Let me introduce myself

About the time in late 2003 that the Massachusetts Supreme Court told that state's legislature it had to create gay marriage I started sending out email to various friends and family with summaries of noteworthy news stories with links to the actual articles. As I told various people about my orientation and the news articles became more interesting the emails became more frequent, though rarely more than once a day.

Over time my focus shifted from general news (it became tedious to mention one more state working on a marriage protection amendment) to a perusal of interesting ideas floating around the web. My postings will still contain summaries of such articles and stories and many will also contain my thoughts about what has been written.

I had been quite content to continue with email until my niece wrote to say she would rather read a blog than to get more email. When her mother (my sister-in-law) also suggested I start a blog because she thought my commentaries were well written I seriously began to consider it. And so I have begun.

I won't be leaving a lot of personal details in my blog. I have a brother who married into the Catholic faith and I fear that if his wife learned I am gay she would deny me the privilege of being an uncle to her delightful children. It was only after he and his family moved out of state did I finally come out to other family members. My parents and other siblings now know, as do a few friends.

Another reason for being anonymous is because I am also a leader in my local church. While my pastor knows I am gay (and he gets some of my emails) no one else in my congregation does. However, I am working behind the scenes to make the congregation (at least) a bit more gay friendly. This is a mainline denomination that has some policies against gays (can't be a pastor and have a same-gender life partner), but isn't fundamentalist.

I will be looking at our culture as if from the vantage point of a crow's nest. I am most interested in issues related to gays (obviously) as well as religion, and the strange noises coming out of Washington because that is where much of the anti-gay fuel comes from. I may share stories of my small attempts at gay activism. As with any blog, I may veer off into other directions.

Welcome. Let me know if you are out there.

The Crow