Saturday, June 8, 2013

I Confess I was just a little upset about MCC yesterday

Yesterday I wrote kind of a scathing article on Milwaukee Metropolitan Community Church. I guess, to say the least, I was a little upset with the way things are going there. Almost every day I check on Facebook and I check on You- Tube and I check on other websites I check on the LGB T community center, the Pride Fest's website and usually both the Milwaukee MCC Facebook page and also the Queer-church page and the MCC WordPress page. What got me upset was that none of these pages that MCC has up on the Internet has been updated for months at a time. One website was updated only in 2012, now that is just plain pitiful.

As I explained in the previous post I've had some health issues and I don't get out too much anymore most of the information I get is from the Internet and from talking to people on the phone and stuff like that. Thanks to the excellent work of the doctors my spinal surgery was a fabulous success. I still however have hip pain from what I'm told is bursitis and I am going to be scheduling an appointment with the doctor for a cortisone shot which hopefully will help tremendously with alleviating the pain.

Anyway back to the subject of MCC. When I did go to MCC I was quite active in the church. For about eight years I was a Deacon but I gave that up because of all the infighting amongst the deacons in the church. I figured it just wasn't worth all the hassle. Prior to the church buying the building that they now hold services in I had known the Lou Broyles for quite a number years prior to that. I informed Lou that the Unitarian church that I attended from about the beginning of June when the kids graduated from school to the first week in September went on hiatus for the summer. That means there were no church services, so I decided to attend services at MCC during the summer until the time that the Unitarian Universalist church started back up in the fall. I became friends with Lou and he discovered that one of my interests was comparative religion. He asked me to join the church and participate in new member orientation process where I was able to explain the differences between the religion that they had left and MCC. Soon after that Lou decided that we needed deacons to carryout some of the common tasks of the church. My interest besides new member orientation was hospital visitation and jail and prison ministry. Now many of us were a little disappointed when Lou decided that he wanted to get back to his old flame down south and informed us that he wanted to move down there to be with him. Unfortunately while he was visiting down south he had a fatal heart attack and passed away. In the meantime MCC was left without a minister and had hired an interim minister until they could find someone full time.

Just after the new minister was hired I thought it might be a good idea to explain to the new minister about the church  and the people attending church and some of the inner workings of it so she could get a handle on how things would be going. That of course was her first mistake, not wanting to listen to the information I felt would help her new ministry. I really didn't care whether she used the information or not just that she would have it for future reference if she needed it. That to me was a fatal mistake. Soon after I left the church because of all the infighting I found out that she did away with all the deacons in the church and instituted committees. This is not what a leader does. You do not allow the employees to run the business without supervision because they will run it right into the ground. I had suggested that in order to keep people informed of what's going on in the church that they should probably get on Facebook so they can post information on sermons, meetings, classes and other things that would be going on with the church on a timely basis. Apparently shortly thereafter they found out that they could set up a Milwaukee MCC page on WordPress where they could set up of a blog about what was going on. It started out okay but all of a sudden they stopped posting on both of these places and unfortunately information was no longer forthcoming.

As many of you should know by now I am a very outspoken person. I became interested in journalism when I started high school and became the school's chief photographer also writing short captions describing some of the events that I had covered. In 1964 he moved here to Wisconsin where I pursued my interests in electronics and got a job with the General Electric Company as a service technician and customer relations person which I was very good at. Sometime in the late 1980s through a conversation with a fellow photographer I thought perhaps I might be gay and I finally came out. It was during this time that I finally met Terry and Jerry of the Wisconsin light and Michael Lisowski and Dan Fons who hosted the Queer Program. I became close friends with Terry and Jerry and also became one of their photographers and journalists for the newspaper up to the time it finally ceased publication. I suppose by now you're probably wondering what this has to do with MCC? Well I will tell you. My experience with sales and marketing and journalism taught me that to grow a business you need to tell people about what you're doing to grab their interest and to get them to purchase your product, in this case MCC. MCC's failure to get the word out is hurting them dearly. It's hard to keep a church going when you lose members and money to pay your bills. This is why I am pushing so hard to get them to start putting information up on both of their webpages so that they can attract more members and interest in the church and hopefully make it successful.

I always do things for a reason that is why I am writing this article here to force them whether they like it or not to do the right thing. Even though my views have changed I still care about MCC and would like to see it succeed, that's why I do what I do. And no I am not dissatisfied nor I am I that old fart that some people call me. Believe me I made a lot of mistakes in my 68 years and I just don't want to see history repeat itself and that's why I do what I do.
 TT FN  Gary

Friday, June 7, 2013

What's with Milwaukee Metropolitan community Church?

Back in 2008 I was doing security downtown and I was involved in assisting the police in a major homicide which later made the papers. Shortly after the homicide my neck kind of cracked in my left hand and left foot started going numb. I thought perhaps it was the cold weather as I would have to's stick my arm out of the window when it was cold out as I was entering the garage and as I passed certain points I had to hit the scanner to indicate that I checked areas within the different buildings. It kept on getting worse so I decided I would see the doctor to find out what was going on. After a bunch of tests they discovered that what happened was that I had a spinal cord injury and that I needed to have an operation in order to fix the problem otherwise I would've been totally disabled. Needless to say the operation was successful and I was off work for several months. It was at this time that I stopped going to MCC and concentrated on getting back on my feet so to speak. There were several reasons why I decided stop going to the church, not because I didn't like it but because of the infighting that was going on between the deacons. So I told the minister that I was not going to be coming anymore because of this kind of stuff. Later on I found out that she had done away with the deacons. Apparently it was her decision that the congregation would be the ones who would ultimately help to run the church as needed. They instituted committees such as the building and grounds committee the technology committee the music committee the welcoming committee etc. For all practical purposes the only thing left was for the minister to give sermons and that was just about it, everything else was done by the people in the congregation or decided upon by the board of directors as they deemed fit. I did however go to church from time to time but gradually stopped going I think perhaps from loss of interest.

There was a time when I suggested that they start a Facebook page so that they could post any announcements about what was happening at the church or any special events or anything else that was going on to keep people posted on the goings-on of the church. This I thought would be a good way of marketing the church, after all we all know that members tend to come and go and that we need to replenish those that have dropped out to keep the church going and to keep interest high. Unfortunately many of the people that belonged to the church did not seem to be very computer literate, either that or they never checked their computers and never use them. So once the webpage or should I say Facebook page was created they never really updated it and it stayed pretty much static for months and months at a time. This is not good because anybody who would visit the Facebook page by the church would eventually wonder if the church was even in operation. In order to maintain people's interests it is necessary that you keep on posting notices and other things and activities that the church was doing. It would also be a good idea to post the theme of any upcoming sermons that may be of interest to those who would be planning to go to church. I guess soon after that they discovered that they could put up a blog for free using WordPress.com {milmcc.org} witch they did but the page was left unfinished I assume either because of lack of knowledge or interest. This also after a while seem to be abandoned and no new information seemed to ever be posted there on any type of timely basis. Unfortunately they never put a telephone number to be able to contact anybody at the church. There was of course a church telephone (on the facebook { https://www.facebook.com/pages/Milwaukee-MCC/143495165714520} you had to hunt for it in the About area) number which when called was never answered by anyone and only contained a prerecorded message telling people to leave their name and number and at they would get back to them. The problem was that there was never anybody in the church during the week to pick up the phone and to find out who had called nor did they ever bothered to call anybody back leaving the impression to those seeking information that perhaps this also had been abandoned. The church could have used call forwarding to forward all calls made to the church's number so someone would be available anytime to answer any questions or relay information.It seems to me like they only kept the telephone line but never used it which to me is a very sad state of affairs. Another thing is that the facebook page is set up for announcements and NO comments are allowed.

I also get the distinct impression that if you don't go to the church and you don't give them any money or you don't attend anything they don't care about you which is really a shame considering how gay people are treated. Typical of institutional religion. This is not the way I would operate a church. I would encourage people to try to call the number and see what happens because all you are going to get is a prerecorded message and very likely never be called back. Their websites both milmcc.org and queerchurch.org have either a telephone number or a way of responding to anything this put up on the Internet or on Facebook. The only way you can contact them via queer church.org is to fill out a form and whether they will even look at that or answer it is questionable. I Really hate to say it but no wonder it is the way it is, it's a really sad state of affairs but such is life. Unless Milwaukee Metropolitan community Church changes the way they operate I don't see them lasting very much longer within our community. Would you really want to go to a church that didn't care about you? I know I don't.

I suppose if you're going to go to Pride Fest, go to the health and wellness area and ask them why they don't upgrade their websites why they don't tell anybody what's going on why don't they care about the gay community? Or is it just lip-service? We need answers and we want to know what's going on with MCC or are they just incredibly lazy? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Is Marriage all its cracked up to be?

Thoughts on gay marriage

I don't know about you but I really still don't understand what the big deal is about gay marriage. I know I'm probably going to get smashed on this one but I think I am right on a lot of it. First of all a mistake that I don't if I am really gay or not, I like women I do like some men but I'm not into the gay sex thing so maybe that makes me straight well I guess that's the way it is. I consider myself an ally to the gay community and will do my best to defend it. So with that said I just want to give my ideas of what I think about gay marriage.

The first thing out of the mouths of most gay people is that they consider themselves second-class citizens which couldn't be farther from the truth. Dummy, you are gay, get used to it, and you'll always be gay. And I for one do not want to be homogenized into the straight community. Of course I have straight friends, but who doesn't? So are we really second-class citizens? I don't think so. We are who we are and we cannot be changed no matter how hard we try, but why would we want to become straight in the first place? That I really don't understand. After all I enjoy being different and that's who I am, like it or not.


Has any gay person actually looked into marriage? Believe me it's not all it's cracked up to be. The problem is most people are going to say, well we need all of the government protections which to me is bull. It just seems to me that everyone is looking for all the freebies that the government will give you when you get married. It's sort of like the guy who comes up to you and says here is a gift for you, and you think to your self why is he giving me this gift? Certainly there has to be strings attached. Well guess what? There always are and marriage is no exception. After all you are signing a contract between yourself and your spouse and the government and the state. Yes I said the state, because they always have to have their fingers in there somewhere. So long as your marriage is on until we do part (as in die) than everything is hunky-dory. But oh boy if things don't go right and the marriage sours this is when things can get really sticky and not very much fun.

Now here's what happens so hang on to your seats. What usually happens when people get married is that they usually agree to buy a house to live in together usually as tenants in common. Along with that they buy furniture and all the accouterments necessary to run a house. They might keep their old car but then again they might trade it in for new one that both of them may own. What complicates the problem is that because we cannot physically have children and because many of us want to raise a child, we opt for adoption. Again if this is a long term relationship it is all fine and dandy. But what happens when things go sour and divorce is on the horizon? This is the part that most of us don't like because we have to hire a lawyer and file for divorce in court. All of this costs money, lots of it. Not so much if we were lucky enough to have a premarital contract and are smart enough to keep our possessions separate, then divorce could be relatively painless.  Besides the psychological consequences of the separating apart, that believe me is not painless and can cause long term grief. Fortunately in the gay community we don't wind up hating each other unlike what tends to happen with heterosexual divorce cases. And the worst part is when we throw a child into the mix this is where things can go terribly wrong. Hopefully psychologically we do not use a child as a pawn in the divorce proceedings. Both parents must be extremely careful not to bad mouth one or the other in front of the child because this can be detrimental to his or her psychological health long term.


For this reason I think, and this is my own personal opinion, that a living together arrangement (also known as a domestic partnership agreement) is the best solution along with a binding contract concerning finances and what belongs to whom. Of course you're going to have to go to a lawyer for things like power of attorney in case of death and also health care as necessary. In the long run if things don't work out you can always separate without all the underlying expenses that divorce would entail. So my question is, is marriage what it's really cracked up to be?