Comments

1
...They go into woods into bean fields they go
Deep into their known right hands. Dreaming of me,
They groan they wait they suffer
Themselves, they marry, they raise their kind.
—The Sheep Child, James Dickey
2
As usual, you hit the nail on the head, Dan. I'm predicting that within 48 hours Weed will be held up as a shining example of how there's no need whatsoever for same-sex marriage or any other form of equality for LGBT people, because all you have to do is find the right person of the opposite sex who'll take you as you are while you make do.
3
In my experience, the "chemicals of infatuation" DO NOT "dwindle dramatically after the first few years of marriage." Maybe I'm just lucky.
4
First, gay my hairy straight white ass. Weed is clearly bi, because he would not have spent a decade enjoying sex with a woman if he was really 100% gay.

Second, I know a number of bi folks whose primary physical attraction is to one gender but whose primary romantic attraction is to the other. Weed may well fall into that category, and due to the manichean nature of his upbringing and religious views on sex, perceives that as being equivalent to him being gay.
5
If you think that lust doesn't need to be involved in sex for it to be enjoyable, you have clearly never had good sex.

He might be bi, he might be a magical gay man who enjoys being married to a woman and sexing her (because...somehow...that isn't bi?), but he's not having good sex if he thinks lacking lust in the bedroom is okay.
6
He's not gay. He's a fraud for Jesus.
7
Isn't this essentially what went on in Ancient Greece? Men (noble men, at least) were expected to marry a woman and procreate with her, but they preferred the company (sexual and otherwise) of other men. I'm fairly sure I'm correct on this, but I don't have time to read wikipedia at the moment.
8
I think so too #7. But in any case... put a gun to my head or make me live in Utah and in either case I'll spout some dumba** philosophy for you.
9
@6 FTW.
10
@7, enjoyable sex and great sex are two different things. As it happens, I've never been particularly attracted to my hand, but it can still give me a good time.
11
I have no problem with him living his life however he wants to, but I wonder if he is truly as happy as he says he is with this arrangement. I would also say he is definitely bisexual, by definition...though it's none of my business, really. And this is definitely what the NOM crowd would have us all do. Hey, it works for this guy, it can work for all of you depraved homo perverts! See, it's a choice!
12
Gay, married to a woman, and living in a state that is probably the closest in the nation to having a popular mandate for gay marriage. And now this story comes out. How coincidental.

I was at a pro gay marriage fundraiser just yesterday. The main speaker noted that the key demographic both sides will be going after are women, late 30s/early 40s, married with children but not very politically oriented. Soccer moms, in other words. These people will not be motivated by civil right/liberty arguments. They will be motivated by love/compassion/personal stories. Precisely the type of story coming from Mr. Weed. As they walk into those voting booths, I can now see that critical 10% thinking "If that one guy can find lasting love with a woman, why can't the rest of them?"

Get ready, folks. This is just the first warning shot in what will be one of the bloodiest political battles this state has ever seen. And if Mr. Weed is any example, they know exactly what they're doing.
13
I would like to hear from Lolly. Interesting pet name though, don't you suck a Lolly? Or is it more like licking a Tootsie Pop?
14
Dan, on the subject of gays and religion what do you think of what this guy is doing?

http://royaloak.patch.com/announcements/…
15
This is a nice, compassionately bigoted attitude that manages to slip condemnation between lip-service to love. Just more "hate the sin, love the sinner" crap.

I'm sure Weed means well, but he ruins his message with:
Sin is in action, not in temptation or attraction. I feel this is a very important distinction. This is true for every single person. You don’t get to choose your circumstances, but you do get to choose what you do with them.

(From point 8 of Weed's post.)
16
That was exactly my takeaway too. The right-wingers will use this as a backup to their insistence that same-sex marriage is a "special right," that this guy has the same rights as any other man - the right to marry a woman.

His church shamed him into this life. Doesn't matter if he's happy or not, he says himself that his devotion to the Mormon faith pushed him to marry a woman. It's spiritual bullying, and it's fucked up.
17
@7 Um, I guess you could use "essentially," but there is a lot of nuance and variation. This changed from century to century, and even from city-state to city-state.

Well, the fish is in the barrel, I might as well shoot it: Just another reason that Mormons have nothing to contribute to any discussion about sexuality.
18
Mr. Weed is like a left-handed person who decided to pick up a pen with is right hand. Sure, most lefties are happier writing with their left, but there's going to be the one person in however many who's fine writing with the right. We should celebrate the fact that we live in a country that allows and encourages this.

Yes, right-wingers may misuse Mr. Weed's life story, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get to talk about his experience and defend the decisions he's made. If he and his wife are both happy the way things are, then good for them AND WHY THE CRUD ARE WE BLAMING RELIGION FOR SOMEONE BEING HAPPY?

As for "happy," I think we'll have to wait and see whether this is the real deal, and it'll be a long wait. "Call no man happy until he is dead" applies here. We must not call this marriage successful until it ends (without any "I'm so miserable" letters or secret same-sex extramarital partners).
19
Seattle Times Gay Chat right now: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/po…
20
@12, how coincidental is right. How does his wife feel knowing that his commitment to her is based on denying what he really feels inside? I thought the point of marriage was to commit to spending the rest of your life with the one person you most want to be with? If this guy's seld-admittedly 'going through the motions' marriage deserves respect, then why wouldn't every marriage between two people who are really in love and committed deserve respect and protection?
22
He can have a gold star if he is truly honest with his wife and she knows that she is married to a gay man. But, he does not get a gold star for following the tenants and beliefs of his chosen religion.
23
We need more details about Mr. Weed's sex life to properly evaluate this story. By "fucking," does he mean PiV sex? Or is she a champ at fisting him? And he her?

I just have a funny feeling that if it was known just what they get up to in the bedroom, any "conservative" froth to cite them as an example would disappear quickly.
24
I never trust relationships when the couple feels a need to: renew their vows (I'm talking Seal/Heidi here...not your grandparents cute 65th anniversary renewal); constantly proclaim on facebook how they have the best wife/husband eva; and now I guess I can add write a blog post about the happiness of their gay/straight marriage alliance.

That whole post just smacks of "if I say it enough and rationalize it enough, well then gosh darn it must be true." Couples that are truly in love don't need 5,000 words to justify it to the world.

I also despise that he tries to take the educational elitist route through research he dug up in grad school, which the rest of us "could use a lesson in." If you're taking out $100 k in student loan debt to justify the love in your gay/straight marriage, you've got bigger problems than the financial burden you'll be carrying the next 20 years. You don't need a peer reviewed doctoral thesis to justify your marriage; and if you do, your marriage is probably fucked.
25
If this is the only way to protect the sanctity of marriage, it's lost on me. I'd rather attack it on those grounds than cede the fundies the ground for the 'reverse racism' claim that they are jonesing to make.
26
He identifies as gay but his only sex partner is a woman. Personally, I can't see how you can have a "robust and healthy sex life" with someone who you're not only not physically attracted to but who isn't even a member of the sex you're attracted to.
27
@7+8 - 17 is right, it varied a lot. And the often mentioned practice of homosexuality in Greece was most commonly in the form of pederasty, and being open about being romantically attached only to men was not common, even when you were having sex with men. So, no, this Mormon guy is different. Seems like a modern invention: being out as gay, and also being married to a woman. This is new territory.

But I think this guy is a fucking idiot. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something really bothered me about him. And I think Dan got most of it. But there's something about him and his stupid situation and his stupid essay that's really hurting my brain.
28
This guy is like the S.E. Cupp of homosexuality. "I'm gay, but..."

Ugh, enough!

I know it's hard to break into blogging but do we really need more phony dickheads setting up strawmen for a paycheck and an appearance on Fox or Real Time? Fuck.
29
@ 21 yeah, and Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington, or Cole Porter and Linda Thomas. Not much doubt that these were authentic connections.

I wonder, though, if those of us who have had happy marriages with those of our preferred gender would recognize that connection. "I really love you and sometimes we have sex" isn't quite the same as the embers that form after years of "I can't keep my hands off you", even if it might look the same from outside.
30
@26: Exactly. If you're not attracted to women, you're not going to be able to have "enjoyable" sex exclusively with a woman. Either he's lying about having enjoyable sex or he's lying about having no sexual attraction to women. Either way, he's full of shit.
31
A gay man who marries a straight woman essential takes her off the market and essential imbalances the ratio, giving him more opportunities among males with no female mates (welcome to Seattle, dudes).

I think you and I agree bi is b.s. 99% of bi seems to be people like this guy...blocking a female and then using it as a wedge to wildcat it, say at work, with guys.

I am not crying "Agenda". No. Not just yet.

32
As much as I'd like to be as impartial on this as Sullivan et al., I can't help but agree with the doomsayers/truthers like @12. I guess it's just plain serendipitous that Weed's ten year anniversary and subsequent public coming-out-as-happily-mixed-orientation-whatever coincides with a year that a popular vote on gay marriage is occurring in WA.

Even beyond the propaganda motive, I find his post pretty sinister. It's been pointed out elsewhere since this exploded on the internet, but he's not exactly without vested interests. He works as an LDS marriage counselor specializing in "sexual addiction" and "LGBT issues." He describes this as something like 'reconciling same sex attractions with religious beliefs.' I'm going to hazard that he, like so many other gay spokesmen who have made straight life 'work,' makes his money off a variety of ex-gay therapy.

Whether or not he thinks what he does is innocuous, his rhetoric is sufficiently NOM-like that I have no choice but to not trust him. The Gallagher-like obsession with biological children, the disturbing uses of "ideal" and "choice" (not to mention the retrograde discussion of "lifestyle"): it all boils down to someone who really doesn't see 'active' gays as fully human (less than ideal) or deserving of marriage rights (marked omission, especially after jesting that a lesbian's family was "counterfeit").

All in all, this is one of the rare occasions where I would really welcome the old canard "I have gay friends," because that's also glaringly absent. I'm pretty sure that although he does a fair amount of counseling by example to gay people, he really doesn't know any. I say this simply because I personally don't really get where he's coming from. (More damningly, I as a gay man would likely never be friends with him just because he seems like such a neuter. Anyway.)

That he and his wife are happy and functional is great. That he tries to pass off that marriage, any marriage, is without its hardships and trials is not. Even worse than this is the religious zealot's insistence that it's his doctrine, not his attitude, that requires him to passive aggressively shit all over everyone else's families.
34
@27
But I think this guy is a fucking idiot. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something really bothered me about him. And I think Dan got most of it. But there's something about him and his stupid situation and his stupid essay that's really hurting my brain.

This reminds me of the first time I heard/read Cupp, Brooks, Douthat, and Frum. They try to avoid tripping the bullshit detector with a sort of delicate sophistry that just ends up as a convoluted mess. By the end you're just as pissed off as you'd be at a Hannity or Krauthammer; although sometimes you wonder if they really do believe in their own "apostasy."

Then you sober up and realize nobody is that stupid.
35
@21, Burroughs "accidentally" shot Vollmer. She died. Disclaimer: it could indeed have been an accident.
36
Now ex-Mormon Benji Schwimmer (winner of 2nd season of So You Think You Can Dance, brother of Lacey) came out a few weeks ago. The interview (on Mormon Stories) is looooooong, but the very beginning of the third section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6RBOvYDW…
leads with him talking about going to the Mormon-sponsored Evergreen and trying to change his orientation and realizing immediately that it wasn't going to work for him. Very tellingly, he talks about meeting a straight-married, "ex"-gay who encouraged him to marry a woman, explaining that he and his "second" wife (he'd cheated so much on the first she'd left) were doing really well. Benji remembers thinking, "how many women am I expected to take down with me?"
37
If you're a man attracted to men, and enjoy sleeping (only) with a woman: you're bi. Not straight, not gay, bi, and just not acting on your attraction to men.

If you're a man attracted to women, and enjoy sleeping (only) with a man: you're bi. Not straight, not gay, bi, and just not acting on your attraction to women.

I know that in the brave new world of gender and sexual fluidity we should be wary of labels. We should also recognize that words are descriptors of objective reality as well as subjective perception and thus we can't make something that it ain't by asserting that our identities are wrapped up in calling it something else. We can call the cat a dog, but it's still a cat and it doesn't make one a cat-hater to call it a cat when someone else insists that it's a dog.
38
kudos to Xenos at 34 for nailing it: they are "try[ing] to avoid tripping the bullshit detector with a sort of delicate sophistry".

39
Man. The internet makes people instantaneous credulous simpletons.

The other more likely option here, that few seem willing to consider, is that this man is completely mental or is a fucking lying sack of shit and is making all this up.

Occam's razor, people.
40
@I would bet money they aren't married in 10 years... or maybe 15, if they're waiting for the kids to leave the nest.
41
@34 - yeah, I imagine him saying "I am living a complete lie and you can too" wouldn't be cross-posted on dozens of big blogs as a new and insightful view on sexuality. But that's what it boils down to, isn't it?

A very serious person with very serious views on alternative lifestyles.
42
Note, too, that this man's story plays exactly into the religious right's trope that sex and desire and lust are all utterly unimportant, that true love and marriage and procreation are the goals.
43
@32 & @24, together, really nail it for me--32 is longish and worth reading. The creepiness of "we're writing this together BECAUSE WE ARE SO IN LOVE, EVERYONE! SEE ALL THESE SMOOGLY PICTURES!!!! + the emphasis on the need for biological children, and how he still thinks any action on same-sex attraction is sin.... A seemingly nice, thoughtful creep, but still a creep. And a creep who is now a poster child for LDS anti-gay crap AND who is giving psychotherapy to LGBT teens.
44
A good friend transitioned M-to-F ten years after marrying her (straight) wife. The wife decided to stick around. Now they identify as a lesbian couple--despite the fact that her wife is heterosexual.

I don't believe them to be "living a lie," and I'm sure as hell not going to assume the same about Mr. Weed either, no matter how uncommon his story is. No matter how DIFFERENT he is.
45
He's free to define his sexuality however he sees fit.

But I have to agree with most of the other people posting here. If he's having sex with a woman (Partially depends upon WHAT they're doing. Pegging?) then he may (probably) be bi.

As a straight guy, I don't see how it would be possible to have sex with another guy on a recurring basis. Lights out. Watching porn. He's wearing a wig. Etc. That would be a joke of a "relationship".

Bullshit detector is going off.
He's bi.
He's also free to call himself anything he wants to.
But he's still bi.
46
37, 44 et al: the difference is, he makes it very clear that he's not attracted to women at all. Not even just to his wife. Only to men. He married a woman because his religion dictated that he must.
47
@36, "Benji remembers thinking, "how many women am I expected to take down with me?""

When you have a religion that holds women in a strange place between untouchable symbol and outright contempt, it's not surprising that the opposite-sex partners in the relationship are taken as disposable place-holders, and THEIR thoughts, feelings, and autonomy are considered subservient to keeping the men in line.

It's demeaning.

As for Weed, I'd really like to know what his wife thinks about this. She could be putting on a brave face, so that she isn't ostracised by her church community. She could be one of those who just doesn't give a darn. She could be finding other outlets for her energy, like a career or some personal passion. Or she could be like some of the partners you see on the Straight Spouse Network site, where their husbands are gay, and they're still married, and happy about it. (Read here: http://www.straightspouse.org/personalst…) If she's being forced to keep on a brave face, for the sake of not being rejected by the church, then both this man and the church are doing something unspeakably, needlessly cruel. If she is truly okay with it? Nothing to see here, move along.

At the end of the day, though, what this underscores is that marriage is NOT some kind of magical religious thing that brings in spiritual harmony. It is fundamentally a shared-property arrangement that legal adults can enter into. Think about it: were it not for the financial, legal, and tangible property aspects of the marriage, would Weed stay with his wife? Were they still dating, and he came out, would they have stayed together, or, in the absence of the financial, legal, and social (read: church) stability that the marriage provided, would they have split? I strongly suspect the latter, rather than the former.
48
@45, seriously? Doing a particular sex act doesn't make you gay, it's who you're doing it with AND who you WANT to be doing it with that is gay. Fisting, pegging, S&M, handjobs...yes, gay dudes do that, but so do straights, and presumably bi types, lesbians, and anybody else who is into those particular things to do when nekkid.
49
I just continue to fail at understanding how religious thinking works, in terms of sin. So you DO the right things, but you THINK the wrong things...and that's ok because Mormonism is ultimately Utilitarian? What if he squeezes his eyes shut really tight, and thinks about nubile dude bodies while hammering away (for the purpose of makin babies)? Of course, this is not taking him at his word in some ways, which is unfair, but otherwise I'm not really sure what the term "gay" means in this context. In many cultures, same sex friendships can be much deeper than we allow for here, to the point where the friends will openly profess love for each other, be (platonically) physically intimate (kisses, hand holding) and those people aren't gay. Fuck, Plato wasn't gay and he certainly banged some dudes.

Saying that every incidence of lust is basically dead in you and that you have adequate sexytimes for the baby making is different from sublimating your gay desires. The former, ok fine not a "sin". The latter? Well, I admit to reading quite a lot of Kant right now, but if being gay is "wrong" how is this okie dokie with the Mormons? It's the funhouse mirror reflection of meaning to do something bad, and accidentally doing something right. That's not morally praiseworthy.
50
Oh and just to be clear: I think this guy should go have hot homo sex, like now. I only hope that his wife at least has a piece on the side who loves how sexy her female bodied attributes are. Or a Hitachi.
51
yeah I know more than a few gay folks who settled down with an exception to their usual orientation. Just like I know straight folks who settled with an exception to theirs. It happens. Anyone ever see "Bob and Rose"? Based on a true story.

Anyway, the obnoxious thing here is his idea that he's somehow ascended to a higher plane of sex because he happens to be happily sexually partnered against type. He's never been a gay man married to a man, or a straight man married to a woman (or a gay woman married to a woman, or a straight woman married to a man, etc etc infinite diversity in infinite combinations), so how does he know? How can he possibly know that other people in other kinds of marriages aren't having the same kind of transcendent sex he and his wife are having? This kind of judgey special-snowflakey "you can't possibly understand" thing irks me no matter where I've found it (and same-sex couples are not immune, either).

All this said, while I find his set-up not uncommon and believable as well within the range of human diversity, his thing about having to work for sexual compatibility reminds me of nothing so much as Orson Scott Card's regrettable "hi I'm an unhappy closeted gay man" tantrums about how God wants men and women to marry, because it would be so NATURAL and EASY and AWESOME for two men to marry or two women to marry, and the WHOLE POINT of marriage is that it be DIFFICULT and BURDENSOME like everyone knows heterosexual marriage is.

Poor OSC.
52
This has been bugging me, which is odd because usually I have no strong feelings about couples who claim to be happy. But......

Josh Weed has robbed his wife. She will never know passion - the powerful feeling of being desired by her partner. Someone aching to physically be with her. Someone to dream of kissing her, worshipping her skin, lusting after her. Say what you will, but to me, this is an essential part of the human experience. Some of the most profoundly exciting, intoxicating and memorable experiences we have are these deep erotic feelings, and she gets....a guy who fucks her because that is his religious duty.

Instead, she gets a life partner who admits, publically, that he is not physically attracted to her. If he were straight and wrote that, he would be accused of emotional violence, rightfully so.

Read what she wrote. It is depressing.
53
@41 You know those, "if Fox News existed during [significant event]" satires? I think it's time for some "Very Serious takes on slavery/segregation/miscegenation/etc."

"Mr. Garrison would probably find a more receptive ear among job-creating Plantation owners if he weren't so shrill. But don't get me wrong, I don't think the status quo is perfect." -David Brooks ca. 1855

"Liberals claim that separate but equal is a lie, yet they never do a good job of explaining how. Given that the Supreme Court has upheld the doctrine, it's clear that Conservatives have a clearer understanding of certain fundamental truths about Western Civilization." -Ross Douthat ca. 1951

"I married a black man but I didn't need the government to affirm my relationship. Liberals don't understand how disrespectful that position feels." -S.E. Cupp ca. 1964
54
@48, etc.: What we need is a fantasy projector, so we can watch what's going on in his brainses while he's attempting an implantation with his good lady wife.
56
Lets look at this story through "Dan Savage Logic" (tm), every time a Bisexual anywhere in the world declares they are actually gay Dan holds the story up as proof that saying that it's alright to assume bisexuals are actually gay isn't biphobic.
So, we should be able to hold up this story and say that gays can marry and have sex with a woman.
57
Having raised my son, who is gay, as a devout Unitarian, I can say that I'm happy he'll get to experience the infatuation/obsession (which in my marriage has lasted 20+years) plus what comes later as a couple matures together.
I'm also happy that my son will not have to spend all the time and energy that Mr. Weed must spend fighting his sexuality. I don't care how happy a picture he paints, that cannot be easy or pleasant.
58
@48
"seriously?"

Yeah, seriously.

"Doing a particular sex act doesn't make you gay, ..."

And who said that it did?
Although WANTING to have sex with a guy probably makes you at least bi if you're another guy.
And a "gay" guy who WANTS to have sex with a woman is probably closer to bi as well.

Maybe in your rush to judgment you missed the point that it might be easier for a gay guy to "have sex" with a woman if the "sex" was pegging him while he watched gay porn rather than going for the missionary position.

Since we don't know what their exact sexual proclivities are, we cannot say.
60
@49
Saying that every incidence of lust is basically dead in you and that you have adequate sexytimes for the baby making is different from sublimating your gay desires. The former, ok fine not a "sin". The latter? Well, I admit to reading quite a lot of Kant right now, but if being gay is "wrong" how is this okie dokie with the Mormons? It's the funhouse mirror reflection of meaning to do something bad, and accidentally doing something right. That's not morally praiseworthy.

Fucking this.

Josh Weed has robbed his wife. She will never know passion - the powerful feeling of being desired by her partner. Someone aching to physically be with her. Someone to dream of kissing her, worshipping her skin, lusting after her. Say what you will, but to me, this is an essential part of the human experience. Some of the most profoundly exciting, intoxicating and memorable experiences we have are these deep erotic feelings, and she gets....a guy who fucks her because that is his religious duty.

Good luck getting genuine straight people to admit that openly. I've been saying it for years, forget who's in the White House, we are living in a conservative age. The prevalence of sex in our media serves to create this huge public/private divide that only further represses public discourse.
61
As far as I'm concerned, this gay man can marry anybody he wants.

As a gay man, all I want is the same option--and I won't be marrying a woman any time soon; my husband would object.

62
Disclaimer: I say this as a heterosexual male who's had only one sexual partner (my wife).

Whether being gay is due to biology, choice, or something in between, and whether Mr. Weed is telling the truth about his life and orientation, or not - in the end it shouldn't matter, for anything.

We have to ask ourselves: As citizen of our world society, do we have bodily autonomy, to do as we please, how we please, when we please, with others or ourselves, provided that each actor has and has given informed consent?

If we don't, then we are likely no better than slaves, to each other and to ourselves; curtailing each other's freedom for the sake of ephemeral dogma.

Is that really how we all want to live?
63
@57, as someone who got to see loving parents of all orientations with their kids of all orientations at my former big-city UU congregation (which I greatly miss sometimes out here in the back-of-beyond), my hat is off to you.
64
@62 - None of us are arguing that Mr. Weed should divorce his wife et cetera (although some have said he should fuck dudes). HOWEVER, what we are mostly objecting to, it seems here anyways, is that Mr. Weed is choosing to broadcast his (stupid imho) beliefs to a wide audience. Not everyone can do what he is doing, which is putting himself in a position of self-denial of his sexual needs/desires. Now, say that you couldn't have sex with women (err, um, a particular woman) ever again. Would you be happy? Would you be healthy? Would you experience mental stress and a lot of angst? The answer for me is yes to all. It seems he is creating an unreasonable ideal for others who hate/resent/loathe their given sexual preference for whatever reason. An ideal that is probably unattainable for almost anybody.

TL;DR: Mr. Weed can fuck who he wants, but you should fuck who you want, not who you are expected to want.
65
I think I might have an easier time understanding this guy if he'd specify what he means when he says "enjoyable sex" and better explain how such a thing can exist without lust. The etymology of the word is "lust" is from Anglo-Saxon, where it meant pleasure or joy without any of the sinful connotations it's picked up in the past thousand years. To take the lust out of a sexual relationship is to take the joy as well--how can it be even remotely enjoyable to fuck a girl if you don't have any desire to fuck girls? How can you achieve real sexual intimacy without passion? Trying to create sexual attraction out of whole cloth is a depressing business--I know, I tried once--and I think that in the end all the emphasis on their happy, happy sex life might serve to drive them apart. This is conjecture, of course, since I don't know his definition of "enjoyable sex."
66
Sounds like somebody's wife has never received oral. Intimacy my ass.
67
@62 Aaaaw, did the personal becoming political give you a sad?

Seriously, though, I don't think the important news here is about self-identification, orientation, or splitting hairs over nomenclature. He could call himself two-spirit cactus-souled vulcan for all I care. Nobody is going to hold a Pride celebration for him then or now.

The real point is not harassing him out of a marriage and family arrangement that works for him, but to force him into recognizing the prejudices and assumptions about LGBT people that overshadow his over-ecstatic points on marital bliss.
68
I was ready to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he is bi-trending-gay, but he doesn't hang with gay friends much so he doesn't know what a real Kinsey 6 is like, and for some weird reason chooses to round himself up. Maybe he's got a really good relationship with his fag-hag best friend (who by the way probably got herself a better husband than most straight macho Mormon men). Maybe they both have relatively low sex drives and are content.

But when I read the comment @32 that he does LGBT "counseling" for a living, my bullshitometer shot way up. Now I think the odds are much better that he's a classic self-hater, he's miserable, and he's out to make everyone else miserable too. He's rounding himself up to gay on purpose to make a political point. And didn't I read somewhere that part of the Mormon ethos is that if you aren't happy you're a bad person, and so everyone has to pretend to be happy?
69
@66 - Are you saying that oral sex is common for mormon couples? Their church would beg to differ

Also when I read your post I read it as "oral intimacy my ass"
70
@62, the real issue is human rights. Everyone gay and straight should have an equal right to marry. That's not a side issue, that's the real issue. Weed's stunt is meant to illustrate that gays do not need the right to marry b/c they could deny their impulses and mary someone else. It's a sophisticated ruse, and the beauty is that people on the same side will attack each other. Weed apologizing and living openly in 3 or 5 years is absolutely not sophisticated.
71
The only thing I find shocking is that he thinks he is a unicorn. Gay, Morman, and married, isn't that all of them?

But seriously, I have friends who are non-religious, closeted, and straight married. All you need is to be a little lazy, a little cowardly, a little bi, and a lot of luck. A low sex drive also helps.
72
(P)re-school sweetheart? Um, ewwww. Dan, I hope that's just your interpretation.
73
What if Will and Grace were Mormon and married each other while both were virgins?

First impression: If it works for them and they are happy, cool cool.

Second impression: This does seem to be an agenda-driven message. The timing, the wanting to "add a voice" to the global discourse and give hopeless and lonely gay people "all the information about their options available". The problem with this is that his relationship IS a unicorn; a very rare product of his and her special circumstances, beliefs and willingness and ability to make sacrifices for a shared ideal. The actual net effect of this disclosure, if taken seriously by desperate-to-avoid-being-gay gay men will be a net increase in the unhappiness of the world. Because absent very unusual circumstances, they won't be able to achieve what he has. It is likely that only a tiny percentage, perhaps so small as to be statistically significant, of gay guys who have acted on their same-sex desire will could do what this guy is doing. And those who try and fail will make themselves and others miserable.

And yes, his life story fits neatly into the "you can stop being gay and can be happy with a woman" ex-gay canard that is being used to deny gay people equality. I would grant hsi story more innocence and his "I don't judge any gay person's choice" a lot more sincerely if it came with a call for gay equality or an indication of his support for it. And in spite of his immediate disclaimer, his counterfeit family remark really bothers me. It is a significant remark, and not in a good way.

I hope his beautiful daughters don't have difficulties processing this information as it spills into their lives in conflict with their fairytale impressions.

The guy is living in a glass closet. His story is fascinating. His motives for telling it are troubling.

74
What penis doesn't like a warm, well-lubricated hole surrounded by muscles? I mean, what's not to like? I like women, I loooove to eat pussy, I prefer the company of women,but I can't imagine that I wouldn't have an orgasm if I fucked a guy's ass or he sucked me off. So, I don't find the guy's story that implausible, but I still don't think we should make people enter into hetero marriages when they want homo marriages. The only marriage anyone should have a say in is his/her own.
75
One has to take reality as it comes. The fact that, as Dan put it, the anti-gay religious conservatives will not draw the right lesson from this case does not mean that it shouldn't be discussed, and that it doesn't have consequences for our understanding of sexual orientation.

And it is not difficult to counterargue it. To claim that gays don't need same-sex marriage because all they'd have to do is look harder to find that one special woman with whom they'd share the kind of intimacy Mr Weed talks about would be like claiming that limitations are not bad, as long as you still have some (no matter how small) chance of finding what you're looking for within the specified limits. Should marriage partners for men be legally limited to wmen from Honduras? Hey, if you look hard enough, I'm sure you can find a woman in Honduras with whom you could share special intimacy. Why look elsewhere?
76
I skimmed the comments, so I don't know if this point has been made.

Quote from the article: And Lolly and I have had that from day one, mostly because we weren’t distracted by the powerful chemicals of infatuation and obsession that usually bring a couple together

So, by logical extension, does that mean that straight people should have same-sex marriages, because it will make the sex better?
77
This is basically the corollary of horny straight guys receiving blowjobs from their gay friends. I suppose if those straight guys were convinced that fucking a woman would land them in a pit of fire for all eternity, they might stick to gay-provided blowjobs. Since they can only imagine what they're missing, they might even convince themselves that they're happy.

Under those circumstances, I think it would be cruel to burst that bubble.
78

He's a Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Auburn, WA (Come and see him if you would like counseling -- seriously!)



I specialize in helping individuals and couples combat addiction (both chemical and sexual/pornographic), LGBT issues, ADHD/ADD, depression, OCD, anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorder resulting from abusive situations.


Irony explodes.
79
After reading his screen again, he reminds me of the male version of Andrea Dworkin. There's something really dark and angry in his psyche that he is trying to work out through a doctoral thesis.

And like AD, he's bringing down a lot of folks with him, setting the movement back while thinking he's moving it forward.
80
1) All kinds of sexual combinations are possible. Weed and his wife are consenting adults, look to be honest and open with each other, and have a functioning (even happy) family. It's probably not a common situation, but I'll take them at their word.

2) It doesn't matter how far it goes back -- most people follow the religious teachings they grew up with. There's a small group of people at the margins who will leave their religious community, but most people stick with what they grew up with. The only thing that may vary is the intensity of those beliefs and practices.
81
Over on Gawker this weed answered questions regarding his blog post. He stated his views on marriage equality (he's concerned that it will harm religious freedom--Hmmm, that's original) and also stated that he has never been with another man sexually. You can view his replies here (click on the "comments" tab to see his specific responses. Gawker's comment system is fucking awful.

Two commenters on Towleroad claim to know him. One states he is a "staunch liberal and advocates for Obama" another named "Shane" claims to be the gay divorced husband of Lolly's childhood best friend and Lolly was the matron of honor for his ex-wife.

There is no way this revelation now by this weed is coincidental--no matter what he claims.
82
"and their right not to be mocked for it."

Sorry Dan and Sully. There's this pesky document called the U.S. Constitution that allows for the mocking and downright condemnation of filth like this weed and his kind.
83
I think he strongly implies that gays and lesbians should be allowed to be married.

If you know and love somebody who is gay and LDS (or Christian), your job is to love and nothing more. Let go of your impulse to correct them or control them or propel them down the path you think is right for them.
84
62 if he and his wife are truly happy more power to them.

But what if they're not? What if they're lying to themselves and each other? Why if this post was done more push to a political agenda then to tell their story and ask for acceptance.

There are just too many coincidences here to make me believe that this was done with good intentions.
85
@81 Thanks! Ugh. Fucking Gawker. Here's what I assume is his answer to a gay marriage question:

The_Weed @Rich Juzwiak 3 days ago REPLY
I guess I can say three things: 1. I want people to feel loved and accepted. 2. I have what I consider to be legitimate fears that when marriage equality is finalized (and I think the times indicate that it is only a matter of time until that happens), there will then be religious persecution when religious institutions want to opt out of providing same-sex marriages because of their doctrines. Because this nation was founded, in part, by those seeking religious freedom, that seems rather foreboding to me. But I'm no political scientist and wouldn't claim to be. 3. Ultimately I suspect the solution would be some kind differentiation between marriage as a religious rite and civil unions as a binding legality, for everybody and not just gay people. I don't know if clean lines could be drawn though. I think we kind of messed things up in the beginning by having religious marriage and legal union so intertwined. I think that everyone should have the advantage of civil unions. I think that marriage as a religious rite should be governed by religions themselves.
Ultimately, I just want a scenario where nobody feels discriminated against. It's a complex issue. I don't know what the solution is.
86
His post makes me wonder how many "straight" people should have been in gay marriages. He talks about not being able to find what he has with Lolly elsewhere, so there must be cases of the opposite...
If being gay means you have to give things up, so does being straight.
87
I disagree with Andrew. Nobody has the 'right' not to be mocked and on the rare occasions they objectively shouldn't be, such is a temporary measure to accommodate tragedy or some such.

I'm going to take Weed's story with a grain of salt until we can get some evidence one way or another he's not just a shill for the DOMA-pushers.
88
This is about as big a coincidence as Deidre Chambers.
89
Implicit in this story is that being gay is something innate, rather than learned.

90
@ 85: Honestly, I'm liberal and I take a similar stance -- take the state out of the religion, take the religion out of the state. If you want a civil union, go to the courthouse. You want a marriage, got to the church. That's not a bad stance, and it harms NO ONE.

Marriage =/= civil union, and it shouldn't. One is a legal process, the other is a religious rite.

@ Ye Other Sloggers. I can't help but be reminded of the end scene to Mona Lisa Smile. Julia Stiles character is accepted to Havard Law School, but what she wants in life is to be a wife, a mother, not a career woman. We are all fighting for the LGBTQA community to have CHOICES. In some cases, that choice is going to be antithetical to what we want them to have available. We have to respect it. It's their life, their body.

It's like a 16 year old that is pregnant. We've fought long and hard for her to have access to birth-control, abortion, and adoption. We've fought the shame associated. At the end of the day, though, we've fought for choice and if she chooses to keep that baby, then that's her choice.

Same thing here. I'd shake this man's hand.
91
@90

No offense, but nonreligious people deserve to call their legally and societally recognized romantic relationships marriage as well. And they would probably tell you they are harmed plenty by having their marriage downgraded to a civil union.
92
@ Alanmt -- sure "married" is also a colloquial term. But as a legal term it means people that have undergone religious ceremony. Let's not confuse the colloquial usage with the legal usage. They can CALL it whatever they like, but legally we should all have access to a civil union. We are NOT however, all entitled to whichever marriage rite we choose, that has to be at the pleasure of the church providing that service.
93
@90
"Julia Stiles character is accepted to Havard Law School, but what she wants in life is to be a wife, a mother, not a career woman."

I don't think you understand. Your analogy is BACKWARD.

So the character was accepted. Big deal. That means that SOMEONE ELSE fought to get the rules changed so that she COULD be accepted. So that she could have that CHOICE.

But this guy is saying that the choice is invalid because you don't NEED to be married to someone you love.
You just need to follow the standard male-female marriage and you'll be happy.

You don't NEED to go to Harvard if you're a woman.
You just need to stay home and be happy there.
94
To add to post #92: rethink this through as "hand fasting." You wouldn't run around telling people (I hope, anyway) that you were hand-fasted unless you had undergone the ceremony of hand-fasting. You wouldn't have rights to that term. Married has been, unfortunately, co-opted to mean "legally a united pair of some sort" but if I went to the court house, married my partner, I honesty wouldn't have rights to the term "marriage" any more than I would have rights to "hand fasted." I have to go to church (or other religious group) to be married, or hand-fasted, etc.

95
@ 93: That's not what the guy says. He says that marrying a woman and being an average family man was his choice. He also loves his wife (and says so several times.)

He's Julia Stiles in this analogy -- he made a choice to stay in his religious community and marry his girl, when we've fought to give him the chance (choice) to live with a gay partner, or no partner. He's made the choice most sloggers don't comprehend, and he's asking us to respect his ability to choose for himself something he knows we wouldn't think he'd choose, if he knew his options.

I'm going to respect his ability to make choices and live his life as he sees fit. He seems like a pretty decent human being. His choice to be married to a woman hurts absolutely NOBODY.
96
@95
"He's Julia Stiles in this analogy -- ..."

No. Because he did NOT turn down a marriage to the man he loved.
That option was not available to him.
Unlike the option to attend Harvard which WAS available to your Julia Stiles character.

"I'm going to respect his ability to make choices and live his life as he sees fit."

That's damn fine of you because NO ONE is saying otherwise.
In fact, that's the WHOLE POINT here.
A man married a woman.
Big surprise there. Wow! That's something you don't see every single day. He's so brave to make that "choice".

But if a man wants to marry a man ... then there's a problem.

And it goes even further than that.
He's making extraordinary claims that he is NOT backing up.
How does he KNOW that he's getting better sex than a couple who are in love?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
97
@92 and 94: "married" does not refer specifically to couples who have undergone a religious ceremony. The type of ceremony has nothing at all to do with whether a marriage is a civil union or civil marriage; every marriage recognized by the state is in effect a civil union, because it is licensed by the state. It is the official paperwork and certain other legal requirements that matter, not the type of ceremony. If you're married in the eyes of the law you're married. Whether the powers of a given religion consider you married is completely irrelevant, and you can be considered married under the rules of your religion without being considered married in law, and vice versa.
98
Sometimes It seems that ex-Catholics have decided that all religions are crap, just because theirs was.
99
@90 et. al

Waaait, whaaaat? The "religious liberty" argument, that churches are going to be somehow compelled to perform ceremonies of which they disapprove, has been shown time and time again to be a lie and craven scare tactic. So far Catholic Churches haven't somehow been forced to marry divorcees who haven't annulled their previous marriages, nor any other religious institution compelled by the state to perform ceremonies against its beliefs, no matter how retrograde.
This is not a valid argument against gay marriage. In fact, recently religious liberty has been invoked as an argument in support of gay marriage; religious figures who actually desire to perform gay marriage ceremonies have sued or otherwise petitioned the government on those grounds.
Furthermore, you might want to research the legal differences between civil unions and marriage in the US to understand why this seemingly piddling semantic difference is so important: http://www.now.org/issues/marriage/marri… . It's a short, short overview, from the type of site Julia Stiles would want you to go to! Just think of it as hand-fasting with knowledge!
100
Yah yah, to ramble on what Dingo said, above... I strikes me as the marriage debate rages on how we all get tangled up in the language. I've officiated at a few weddings, & have been asked a few times recently what the difference is between legal & religious marriage. It seems clear that anti-equality advocates use the confusion between the two frequently to stir up fear.

What gay couples - like hetero couples - are asking for access for is the LEGAL state of being married.* No matter whether you marry in a church, or marry at city hall, yer not married until you file your license with the county clerk. That entitles spouses to be each other's next of kin, to inherit, to visit in the hospital, etc.

Religious marriage is different: the ceremony or ritual in church, temple, synagogue - or outdoors, wherever - that involves the faith of the couple in witnessing their union, in front of their parish/family/community/etc. This is a sacrament, & is NOT something marriage equality would guarantee to gays (nor should it, freedom of religion, etc).

You can be married at City Hall & be married, as the license is signed at the same time. But you can't be married in a church, without signing that license & submitting it. You're not legally married 'til you do.

So! Marriage equality. Married at City Hall = legal = right. Married at church = religious = rite. The right to marry, is not the "rite" of religious marriage.

Sorry so 'splainy. Been asked a lot recently. TL:DR =

http://cdn1.diggstatic.com/story/can_t_e…
101
* = & yes, it'd be great if we could divorce (heh) the word "married" from the legal state & just call it civil unions for all, but since "marriage" is what we call that legal union between two spouses, marriage is what has to be granted to gay & straight alike.

102
@100 ftw ftw ftw. OK gotta quit the trollin'
103
One of the greatest unintended consequences of being gay is that it serves as a genuine eye-opener to all the bullshit you get fed as a child. When you realize that much of what you were taught by authority figures about sex and relationships was wrong, it gives you the freedom to question all kinds of received wisdom, not just that about sexuality. What's sad in Josh's case is that he failed to use this opportunity to question the very absurd superstitious bullshit with which he happened to have been raised. As someone who was also gay and raised LDS, I will always be grateful that my love of guys led me to question, think about, research and discover the fraudulent nature of my religious belief, and indeed of all supernatural claims I've run across so far. Josh had an opportunity to walk out of the door of religious error but he instead chose to continue to believe the teachings of a widely discredited 19th century charlatan. The best thing that could of happened to him was to be freed by his sexuality. Instead, he found another way to stay in the closet of irrationality.
One other point. Josh is lucky to come of age in a time he did. If he had lived in Brigham Young's Deseret, or even the electroshock therapy BYU of the 1970s, he would have found a whole different, and more ugly reception to his statement. Can you imagine how someone like Cleon Skousen would have taken to Josh's statement in 1950's Utah? He'd probably be in jail. Josh is free riding on the coattails of all those who prised freedom from the iron grip of religion, including the grip of those old men in Salt Lake City, who are still trying to grasp it back. He's chosen to ally himself with an organization that still practices bigotry against those like himself. He should be on the outside, with the rest of us, throwing bricks. Lucky for you, Josh, that you found a loophole for yourself and exempted yourself from the obligations all gay people share. The rest of us will keep fighting for you, whether you continue in the bosum of your bigoted church or not.

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