When I was a child, my dad ran a company owned by the most conservative conspiracy-theorist couple you would probably ever meet. The company was run out of their large home, and as the couple was nice to me and their place in the country was very pleasant, I went with my dad to work as often as I could.
I saw their huge walk-in freezer; ate all of the raspberries and grapes out of the wife's garden (she didn't seem to mind); consumed her generously-offered protein shakes and "healthy" cookies with exotic and funny-tasting ingredients; took a small boat out on their huge pond (complete with a "miniature" hydroelectric dam, because self-sufficiency was everything, when the economy totally collapsed and the government came for their guns--seriously); and played with their daughter-in-law and granddaughter.
I loved it when their granddaughter, who was my age, came to visit while I was there. She was so fascinating to me: Asian (I live in a very white area), a big-city girl; someone who went to public school; she watched Sailor Moon and played amazing and exotic music on her own boombox (I still smile whenever I hear Abba's "Dancing Queen"). Looking back now, I believe I may have had a crush on her, as much as a little girl who knows almost nothing of lesbianism could get a crush. She was cool.
I knew all about that family, from hearing my mom and dad discussing them at home. I knew that they had four sons, whom I will call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (frankly, I'm surprised those weren't their real names). I knew that Matthew was the one who helped run the company, with my dad; that Luke and John both lived far away from their parents; and that Mark was an atheist--and, even more scandalous, that he was gay!
I was the little girl who, in first grade in the very conservative Christian school, made a pact with my best friend at the time, that, if we grew up like the boys who married boys, and the girls who married girls, we would marry each other. Looking back now, I'm not sure how I didn't realize I was bisexual sooner than age twenty-three.
But I knew, by the time I was nine or ten, that gay was bad. I wondered what Mark looked like, and what he wore. I found it morbidly fascinating, as all "bad" things are. I never met him, to my recollection. But I wondered how hard it was, for this nice older couple, to have a son like him. I knew that the father was an angry old man, though he was always nice to me, when he was alive. But I was still being raised to think that being gay was very bad (though it was mostly my school, and my mother's views have changed along with mine).
Then, about fifteen years later (a few months ago), I joined a Facebook group for survivors of fundamentalism, and I loved reading people's stories of escape. One day, I saw a story from, coincidentally, a "Mark Johnson." He ended his short introduction with, "I'm now gay and an atheist, haha!"
This group was for people across the U.S.; surely it couldn't be the Mark Johnson? I looked at his profile picture, and he looked a lot like his dad! Then I discovered that he lived in the city that I had heard a few of the Johnson boys lived in.
"Where are you from?" I asked him. "I think I might know you, or at least know of you."
He named a tiny town, near me, in my own state. But I knew that that was not accurate; it was actually a rural area about ten miles north of this town! And I knew this, because I had been to his house!
"My dad worked for your dad!" I explained, giving him my dad's name. "Your parents were John Sr. and Shirley, weren't they? I don't suppose we've met; I would have been a little girl at the time."
He had not met me, he thought, but had met my dad a few times. "But to be honest, I mostly stayed away from my father," he added.
"I am so sorry to hear that," I answered, "But, well...I don't blame you. I can see John Sr. being...hard to get alone with."
"He was a gun-loving rightwing Christian zealot," he answered frankly.
"Yep--I've heard stories!"
He liked that comment, and a few days later, sent me a friend request. My life had turned around 180 degrees.
He's sometimes angry (though at least for good reasons), but considering John Sr.'s anger, he's a bright ray of happy sunshine by comparison. I think anyone who trolls Franklin Graham's Facebook page for fun is kind of a nut, but at least he shares my very penile sense of humor. He hates people and loves animals, a lot like me.
He once shared a link about the Oregon terrorists being arrested, and asked, "But where will people send all the dildoes?"
"I'm sure they'll auction them off," a female friend of his replied.
"I want the real thing, damn it!" he answered.
"I don't like what the real thing's attached to!" she remarked. I was glad I was subscribed to this wonderful comedy gold.
He also once asked Facebook in general, "What exactly is the 'gay lifestyle'? Orgies and cocktails all day?"
I knew he'd been Graham-ing again, from that one. He says from his experience Graham-ing that evangelical women, especially, are "bitches."
"Aren't orgies and cock-tails the same thing?" I asked. (Though I suppose cock-tales are what one tells after the orgies.)
When he liked my comment, I knew I had made the absolute right choice in accepting his friend request. He shares my sense of humor almost exactly.
I think it's really too bad that the only single gay man over fifty I know is a devout Christian and a country boy, as I have no one for either of them (though my other friend is a universalist, so he could theoretically be with any guy, because in his belief system they'll become a Christian eventually, anyway). I often wonder what these two would be like together, though, because they're wrong for each other in every way. It sounds like a great comedy.
I don't know if I believe in fate or God or something, but it sure is strange, that I became friends with him this way, after originally thinking of him and other LGBT people as such a fascinatingly scary species--almost mythical. I like having this connection to my past, too, especially because he was also the very first gay person I had ever heard about, at least in real life. And now he's just one of my many gay and lesbian friends.
It's weird how some things work out.
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