A New World

In my own sort of imitation-is-a-form-of-flattery, I followed GMB's lead and created a blogger profile: favoritenic.  I had never been a blogger, and I wasn't sure what to expect.  Was I going to read sappy, diary-like, TMI blog shares? Rants and reverences on pop culture divas? Conservative-bashing? I kept tabs on GMB's blog and saw that he'd quickly captured the attentions of quite a few readers.  Those little photo squares began to fill the right side of his screen under the "Followers" tab.  I admit, I was intrigued by links to blogs with names like A Thousand Leagues from Average, Darling Derrick, and Third Wave Mormon, clicked on their blog links and began my reading.

I was shocked, yet still found an odd sort of comfort, at all the blogs I found.  There were gay Mormon boys and lesbian Mormon girls, husband-and-wife teams who wrote of their trials and triumphs in mixed-orientation-marriages (MOM's), Moho's who were just coming out and Moho's who had been writing for years.  I read posts written in bursts of frustration, anger and sorrow and also posts typed up in moments of confident joy and gratitude.  I found bloggers who quickly captured my attention because of their strong political or spiritual rhetoric and I also found bloggers who repulsed my sensitive nature with their harsh judgments and negative words.

Although many of the things I read resonated with my personal philosophies--or, at the very least, created a strong response within me--I shirked affiliation with the Moho group.  Frankly, I was irritated by the names  some bloggers chose to call themselves.  Many of the Moho bloggers I read kept very ambiguous or generic names in order, I suppose, to maintain a veil of anonymous safety.  I understood the desire some bloggers might have had, as it were, to stay "hidden in the light": possibly, they hadn't come out yet; perhaps they didn't want to advertise their sexual orientation on the web and risk real world encounters with family and friends who might not have otherwise known; maybe their pen-name gave them license to write about things they wouldn't have otherwise discussed.  I don't know.

I do know this: I hadn't planned on discussing topics of faith and sexuality and such when I first began writing my first blog.  I had no qualms about using part of my real name in my blogger name, but I do remember the first time I composed a post on that blog which dealt with my own homosexuality.  I didn't think many people were reading my blog, but I was still nervous that someone from whom I'd kept my orientation would find out. I wrote a disclaimer.

*My goal in writing this blog is to record the discoveries, the beautiful and transcendent events, transformations and tender mercies I find in life which lead me to greater good.  I do not wish to turn "flowers" into a "Gay Mormon"  or "Moho" blog, although those types of blogs have their place.  This post is a reflection on an experience which has fueled a lot of thought for me, and I'm sure posts on similar subjects will follow.  I'm not afraid, nor am I ashamed, but I do ask any Reader to read with love and empathy.

 I had come out to my immediate family two years before I began my first blog, and flowers pick themselves.  I had come out to my very close friends.  I decided it would be easier and create much less anxiety in my life if I left my coming out at that: coming out to the people with whom I shared my life, my love and my living space.  But this post would be the first time I would come out--say "I'm a gay man"--to a more public arena, and my name, favoritenic, would be typed up right under the post itself.  It was scary, but I took a deep breath and clicked PUBLISH.

Well, no one showed up in my Hotmail inbox, my Facebook page or my front door with the intent to tie me to a stake and set me up in fire.  Other, infrequent posts followed in which I discussed further facets of being a gay man in Utah.  I continued reading the blog GMB kept up, as well as those of other Moho's, and commented (with the exception of GMB's posts, where I wrote as "Cole" for the sake of the we're-in-on-this-together kind of feeling between GMB and myself) as favoritenic.

I took pleasure in the feeling that I wasn't hiding, and--I admit--I made some pretty petty judgments about the bloggers who kept their names to themselves.  I didn't understand how these writers, who wrote in such fervent, opinionated and impassioned voices, could hide behind clever and mystifying aliases, and so, I read from a distance which kept me separate from them. 

But my desire to keep up with GMB and his social life wouldn't allow such distance for long.