What's Up with Mississippi?

In the realms of chutzpah, it was a bona fide keeper. Mississippi Speaker of the House Philip Gunn said he was disappointed that a judge had ruled against House Bill 1523, which would have allowed discrimination against LGBT folks under the guise of religious liberty. Federal judge Carlton Reeves put a stay on the bill, which was to take effect on July 1, 2016.

Gunn said, "We felt like it was a good bill, protecting religious beliefs and the rights of LGBT community."

He did not explain how giving religious people a free pass to discriminate against the gay community would "protect the rights of LGBT community." He also did not explain his aversion to the use of a definite article.

Perhaps he was trying to one-up his boss, Governor Phil Bryant, who received the Samuel Adams Religious Freedom Award from the Family Research Council (categorized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), for signing the bill in the first place. During the award ceremony, held in Washington, D.C., Bryant said, "They don't know that Christians have been persecuted throughout the ages. They don't know that if it takes crucifixion, we will stand in line before abandoning our faith and our belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So if we are going to stand, now is the time and this is the place."

As Judge Reeves noted in his dissent, the bill was clearly a reaction to last year's marriage equality ruling that made gay marriage legal throughout the United States. Bryant and his friends in the Mississippi legislature thought they had come up with an end run around the ruling with a so-called "religious liberty" bill. After all, who doesn't want to protect "religious liberty"? 

Proponents argued that unless the bill was signed, pastors in the state of Mississippi would be forced to marry gay couples whether they wanted to or not. They provided no evidence for this claim, and were apparently unaware that not one pastor or priest or anyone else wearing a funny hat in this country has ever been forced to marry a gay couple against their will. 

Not to be outdone, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer posted this on his Facebook page:

He also said the "homosexual agenda is the greatest threat to religious liberty in our nation's history."

Fischer's overheated and over the top rhetoric is one of the reasons why the American Family Association was also categorized as a hate group  by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The only sensible statement from a public official in Mississippi on this matter came from Attorney General Jim Hood, who said, "The fact is that the churchgoing public was duped into believing that HB1523 protected religious freedoms. Our state leaders attempted to mislead pastors into believing that if this bill were not passed, they would have to preside over gay wedding ceremonies. No court case has ever said a pastor did not have discretion to refuse to marry any couple for any reason. I hate to see politicians continue to prey on people who pray, go to church, follow the law and help their fellow man."

The challenges faced by Mississippi are many and well known. How its opposition to gay marriage and gay rights in general will help the state with these challenges is a complete mystery. HB1523 has actually hurt the state. Many main street groups and chambers of commerce asked the governor not to sign the bill, as did major corporations like Nissan, Toyota, Levis, Tyson Foods and many others. The governor ignored all these folks and signed the bill anyway. 

Now that a stay has been issued against it, there is talk of an appeal. 

Why, Mississippi? What's up with that?

I want to hold your hand

As an openly gay man in his early fifties who wants to adopt, I've certainly received my share of looks and pointed questions, the most frequent of which is why.

Why?

I often receive a tilting of the head and a raising of the eyebrows when this plaintive plea is issued.

Why?

From the moment I attended my first parenting class last summer, that question has followed me. And while I initially felt the need for some fantastic, utterly compelling reason, I've since come to understand it's a rather simple matter.

I like to love and be loved.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Besides, it's not really about me. It's about children who need to be loved. Who need homes. Who need someone in their corner.

So ... why not me?

I'm already the proud father of a son who is now in his twenties and has just finished college. I know all about the joys and pains of fatherhood. I know what I'm getting into.

The matter was clarified for me last year when a friend announced he and his wife were expecting their third child. This news was greeted by the usual oohs and aahs, the normal excitement, the happy expectation of the imminent arrival of another member of the tribe.

My friend was not asked why.  He already has two kids, yet he was not asked to justify the addition of a third. He was not asked to provide some compelling reason about wanting to help a needy child, or how so many children sit in foster care from Boston to San Diego waiting for a forever home. He did not face a barrage of social workers with endless forms to fill out and endlessly embarrassing personal questions to answer.

And he most certainly did not face a bevy of friends and acquaintances with tilted heads and raised eyebrows, all of them saying, Why?

Why does anyone have a child? We all know it's a difficult, time-consuming, sometimes frustrating, irritating and certainly very expensive endeavor. Why do we do it?

Why?

Do we feel the need to strengthen the tribe, add to our numbers? Are we looking for companionship, friendship, love? Are we looking for someone who will remember us long after we're gone? To help us in our old age?

Why?

Folks seem to be suggesting that gay men (and lesbians and other non-traditional sorts of folks) shouldn't want to have kids, that perhaps we're too busy with our "gay lifestyles" to be bothered, that we're not cut out for it, that it's not our territory, that we don't know what we're doing.

Seriously?

I hate to be the one to tell you, but queer folks are multi-dimensional people and what we do between the sheets is a very small part of who we are. We have jobs, careers, friends, interests, hobbies, passions, and yes, some of us want to be parents too. We pay bills and taxes. We obey the laws. We are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. We go to church and book clubs and some of us even go camping.

Many of us lead full, rich lives and are not adverse to the idea of sharing our homes and hearts with a child or two left behind.

If I had to provide a compelling reason, I might point out that I know what it's like when your parents let you down, when you wander through life alone, when you're ostracized, shunned, shamed for being different, when you're disconnected and face all of life's challenges and hurdles alone with no one in your corner. I know what it's like to have parents who have failed and how painful it is to come to that realization and to forgive them for not being able to do things they simply could not do.

These are all things children in foster care deal with, and will continue to deal with long into their adult lives - and I believe I am well-equipped to help them climb this mountain and emerge on the other side. I want to hold their hands and help them become strong, emotionally and spiritually healthy adults.

I remember how, as a child, I used to daydream that someone would come along and save me. Someone would walk through the door and we'd discover there had been some mix-up at my birth and I'd been sent to the wrong family. This person would waltz in, would be the parent I had always wanted, would take me away, would give me a normal, happy life far away from fights and alcohol and ashtrays and trailer parks. I'd be in a home where I was wanted and loved, where I wouldn't be yelled or humiliated or beaten.

I know there are kids today, perhaps kids in the state of Mississippi where I live, who are -- as you read this -- sitting somewhere and dreaming the same dream. Sitting and waiting and hoping that someone will come along ...

I've got compelling reasons, if you need them, but I believe the simplest answer is the best.

I want to love and be loved. Like everyone else. More than that, I want to help with homework and attend baseball games and wipe noses and kiss boo boos and watch them grow up. I want to be the answer to someone's prayer.

I am fully aware that I may not succeed. After all, I live in a state whose governor just signed a bill making it legal to discriminate against gay people. Among other things, SB 1523 specifically gives those involved in the areas of foster care and adoption the right to turn away gay applicants. So I realize my chances, never very good to start with, are probably just about zero at this point.

While Mississippi does have its hateful legislation, it also has something else: It's home to the most gay couples raising children in America.

Whatever the outcome, I will at least be able to look at myself in the mirror and say I tried. 

It's a dad thing

My latest novel is called GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAINS from Dreamspinner Press and will be hitting the shelves later this month or early February. It's the third book in the Sugar Tree series, which follows the antics of Wiley Cantrell, a mouthy gay single dad just trying to make his way in the world best he can.

I've been asked if the books are autobiographical and whether the character of Wiley is based on me. The short answer to both questions is no. I'm not a Southerner though I do live in Tupelo, Mississippi now. I've never been mistaken for someone who was sexy, or opinionated, or who had a sarcastic remark for any occasion. While I'm a father, I'm not the father of a special needs child.

But the long answer? Perhaps.

As I worked on the edits for GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAINS, I realized I was writing about myself.

MOUNTAINS is about Wiley and his partner Jackson adopting two children. This happens six years down the road after they lose Wiley's son Noah, who was never expected to live but held on for thirteen years. His loss, while not completely unexpected, was a painful chapter in their lives. Wiley eventually decides he wants to adopt. This is a way to move on, to start living again, to jump back into the business of living and loving and keeping the faith. But it's not easy.

I'll let readers decide whether Wiley and Jackson are making the right decision or biting off more than they can chew.

When I began the Sugar Tree series a few years ago, adopting a child was very much on my mind. In fact, I've flirted with the idea of adoption for many years but there never seemed to be a right time. Last year, however, I began to attend the necessary parenting classes and begin the application process, which I'm currently in the middle of.

As an openly gay single man living in Tupelo, Mississippi, the most religious state in the Union, my chances are not good. Still, the heart wants what it wants. And irony of sitting around and writing about an imaginary gay single dad raising a child has not escaped me. I've been writing about what I wanted to do myself.

At one point during GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAINS, Jackson says, "When you said you wanted a dozen children, I thought you were exaggerating." Wiley, in typical fashion, replies, "I was. I'll settle for six or seven." Wiley then reminds Jackson that he's the sort of guy who "just needs to love my babies," a fact of life he made perfectly clear when they first met.

Wiley is a family man. He loves kids. He loves his family. He's not much for drinking or carousing or hanging out at gay bars (which is good, since there aren't any in Tupelo). He'd much rather play Frisbee in the park with his son than hit up the latest drag show. When loneliness and horniness get the better of him, he will jump in the sack with the first thing that comes along (something for which he has been roundly chastised by many readers). At the end of the day, though, Wiley is not about casual sex or a promiscuous lifestyle. He wants family. Commitment. Permanency. He wants kids and a husband to dote over. He wants to build a future and live a normal, happy life. What he needs are other people to get out of the way and let him do it.

He finds himself deeply in love with a flawed man, but it's okay because Wiley is flawed too, and he knows it.

While I am nothing like Wiley in appearance or manner or station in life, I am very much like him in many other ways.  In what he values, what he wants, what he copes with, what he tries to overcome, even the mistakes he makes.

Like Wiley, there has been trauma in my past that I needed to deal with ... and almost couldn't. Wiley learned to forgive and move on. I have too. Wiley's latest trauma, the loss of his son, has him desperately trying to find the meaning behind it. He wonders why God would take his only child. He's mad. He's angry. He's hurting. He's a little self-destructive.

He eventually concludes that God sent Noah into his life to teach him how to deal with messed up kids. Let's face it: Adorable as he was, Noah was a hot mess, a child born addicted to meth, a child haunted by demons and disabilities and birth defects, a child who was never expected to live.

But Wiley found a way to deal with it, a way to reach him, a way to give him at least a few years of happiness.

Wiley believes adopting a messed up child that no one else wants will somehow give meaning to Noah's life. These is a purely arbitrary decision Wiley has made, based on his own internal beliefs and ideas. We could argue whether it makes sense or whether he's just fooling himself, but that's not the point. Wiley looks at the situation and assigns his own meaning to it, and that's all that matters. Wiley says, "I need to know Noah's life wasn't just some cosmic joke." He needs to know there was some point to it, some higher purpose, some deeper meaning.

We all do the same. We look at terrible things that happen and try to find the reason, try to assign some meaning that will let us sleep at night.

Myself, I look at my childhood, at what people did to me, at what my parents did, and sometimes I am gripped by the feeling that it was all pointless and stupid and cruel. "A cosmic joke." I ask myself: Why do we allow children to grow up in such homes, with such people? Why doesn't someone do something? If God really does love us so much, why does he allow our most vulnerable to endure such agony? Why is he silent? Why doesn't he intervene when children are being hurt?

This business of assigning meaning is something I've struggled with my whole life.

Which takes us back to adoption.

When I first began attending parenting classes and filling out all the endless forms, I was asked over and over: Why do you want to adopt? I thought I had to have some compelling and fantastically altruistic reason. So I gave long answers on how I had an unhappy childhood, how I could help these kids, how I understood what it was like to know you were not wanted by your own parents, how I knew the pain of having parents who let you down and let you fall through the cracks because they were too busy with their own drama to notice. I talked about how being a dad was the best thing I ever did in my colorful life, how I loved being a dad and wanted to do it again. I repeated the story about the man who complained to God about all the horrible things that go on in the world. The man asked, "God, why don't you do something?" And God replied, "Why don't you do something?"

Those are all perfectly good reasons, of course.

The real reason is much simpler: I want to love and be loved. Part of it is altruistic. Another part is perfectly selfish. I don't want to be eighty years old and dripping into my adult diapers and not have at least one person visit me in the nursing home. I'm sorry if that's selfish, but it's the truth. I want to love and be loved. Like everyone else, I want family, people I can count on, people who can count on me. I want to go home and cook dinner and help with homework and kiss the boos boos and attend the football games and help a child grow up.

It's not complicated.

Wiley has a similar thing going on. He struggles to assign meaning, but at the end of the day, it's plain to see: He just wants to love and be loved. He wants to fuss over and love on his babies. That's just how he is. It satisfies some need he has deep down inside. To be useful. To be included. To be part of life. To live and love, to give and receive, to find joy and bliss in others. To be part of the human family.

The child I'm hoping to adopt is a special needs boy who is now ten years old and who has been with his current foster family for two years. They don't have enough money to adopt him. I may never have a chance to be his father. I've resigned myself to that. Still. I needed to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say I tried.

I hope readers enjoy GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAINS. I put a lot of heart and soul into that book and I hope it shows. And while some are going to be mad at me over the loss of Noah, I think, when you reach the end of the book, you'll see that life does indeed go on. And it goes on because it has to.

As always, thanks for reading.

A brave new world

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision on Marriage Equality on June 26, I was stunned into a strange sort of silence. I wandered through the print shop where I work--we were in the thick of things with the normal Friday morning rush--and I soon found my way outside to the alley, where I had myself a discreet cry.  

For those of us of a certain age, the victory was stunning.  

I keep using that word--stunning--but it's the right word.  

Standing there by myself, in the alley, I felt overwhelmed and … stunned.  

Just stunned. 

Having grown up in the Seventies in a highly religious environment, being gay was considered so shameful one did not talk about it, much less admit to it. About the worst insult one could hurl at another boy was "faggot." There was quite literally nothing worse.  

I knew from an early age that I was one of those faggots. Why, I did not know. Deny it, pray about it, beg God to change me, try to manufacture some sort of interest in girls, curse the gods--I did all that and more, to no avail. My faggotness was wrapped tightly around me like a boa constrictor, never once letting me breathe easy or free or experience sexuality in anything but a tumultuous, desperately unhappy fashion.  

Kids like me didn't go to high school proms. We faded into the background, got by, got through, disappeared to some big city or other where there was relative safety in anonymity. Too many of us to count wound up on the streets, on drugs, in jails or morgues.  

Years ago, when the push began for Marriage Equality (I am compelled to capitalize it), I felt ambivalent. To my mind, there were more important matters to address.  Having been one of those gay kids who sought refuge on the streets, having sold my flesh to survive as so many of those kids do and continue to do, I found it hard to sympathize with older gay men and women who wanted to get married (of all things). It was hard to see the big picture while scraping by on the questionable kindness of strangers.  

When the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down a few years ago, the writing was on the wall. Yet I could not bring myself to believe that gay marriage would ever become the law of the land. Perhaps in a few progressive, forward-thinking states, but certainly not in a state like Mississippi. I was not shy about expressing my opinion that I would be deader than Britney Spears' career before gay marriage ever became a fact of life for everyone in these United States.  

Not once in my entire life did I expect to marry a same sex partner, to settle down, to buy a house, to make a family, to have a "normal" life.  

Not once.  

Not ever. 

That's something to ponder: So many folks like me never expected to share the same rights and privileges that most take completely for granted. A little pink house and a white picket fence with a couple of kids in the backyard -- those were meant for others. Never once in my entire life did I ever think such things might be possible for me. 

So … 

When I read about the decision that Friday morning, I went outside and cried. I said nothing to my coworkers. How could they possibly understand what it meant to me, what I had been through over the course of my lifetime?  

I still don't know what to think about the decision. I'm waiting for some court or other to overturn the ruling. I'm waiting for our state legislators to do an end-run around the matter and somehow legislate this new right of mine away. I'm waiting for the governor to sign a magical decree that will make gay marriage go away, at least in the state of Mississippi.  

I'm waiting for … well, I don't know what, exactly.  

But at least I can breathe a little easier now. 

I take great consolation in the idea that marriage will now be a genuine option for younger gay folks. I hope I'm one of the last generations of gay kids who had to escape to the streets, who cheapened themselves for a meal or a place to sleep. I hope today's gay kids can dream about a prince or a princess charming, a little pink house, a white picket fence. I hope they can add to their families by fostering or adopting.  

I hope this means that gay kids will find a place at the table of life, that we, as a society, will have learned that throwing away such kids is not the answer. Including them,. loving them, nurturing them, letting them marry, letting them make families of their own--I hope this is what the future holds. 

I will never know what my life would have been like had marriage been an option. And I hope I'm one of the last to ponder such a question. 

Sleeping with the enemy

Lately, I've been thinking about leaving the church I've belonged to since I was a teenager, the church where I became a religious brother (until I was asked to leave when I admitted to being gay), the church whose rituals, whose smells and bells, have been the one constant over the course of an often difficult life.

It's not that I want to. It just feels too much like sleeping with the enemy. Each time I drop a donation in the collection plate, I feel like I'm supporting an organization that treats me abusively, that does not value me the way it does its straight members.

Just today, I stumbled across a story from late 2014 about Cardinal Raymond Burke, who advised parents not to invite gay couples to family gatherings when children are around.

Burke said:

‘If homosexual relationships are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are … then what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person?

‘If it were another kind of relationship – something that was profoundly disordered and harmful – we wouldn’t expose our children to that relationship, to the direct experience of it.

‘And neither should we do it in the context of a family member who not only suffers from same-sex attraction, but who has chosen to live out that attraction, to act upon it, committing acts which are always and everywhere wrong, evil.’

Burke has put his finger on the pulse of my problem: Many members of my church feel that "practicing homosexuals" are committing acts that are "always and everywhere wrong, evil." 

Yet he has nothing to say about young couples "living together in sin" (once upon a time this was known as fornication and is mentioned in the Bible rather frequently), or couples who have been divorced and remarried. He does not warn parents to keep their children away from masturbators and pursuers of pornogtraphy. No, his scorn, his contempt, is reserved only for homosexuals. 

He is careful to distinguish between "practicing homosexuals" and those not involved in sexual relationships, but few make this distinction. The effect of his words is to tar all gay folks with the same brush. So when Mom and Dad sit down to plan Christmas dinner, they are advised by the cardinal to make sure to exclude a son or daughter who might be homosexual because ... well, that is the question, isn't it?

Recently there was a story about a Catholic priest who was fired from his ministry at a college in New Jersey for supporting the No H8 Campaign. Is that the message my church wants to send, that a priest who stands shoulder to shoulder with the "least of these" will lose his job? 

These are not isolated events. Such stories appear every day.

While there are indeed many Catholics in the church who support its LGBT sons and daughters, sadly, there are many in the hierarchy who do not. 

Consequently, like many LGBT Catholics, I find myself thinking it's time to leave, that, for my own spiritual well being, I really ought to leave. 

I attend Sunday mass at a small church in a rural town. Never once have I been made to feel uncomfortable. No one has ever said a word about my sexuality. I am treated decently and compassionately.  

And yet, there is something wrong. 

Some folks go to church to have their "batteries" recharged; I come away feeling that mine have been drained. I do not feel lifted up, or spiritually refreshed. Rather, I am left with the curious feeling that the "good news" of the Gospel was meant for others - parents with their kids, older couples, grandfathers and grandmothers, not people like me. Not people who are "intrinsically disordered" as I am. Not people of questionable morals. 

Some folks enjoy the social aspect, the meet and greet; I avoid these occasions because I've learned the hard way that there is something about me that is deeply troubling, perhaps even distasteful to some people. So I keep to myself and always feel like I've crashed a party that I wasn't invited to. 

I am very much aware that the folks in the pews around me are there to further their own spiritual lives. But what about my spiritual life? Am I not entitled to one? Are the "same-sex attractions" I experience the only thing about me worth noting? Do I not have a soul too? Do I not deserve the spiritual encouragement and uplifting that is offered so freely to parents, to children, to the elderly? 

I often wonder what it would be like to have a church family that welcomed me, that was not afraid of me, not afraid to acknowledge me from the pulpit, not afraid to discuss the issues that have such a deep impact on my life. Seems to me it would be an amazing experience -- to go to church and be surrounded by supportive people, to worship together, to contribute my talents and gifts just like anyone else and not always be singled out as someone of questionable morals. 

How is it that I am now 51 years old, and have never experienced this? 

When St. Peter was given charge of the church, he was told -- three times -- by Jesus to "Feed my sheep." Why is it that I am always left with the feeling that I have not been fed, that the church has nothing to offer me except condemnation and perhaps pity, that it sees nothing about me except a "disordered" sexuality? 

An abusive relationship is one in which your needs are not being met, where you're not free to state your needs, where you're not free to speak for fear of the consequences, where you live in fear of what might happen, what might be done to you if you don't measure up, or keep quiet, or toe the party line. In an abusive relationship, one does not feel properly valued and acknowledged. There is no mutual exchange of respect, love and encouragement. One person always lives in fear of the other, lives in the fear of love being withdrawn, or the fear of being punished, the fear of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, and bringing down the wrath of the abuser on one's head.  

How can genuine spiritual work be done in such an atmosphere? 

How can the "love of God" be authentically experienced when it comes from the hands of people who are simultaneously abusing you?

A private spirituality is fine and dandy, but a genuine spirituality must be communal, must involve the give and take of others, of a community. Within the framework of community, one discovers who one really is. 

The church's LGBT sons and daughters are handicapped in this regard because they are not free to be themselves. To admit to being what they are is to admit to some moral, irresolvable failing. A cloud will always hang over their heads. How can they live authentic lives and experience an authentic spirituality when they are not allowed to be authentic? 

Hence, my dilemma.

I don't want to leave the church, but there are times when I think my spiritual sanity and well being depend on it. 

The church has been a wonderful place for so many groups of people. It could be a wonderful, uplifting place for gay people too -- but it does not want to be. 

How can I continue to support a church that does not support me, that does not feed me, that has no answers for people like me, that condemns me for a reality that I did not choose, that I find just as bewildering as it does?

Where is all this "good news" that the Gospel was supposed to bring -- and when will the church get around to sharing it with its LGBT sons and daughters? Or must we stand on the sidelines and forever remain second class citizens who need to be content with whatever crumbs from the table that might get thrown?

Are the media in Mississippi sitting out another civil rights battle?

As I paid for my newly-printed super-duper press kit announcing the release of my latest book, I knew I was wasting my money - and I was not wrong.

The press release was intended for publications and media outlets in the state of Mississippi where I live. I hoped to announce to my fellow citizens the release of SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE, a romantic-comedy novel about a gay single father whose deaf son helps him find a boyfriend.

Here's how it works: When a company or an individual wants or needs press attention, one writes a press release and attaches appropriate documents - an author's photo, a photo of the book cover, graphics, whatnot. As a former newspaper editor, I am quite familiar with the flow of press releases that come over the transom. Editors must pick and choose, of course, because there's simply not enough room to print all of them. Some press releases are more newsworthy than others. Some have clearly been put together by deranged lunatics. Others announce new services in the community of interest to readers, company expansions, new restaurants, art shows, the latest releases at the cinema.

I knew, going in, that the competition was fierce, but I had to ask myself: How many Mississippi authors have released a novel lately? Doesn't Mississippi pride itself on its authors? And wouldn't newspapers in my own backyard -- even the one in my home town -- want to share my happy news with their readers about a local who did good and got a book published?

A month has gone by, and thus far, the answer seems to be ... "apparently not."

Does it have anything to do with the main character being gay? Is the great state of Mississippi not ready to cope with the fact that gay people exist? Do these media outlets believe that ignoring the lives, struggles and achievements of gay people will make the whole "gay thing" go away?

I spent a year editing a small newspaper in Mississippi. I know the answers to my questions. Most newspapers and media outlets here are so dependent on advertisers to survive they are reluctant to run stories that might offend people, that might challenge the status quo, that might raise uncomfortable questions or issues. They are extremely cautious and not a little timid.

Perhaps their survival depends on it. I understand that. What bothers me is the perception created among readers when the news media shies away from controversy. If we don't talk about gay people, it's easy to pretend they don't exist, or they're not important, or that they have nothing to say. If we don't talk about gay people, how are we going to deal with bigotry and prejudice and move Mississippi into the 21st century?

More generally, if newspapers are not allowed to talk about the realities on the ground, how can their readers consider themselves informed? What's the point of buying a newspaper if all it does is confirm the status quo and refuses to educate readers about the issues of the day?  Are Mississippi media consumers content to be spoon-fed this daily diet of the status quo, or do they, perhaps, want something more?

Not all media outlets are so timid, of course. Mississippi Public Broadcasting (MPB) is a good source for news, and I'm quite fond of the Jackson Free Press and blogs like Deep South Progressive. We need more media outlets like these. A lot more.




I mailed out twenty press packets to media outlets near and far. I also emailed some personal contacts in the media business -- people I've met, people I've worked with, people I've encountered on Facebook.

Thus far, I have heard back from two people.

One fellow somewhat sheepishly told me that the owner of his publication was a fundamentalist Christian who wouldn't touch my press release with a 200-foot ice pick.

The other agreed to have a look at a review copy of my book, which I supplied at my own expense. If this person liked the book, I might hope for a review or perhaps a small mention.

And what of the folks at the newspaper where I worked for a year? They didn't respond at all.






So. 

Is my book, perhaps, so awful, so poorly written, so utterly lacking in any literary merit whatsoever that no decent person would dare mention it in polite company?

Apparently not. Not if the folks leaving reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com are anything to go by. The vast majority of my reviews have been a solid five stars.

Here's what Susan65 on Amazon said:

"Nothing I can say will ever come close to adequately describing the brilliant awesomeness that is this book. I feel like I hit the reader’s jackpot and am a better person, a better reader, and a better reviewer for having the privilege of experiencing the life that is Wiley Cantrell, and by extension, Jackson Ledbetter and their son, Noah. It’s not very often a book gets a strangle hold on me but this one grabbed me from the get-go, and wow, what a strong grip that wouldn’t let go." 

Many readers have gone on in similar veins. Even Jonathan Odell, Mississippi author of The Healing, was enthusiastic:

"I LOVE Nick Wilgus’s touching, hilarious, heart-breaking, over-the-top but totally believable gem of a novel. These characters, and the perfectly lyrical language they speak, won’t quit you just because you finish the book. They’ll move into your heart and take up residence."

The kind souls at The Tipsy Bibliophile were very kind:

"Recommend it completely and it is solidly in my all time favorites list. Wiley, Noah and all their people are unforgettable." 




Since the media in Mississippi are holding their tongues, allow me to use this blog post to announce the release of my new novel, SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE, published by DreamSpinner Press. 

Here's a peek at the cover:

Here's the blurb:

Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous—and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving.

Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire.

Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making.

When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good.

SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE is available in both print and ebook formats.

Order here.




Just because my book features a gay character doesn't make it a bad book. SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE is all about family, love, needing someone, meeting someone, struggling to survive, raising a special-needs child. It's funny. It's heart-breaking. It's universal.

I don't fool myself into thinking that the publication of one book in the state of Mississippi is an earth-shaking event that demands the attention of the media. It's not. Many books have been published over the years, and have no doubt received the same indifference.

My point is this: Mississippi has a choice. If it wants to know about gay people, it can do what it has always done and tune into Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association and be told how horrible and disgusting we are.

Or -- here's a thought -- it could let its gay residents speak for themselves.

It could pay attention to filmmaker Diana Salameh, who is working on a documentary about gay people in Mississippi called A RAINBOW OVER MISSISSIPPI.

It could write about Papa Peachez, a gay rapper and musician in Jackson who recently released an album called ALLONE.

It could spare a few column inches now and again for Mississippi writers like Kevin Sessums, who wrote MISSISSIPPI SISSY.

And, on the rare chance that a Mississippi writer bases a novel in Tupelo and writes about being a gay parent, it might consider setting aside one of the paragraphs in the news briefs column for a small bit of recognition. It might even want to do a book review.

After all, we're here and we're Mississippians, and our lives, struggles and accomplishments are just as important as our neighbors. And we're perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves.

To its shame, Mississippi sat on the back bench during the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960s.

Will it do so again as another battle rages? 

It's time to end the American Family Association's one-sided conversation on gay rights

As an openly gay man living in the reddest of the Red States, I can be forgiven for spending an unhealthy amount of time thinking about Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association. Headquartered not far from where I work in Tupelo, an omnipresent voice all over the radio, with a daily tsunami of Facebook posts and tweets, Bryan Fischer and the AFA, like magnolia trees and dry counties and Duck Dynasty, are inescapable facts of life in the state of Mississippi.

Bryan Fischer, host of FOCAL POINT

When I moved here three years ago, I could not fathom how it was legal for Bryan Fischer to go on public airwaves and say, on an almost daily basis, the most disparaging and woefully ignorant things about gay people. Comparing them to Nazis, suggesting they were responsible for the Holocaust, calling them a danger to public health, a threat to religious liberty, a threat to the economic well being of the United States, routinely classifying them with pedophiles, deeming homosexuality a “sexual sickness” and just as dangerous as addiction to hard drugs, talking about how we can either have religious liberty or homosexuality, but not both – day after day, the tide of myth,misinformation and just plain foolishness was hard to stomach.

But harder to stomach was the apathy of Mississippians who shrug and sigh and seem to believe there is nothing to be done even though Bryan Fischer and the AFA have earned themselves a hate group designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Protected by the right to free speech and freedom of religion, wrapping their myth and misinformation in religious garb and calling American Family Radio programs like Bryan Fischer’s FOCAL POINT a “ministry,” they are a monolithic entity safely removed from the consequences of their actions.

I have watched in disbelief as most local media outlets, when they report on gay rights (rather rare, to be sure), go microphone in hand to the AFA for a comment—as if there were no other religious or spiritual leaders in north Mississippi they could talk to.  I find it incredibly offensive that anyone would care what a hate group would have to say about a complex issue like gay marriage. Even more offensive is the media’s failure to seek out other voices on such issues, as if the AFA alone had some sort of monopoly on the gay rights conversation. But then the AFA has been having a one-sided conversation on gay rights since it was founded back in 1977.

When I inquire as to why no one will speak out against the AFA, I am frequently told that one does not mess with them. It’s as if they were some sort of mafia organization, as if one might wake up one day with concrete boots while being tossed into a swamp for having the audacity to have one’s own point of view.

When I started a Facebook page (Stuff the American Family Association Says) designed to document the hate speech coming out of the AFA, I was warned to be careful.

Why, I wanted to know.

Just be careful, I was told.  

Really? Am I supposed to be afraid of an organization that calls itself Christian? Are they going to break the law, or do something unchristian to me?

How very odd.

Yet I’ve noticed how silent politicians and elected officials are with regard to the AFA. I’ve also noticed that local media outlets don’t mention the fact that the AFA was designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, as if ignoring that fact of life might make it go away. Or are they afraid of offending and losing advertisers?

My Facebook page has not exactly been a rousing success. As of this writing, only about one hundred and fifty souls have been brave enough to click “like” on my page. Some people have sent private messages stating they cannot “like” my page for fear that people on their friends’ lists will find out. Are we back in grade school? Are we not allowed to have our own opinions?

Last year, a small group of hardy souls organized a protest march in front of the AFA headquarters in downtown Tupelo. We were about two dozen, in all. We were largely ignored by the media – as if a protest against the AFA right on their own front door was somehow not news, or not newsworthy.

While the AFA believes itself protected by free speech and freedom of religion, so are the rest of us. We have just as much of a right to engage in this conversation as they do. As a gay man, in fact, I would argue that I have more of a right to speak my mind than they do. This is an issue that affects me directly. This is an issue I have struggled with for decades.

I listen to American Family Radio frequently, but I have never once heard them talk to a gay man about the issue of homosexuality. What are they afraid of?

No doubt they have enjoyed their one-sided conversation on this issue. But isn’t it time to hear the other side? Isn’t it time for gay Mississippians – and there are many of them – to speak up, to speak out, to tell their stories, to tell the truth about what it means to be gay or lesbian or transgender? Might we not be allowed to hear from other spiritual and religious leaders? Is there no room in Mississippi for alternative points of view?

Bryan Fischer hides behind his microphone and religion. I wonder how comfortable he would feel if challenged to a public debate on the issue of homosexuality. Since the man talks about homosexuality almost every single day, surely he would relish the opportunity to demolish an articulate gay rights advocate like John Shore or Dan Savage.

No?

And that’s the point.

Fischer and the AFA are, in my opinion, cowardly bullies who hide behind religion and radio dials and Facebook posts and tweets. They are interested only in a one-sided conversation. They do not seem to realize they are talking about real people, a great many of whom live next door to them, in their own communities, people who attend their churches, who rub elbows with them at the grocery store. They seem oblivious to the harm caused by their hate speech and demonization of others.

I will continue my no doubt woefully inadequate efforts to document their hate speech and provide an alternative point of view and I will do so because it’s important for young members of the LGBT community to realize that Bryan Fischer does not speak for everyone in this state.

I am not afraid of the AFA; neither should you be. We have the right to decide our own religious beliefs. We have the right to free speech and we are entitled to our own opinions. We do not live under a fascist dictatorship where the AFA talks and the rest of us do nothing but listen.

We live in a free country.

Don’t we?

We’re Americans.

Aren’t we?

Our fathers and forefathers did not fight for our freedoms so that organizations like the American Family Association could run roughshod over the rights of fellow citizens. They fought, and many times died, to preserve our right to hold our own religious beliefs and to speak our minds on issues that matter to us.

I do not believe the AFA speaks for everyone in the state of Mississippi. They may be a powerful organization and there may be good reasons to fear their retaliation. And they may well run the table on the gay rights conversation in the magnolia state. But they are not the only ones with a point of view.

It is way past time for Mississippians to shake off the dust of apathy and indifference in the face of this massive and daily assault on the rights and dignity of fellow Mississippians.

Gay people are not child-molesting, goat-buggering, disease-ridden threats to religious life and limb. We are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, created by the same God and entitled to the same rights and dignities as everyone else in this great country.

It’s high time we acted like it.