THE TIPPING POINT

Hey all,

Given L/J's VERY questionable future, and the fact that I should probably be catching up to 2005, I'm changing my blogging space to my myspace account.

Please change your bookmarks.

You can find it here....

www.myspace.com/idahotidmarsh

See you on myspace!

Damn..just..damn.

The news of Portland's openly gay mayor was all over the blogs today.
He had sex with a then 18 year old freind he was mentoring.
He lied about it to the press.
Did he do anything illegal? No.

Did he lie about it? Yes.

Should he resign? That's a tough one.

I didn't call for Larry Craig to resign when he lied to the state of Idaho so I'm not going to make that call for the city of Portland. I do want to offer any politician my two cents though..the sex is no big deal..it's kinda like poo, everybody does it...but the lies..yeah, that will get you. Of course ,lies are kinda like poo too, but if you're ever elected to office just say "he/she/it was kinda hot and we were adults and we used protection and that's all I am going to say about it because really it's none of your damn business."

Don't be dumb about it..just tell the bloody truth.

To those of you picking up your stones over the whole "he's 40 whatever and he had sex with an 18 year old", yeah, when you or the members of whatever holier then thou church it is your head of/member of erase your "Girls gone wild" collection then we can talk, cause you know "those there boobies", yeah, those are 18 year olds too or at least most of them..the ones they remembered to make sure they had a real ID.

For those of you who think this "gives a black eye to the gay community", just imagine finding out that your 50 something year old president is in the white house fooling around with an 21 year old intern. We survived that..we can probably survive this.

So anyway..damn..just..damn.

So what's in store for us over the next 4 years?


This from the White house website...

"While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect." -- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

My how far we've come in just like..oh I don't know..48 hours.

What we do with it is now up to us.

 “I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects ... I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help." Harvey Milk, 1978

I once dated a guy whose favorite saying was “I'm gay but that doesn't mean I carry a rainbow flag.”

What he really should have been saying was “I have sex with other men and that's about as far as it goes.”

No politics, no need to show any sort of solidarity, no sense of responsibility to the world around him other then where he was going to get his next lay.

 One day I asked him if he ever felt any moral obligation to those who had made it possible for him to live out his sexuality with out being arrested, beaten or put to death.

“They did it without me and they'll have to continue to do it without me.”

 

Our relationship lasted all of about two weeks.

I remember the first time I ever attened a pride event.

Boise..1997 or 1998.

My boyfriend at the time and I gathered with about a hundred or so other people and stood at the capital and listened to speeches from those who felt that by standing up for the rights of the many they were protecting their own as well.

From the high schooler who had tried to start a GLBT club at Eagle High, to the middle aged lesbian applauding Hewlett Packard for their LGBT inclusive discrimination policies , to the professor who had won a discrimination case against U of I.

As I watched a couple of twinks next to me roll their eyes and huff and wonder aloud about the cute boy standing front of them, I wondered if the event meant anything to them. Later I got the chance to talk to ask them what they thought,

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“And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.“1 Samuel 18:1-4

It occurs to me that there are those, both straight and gay, who may not have a clue of what a same-sex marriage means to those living within such an arrangement.

“Why tie yourself down when there are so many men in the pool,” one of my gay friends asked, when he heard Ryan and I were headed to Tahoe. My friend shudders at the thought of being in any sort of long-term relationship, his reasoning more or less the same exact reasoning I have for being married.

It's BECAUSE there ARE so many men in the pool.

It's because my whole life has been spent trying to meet THE one...not just any one..but THE one. ( Read more... )

So I was working on this big post to make my first posting of the New Year..but the computer ate it.

The post will have to wait.

If any of you are in the Twin Falls area...

Random Acts of Theater at CSI will be presenting “The Laramie Project” Thursday the 8th, Friday the 9th and Saturday the 10th at the fine arts auditorium. This encore presentation is a fund raiser for Graham Stanley who is the son of Dean of students, Graydon Stanley. Graham and his friend were beaten and left for dead last fall in Arizona. This is the 2nd time RAT has put on this production..and CSI's drama department is to be commended and supported for their effort and bravery to help bring tolerance to our area. Tickets are $10.00 at the door. Show starts at 7:00 each evening.

..or within driving distance to Boise..

Marriage Equality Rally @ Boise City Hall
Saturday January 10, 2009
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Speakers at the rally will include Monica Hopkins, ACLU executive director; Idaho State Senator Nicole LeFavour; and Methodist minister, Rev. Jon K. Brown. A musical interlude will be offered by Idaho artists Rebecca Scott and Debbie Sager.

It's going to be an interesting year in Twin and in Idaho...I hope. We can't bare to have more of the same.


 

 

This will be my last post for a week or so.

Ryan and I are headed to Boise for Christmas and it's not likely I'll have access to a computer. Please..please..please..don't forget "Light up the night" event happening in your community. 

Gay or straight just show up!

We'll be taking part in the event occurring in Boise. Details here.

I've been trying to figure out exactly how I feel about President-elect Obama's choice to give the opening prayer at the inauguration.

To say I'm disappointed is an understatement....

Rick Warren, as you probably know by now, is no friend of the gay community. In fact, he compared same sex marriage “pedophilia, incest and polygamy.” He also lied to his followers, telling them that if he didn't support Prop 8 he could "loose his free speech as a pastor". When in fact, the California Supreme Court, in it's ruling allowing for same sex marriages, said that, "no religion will be required to change its policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs."

 On the other hand, I understand the politics behind it.

Warren isn't exactly a right wing fundamentalist, he's more of a centrist when it comes to that sort of religion. So it's basically Obama telling Dobson, Robertson, and the other extreme right wing evangelicals that their days of White House influence are over, while still telling their followers they have his ear.

I get that. I understand that he has to be a “president to all Americans.”

Remember the episode of the West Wing where President Bartlett and the crew fly to LA for a fund raiser with the gay movie producer? The producer is ticked off because Bartlett won't take up the fight on gays in the military ban. Bartlett explains to him that if he took up the fight, given the climate of the country at the time, it it would spark the call for legislation that would be ten times worse for the LGBT community.

I understand Obama isn't going to be able to give us everything we want at the moment we want it.

Politics is called politics for a reason. It moves slow and methodical.

I get that too.

But damn it, I'm sick and tired of feeling like we're begging crumbs at the feet of the heterosexuals, hoping they appoint a LGBT person here or there, or mention us in a speech, or hand down some compromised watered down court ruling.

I'm sick and tired of having to listen to people tell me that they “some of their best friends are gay” or that they “had dinner with a gay couple”, so they must not be homophobes.

Most of all I'm tired of watching my country continue to pander to people like Warren, who can't get it through their thick skulls that their beliefs have nothing to do with the principals of “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

ALL mankind means ALL mankind.

Period..end of story.

We're right, they're wrong.

One day, hopefully soon, they'll get that.

Times News opinion editor Steve Crump wrote about Twin Falls native Bruce Bastian in his column today. If you don't know who Bruce is, Steve's write up is a pretty good take on a man who has done so much for the GLBT community not only here in the west, but around the country and around the world.

Ryan and I were able to thank Bruce personally, last  October at the HRC national dinner in Washington DC.

An email I had written to him shortly after we got back from South Tahoe made its way to the desk of HRC president Joe Solmenese.  Mr. Solmenese had one of his staff members get a hold of us, and a week or so later, Ryan and I were headed to DC.

That night was nothing short of amazing! Guest speakers included Hillary Clinton, Suze Orman, Former Salt Lake Mayor Rockey Anderson, (whom Ryan and I sat next to during dinner) and CNN political pundit and Huntington post contributer Hillary Rosin.

Before leaving Idaho I had reworked my speech about a dozen times, trying to capture the thanks of all of us who live in Twin, and to also capture the current work being done in Bruce's hometown.

The speech itself was a blur. It's the first time either of us had ever spoke in front of 3,000 live actual people. Despite my career in radio, I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my life...

I bumbled through my speech, but Bruce was nothing short amazing, offering words of advice and wisdom that neither Ryan nor I will ever forget....

Finding Bruce being introduced to the rest of the Magic Valley in the paper today was a pleasant surprise. I posted a comment on the paper's website, thanking Steve for his column. I also tried to describe what Bruce's words meant to us still living in Twin Falls...

“When I moved to Twin Falls six years ago, the gay community in this valley was something that wasn’t heard from, seen, or discussed. I can only imagine what it was like growing up here in the 70’s and 80’s, the pain, loneliness and shame put upon them by the larger community that didn’t, or didn’t care to, understand, kept folks like Bruce in the shadows, afraid of being who they are, and certainly scared to death of telling anybody how they felt.

This is 2008…not 1975. It’s time, folks, that people know that they aren’t the only gay people in the world. Your gay sons and daughters, neighbors and friends need to know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. We don’t have to hide, we don’t have a sickness or a disease. We are entitled to the same rights and privileges as anyone else. We aren’t going back to those shadows ever again...”

(Oh and don't ask about the shaved head thing. It was a faze.)

 

 

A few weeks ago, after my letter to the editor announcing my resignation from the LDS church appeared in the paper, Ryan and and I received an invitation from one of the leaders of the local Democratic party to attend church with her and her husband. Nationally, this particular denomination still has a ways to go to be fully inclusive, but the invite was enough to get us up early on this cold, snowy, Sunday morning.

It's been almost a decade since I've been inside a church building, and for Ryan, having not been raised in a religious faith, going to church voluntarily was a new experience, so our nervousness probably showed on our faces as we walked into the sanctuary.

I must say we were both made to feel more then welcome, by both the couple, and by the congregation as a whole.

It was also pretty amazing to be standing next to my husband sharing in a corporate prayer. Being visitors, I resisted the urge to tuck my hand into his, but I came close.

One song sung during the service stuck out for me among the rest...

“Walking to Bethlehem.”

I tried to find the it online when I got home, but the song's simple lyric's spoke of a people seeking peace, hope, and justice. So much has happened in our lives, our community, and in our nation, over the past year that I couldn't help but feel that we too are on our own journey to “Bethlehem.”

It was good to be reminded that at the core of the Christian religion there's a message of inclusion, justice, grace, hope and peace, and not the bigotry, hate, and separation that has been perpetuated in the name of Christianity for most of it's existence.

 The Scripture reading was from Isiah 61, which so many churches and congregations in America today might as well rip out of their Bible's all together:

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.”

It is this scripture that Christ is credited as reading in the temple hundreds of year's later as his mission here on earth. It's also the promise of a people down trodden, abused, and treated as 2nd and third class citizens.

To me these verses summarize what true religion should be..to bring aid and comfort,to lift up spirits, to work for freedom and justice for all, and to work toward a day when prison bars are no longer necessary.

How literal I take the Bethlehem story anymore, I don't know.

But I do know this, if we as LGBT citizens are to move forward we must remember that our our journeys to our own Bethlehems must be made with an eye on the world's needs around us as well. We must be part of the solution, and work to bring the same quality of life we seek to others. Perhaps we could also take a note from Isiah when it comes to dealing with those that would do harm or wish us ill will. Are they to not prisoners of their own darkness, their own fears, their own prisons?

 

 

 

I can't really remember when I decided to come out at work. I know I had been working at KIDO for a couple of weeks when I got my first real boyfriend, so it must have been around that time. I don't remember it being all that big of a deal. My co-workers were always gracious to me and to whomever I was seeing at the time.

I also can also remember appreciating the fact that the two local hosts allowed me to to book some of the most important guests in the history of late 90'sIdaho  LGBT history.  By doing so, there was also a sense that, though it often went unnoticed by our conservative audience, we were also making Idaho broadcasting history.

There was the friend of Mathew Sheppard, who, as he lay dieing in Wyoming hospital, took a few moments to talk to the hosts about what exactly led up to his his brutal beating. There was the interview with the local PFLAG chapter, with a woman in her 70's who shared with our audience her pride in her gay son. There was  the interview with the producers of the “It's Elementary” documentary, that had state lawmakers threatening to pull state support for public television. There was the show on AIDS that took a month to put together because the panel was scared to come on the station for fear of retribution. There was the show with the then-president of the HRC over the DR. Laura  TV show, and so many others.

We didn't do those shows to make points. We did those shows because that's what people were talking about, and because the hosts believed that it was important to hear from everybody involved in what ever debate Idaho was in the middle of. Our ratings during that time were some of the highest they had ever been.

Last fall, one of our regional guys came to Twin Falls. He had bummed a cigarette, and we were standing outside talking about my decision to come out to our local audience.

This wasn't just ANY regional guy either, this was Jack Evans, a former Clear Channel/Jacor executive who's responsible for the careers of so many ready in Broadcasting, I can't even begin to name them all.

“I want you to know, I'm proud of you. You did the right thing.” he said. I told him I was a little worried about what affect it would have on our conservative audience. “This is 2008, not 1975.”

He didn't have to say anything else. I knew exactly what he meant.

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Big news today...



"Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has lost his latest attempt to withdraw his guilty plea in the Minneapolis airport men's room sex sting that effectively ended his Senate career...."

But that's not really the point.

One day, shortly after landing my first gig in radio, Larry Craig was scheduled to be on one of our morning shows. I had just finished getting him some coffee when our middle aged news director said something to the affect of “I hope you didn't drop the straw.”

At first, I didn't catch on.

“Oh..I didn't.”

But he stood there, looking at me, as if he was trying to tell me something more.

Straw..drop..drop..bend over pick up..straw..drop..soap...bend over...OH!

“..Is he...??”

The news director told me the story that had been floating around the Idaho Press club sine the 1980's, a page boy, the sudden and strange denial, the whispers in Washington.

“Has anybody ever reported it?” I asked.

“Oh God no..first you'd have to prove it, and second of all, you'd be off the story long before you ever hit the air with it. He's a popular high ranking sitting US Senator for God sakes.”

That was back in 1997 or 1998.

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“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. --Elie Wiesel”

This Wednesday, December 10th, is Human Rights Day. The day has also been set a side by the Join The Impact folks as "A Day Without a Gay.”, The idea is simple. Rather then going to work or school this Wednesday, you call in “gay”, and then use your time to perform acts of service for the good of your community.

The idea is very popular in pockets with a strong GLBT community, such as L.A., San Fransisco, New York and elsewhere, but not so much in places like here in Twin Falls, where we have never really operated as a collective community.
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Another letter to the editor from one of its members. This one is important because it spells out exactly what LDS members were told about prop 8....

www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/12/05/opinion/letters/150096_14.txt

Here's my response....

Tom,

Thanks for the thoughtful response, however, let’s suppose I own a company. Let’s suppose I, based on my own beliefs about the LDS church, refused to hire those who choose to be Mormons for fear that they might somehow spread their agenda among my other employees. Now let’s take it a step further, lets suppose I, again based upon my beliefs, spent millions of dollars to make sure Mormons were treated as second class citizens, weren’t able to marry, and weren’t entitled to almost a thousand benefits the rest of Americans enjoy.

Take a look at that scenario and tell me if you see anything wrong with it.

What would your own personal response be?

What would the church’s response be?

Your letter was honest; it gets right to the root of the problem. You’re telling me that the church, sir, is spending millions of dollars to deny me my right to marry in order to make sure that it is able to legally discriminate against hiring gay people to be “janitors, secretaries, food service, etc.”

I give a darn about what you believe about me or my sexual orientation, but if you truly believe that you have the right to discriminate against anybody based upon anything then other then if they’re qualified for the jobs you named, then you DO deserve to have your tax exempt status jerked out from underneath of you faster then you can quote section 134 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

I do appreciate the fact that you acknowledge that I’m able to worship, however, it won’t be at in an LDS chapel. I’m tolerant..but I too have standards.

-James Tidmarsh. "

Oh.. D&C 134 for those that don't know is the part of church scripture that says the LDS church will stay out of the affairs of government. They obviously can't read their own books.

I opened up our Local paper to discover another letter to the editor this morning..

www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/12/01/opinion/letters/149854_28.txt

My first thought was, "Will someone wake me up when the 1950's are over?"

Letters like that drive me nuts, because the writers always assume that because we are gay we are some sort of demon spirits wondering out in the shadow lands just waiting to eat their young.
 
It's all I can do to keep from screaming, “We're HUMANS you idiot!  We aren't a “they”, we are a “you”! We are your “sons”, your “daughters”, we are your “brothers” and your “sisters”, if not by directly by blood, then at least in this family we call mankind. We also have families, lives and we worship, we read our holy books and we pray that one day God will open your heart and mind to what the hell you're doing to a whole segment of his/her beings, so you can take your little self righteous  compromise and shove it up your ass....”

I wanted to, but I didn't.

The older I get the better I am about breathing in and thinking about what's going on behind the scene before I shoot off my mouth.

I composed myself and posted the following reply...

Timothy,

I don't think you'll have the gay community calling for your head. I do think you're to be commended for at least arriving to some sort compromise in your thought process. As for the hate, I don't think you'll get that either. Pity, maybe, for your narrow lack of understanding of homosexuality, but not hate. There's enough of that coming from, as you point out, "all the major religions". Why would we wish to add to it?

Sincerely,
James Tidmarsh

Seriously, will someone PLEASE wake me up when the 1950's are over?

Someone asked me recently why I thought the gay community in the Magic Valley was so hidden. I don't think the problem is so much that we are hidden, I think it's a matter of speaking up.




 

We're taught at from a young age that our attractions and feelings for those of the same sex are wrong and so we are silent.

We hear the taunts and the names that the other kids, or maybe even the names we, ourselves, are called on the playground and so we are silent.

We sit in church and hear that even God himself hates how we feel and so we are silent.

We go to work with the fear of being held back for a promotion, a raise or worse, of being fired, and so we are silent.

We don't want to rock the boat, offend our neighbors, wave our silly flags, or march with a bunch of warn out drag queens, and so we are silent.

And when we do finally open our mouths, we do so in whispers, to lovers, to friends, to family members, as if we have a secret that is killing us if we don't get it out.

And it is..our silence..it is killing us.

Where are the others, we think to ourselves, the others like me?

If only someone would speak up, we would hear them, we could see them, we would know that we aren't alone.
 
If only a few of us would speak up...we could be heard.

If only there were a town full of us, we just might be able to change some minds.

If only there were a county full of us we could change some hearts.

And imagine, imagine if there were a whole world full of us..people with voices...a chorus loudly singing “here we are.”

We could change the future.

But first we have to look around and realize that no one is going to speak up for us.

We have to realize that the more we speak the more we can have a conversation.

But first..first we have to remember how.

 

Last summer I did an interview with Mike Rogers of blogactive.com for Sirius Qutq news. I asked him about the future of gay rights in America. He pointed out several recent rulings and states that had taken steps forward and then he closed with “I think we're going to be ok. But then again that's what they thought in 1928 Berlin Germany to so..you never know.”

Last Friday night Ryan and I met an amazing group of young adults, the “next generation” of civil rights leaders. They were part of a youth group for gay lesbian bisexual and transgender teenagers called Project Twin. The group's organizer, Alisha Neal, moved to the area from California and saw that there wasn't any social outlet for gay teens, so she did something about it. Their participation in Friday's march, contrary to what the paper said, was to support the Trans-action events that occurred around the rest of the country last week. It took a young woman named Alisha to bring it to Twin Falls. 

We were proud to walk with them, to hear their stories and to find out that slowly but surely the halls of high schools and colleges in Idaho ARE starting to change.

When I was in high school 15 years or so ago, I remember getting up enough courage to call the Boise community center to ask about activities for gay teens.

There wasn't any, nor could they advise me on any resources for someone my age.

If we have come this far in the past 15 years, where even in an ultraconservative place like Twin Falls Idaho, a teen no longer has to feel alone, just imagine what the next 15 years are going to be like. As long as we don't give up, get discouraged, or let fear win, I too have a feeling that we're going to be ok.

You can read more about the march here:

www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/11/22/news/local_state/149330.txt

The Times-News has published my letter explaining my decision to withdraw my membership from the LDS church.

You can read it, and I'm guessing, the ensuing comments here...

www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/11/23/opinion/letters/149388_81.txt

I joined the Church when I was 12, after ordering one of those “bounce back” tapes that the church used to give away through a 1-800 number on TV. Being the only member from my family who joined coupled with my Mom's mental problems, and my family's economic troubles, I was immediately “adopted” by several families in my ward.

Those two years I spent as an active member were some of the best years of my life.

Anybody who has ever spent time inside a ward or stake center knows that Mormon's take care of their own through an amazing network of church welfare programs, church related social organizations, and their community outreach programs.

When my family moved away from my ward, however, I stopped attending. Over the years I've kept up with the church through news reports, friends, etc. but at some point I started having real doubts about some of the basic doctrines of the church.

It's policies regarding women, racial minorities and gays are antiquated. The church claims to be headed by God's chosen, a man who speaks directly for the almighty himself. yet many times over the years, has had to go back and disclaim, clarify and or change a previous “Prophet's” statements and teachings. In some cases, such as its stances on polygamy and African American's holding the priesthood, the church has had to change it's doctrines all together.

Even though I've been inactive since I was about 15, I let my name remain on the church's membership records. Which means I was still a member of an organization I had long ago come to believe was not setting the best examples of what Christianity could and should look like in today's society. Last week, that changed.
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