Out in the Open
Yesterday I wrote about a gay college friend who stayed closeted from me until our 25th reunion, though for much of that time, we were completely out of touch. Commenting on that blog post, another friend speculated about whether Scott was even out to himself in the 1980s, and wondered if coming out begins with oneself. Yes. So there's the answer to the story problem. Now, of course, I've got to show my work. There's a lot of it. This is about my personal journey of coming out agnostic. It starts in 1974, when I was on two parallel church-related tracks: confirmation and earning my God and Country badge, a religious emblem awarded by the Boy Scouts. Many eighth graders going through these initiation rites are fortunate enough to do them in a community of young people their own age. I was not. The church my father served in Emmett, Idaho was really too small to have a youth group, and I was the only Methodist in my Scout troop, so I was on my own with both t...