at great restaurants for like-minded gay men. (The $500 was the fee to join; you still had to pay for your own dinner.) At least that’s what the brochure said.
That’s when I started to notice that being gay didn’t automatically put me into the “club.” where men fawned all over me and everyone always had an awesome time drinking fine wines and running over to great restaurants to meet their gay friends.
Although that might be the reality for some gay men, those weren’t the ones that I was meeting. The people I seemed to be meeting through this service ranged from flakes to hair-obsessed queens that talked about everyone else behind their backs and complimented each other on a whim. Even though I had answered a million questions when I signed up, it seemed as if they just took the first eight names on the list and put us all together.
I went to my required dinners, but found the same situation at every scheduled dinner. By the way, there were no refunds.
When it was all said I done, I decided it was dumb of me to do that, since I’ve never had problems meeting people. I decided I would take myself out to the Castro district, order a martini, grab a seat at the bar and hang out.
The only problem was what seems to be a “Discovery Channel hyena hunting vibe” happening in the bars that I was visiting.
The mere presence of someone sitting by himself or herself at the bar seemed to invite the most “unique” people in the establishment to sit down next to you and strike up a conversation. After a few minutes I knew that this was their routine to pick up strange men in a bar and see where it would go.
The bartenders were very helpful in letting me know who the regular hyenas were. They even had a signal to give me a heads up: They would pretend to close out my tab and ask me if I needed anything else. It worked wonderfully.
I can’t help but think how much time that little gesture saved me.
That’s when I decided that I wasn’t going to be the type of gay man who was always hanging out in bars, getting trashed, sleeping with random men, doing drugs and wearing sleeveless t-shirts so tight they looked like they were made for a 10-year old. Although it’s a lifestyle that many gay men live, it wasn’t what I wanted.
What I hadn’t counted on was that the person that I was before I came out was still inside. I had never liked that stereotype, so what made me think that by moving to San Francisco, I would suddenly want to live it.
As a result, San Francisco became nothing more to me than the place where I lived so my friends from out of town could come visit me there. I felt and still feel no attraction to the city.
So when I was offered a transfer to Plano in June 2006, I didn’t have to think for more than two minutes before making the decision to move. When I moved to San Francisco, I didn’t know anyone there. But my best friend from boarding school already lived in Texas, so at least I knew wouldn’t be a lonely as I had been in San Francisco.
Turns out that moving here was one of the best decisions I’ve made in quite a while. My friend and her husband opened their home to me and really made me feel welcome in a state where I thought was going to be harder to fit in than in San Francisco.
Life couldn’t get much better for the moment. I consider it a gift to have been able to move here. As it turns out, many of my friend’s other friends are also gay or gay-friendly and it was a welcome relief to find such a welcoming group of people in the middle of Texas. Even though Dallas does have its share of the very same kind of people that I left behind in San Francisco, it offers so much more in terms of culture, friendship and, most importantly, the peace of mind that I’ve been looking for.
J.E. Pizarro
Plano
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition, September 29, 2006.