Corky,

"BJ seems to have missed that most people now don't approve of the direction that this country is taking"

I'm well aware a lot of people are discontented.

But they're discontented for different reasons.

(part 2)

We've now been married more than 40 years.

We're more in love than ever.

She loves me intensely. My heart hurts when I look at her. To think what I almost never had.

I have a life because of her.

And when I look back over all of it, God is so intertwined in my life that I can see He was always there somewhere, often working through people who appeared at exactly the time I needed them.

A pastor who overheard a lost kid talking in a restaurant.

A friend who helped me get into college.

Another man who packed up my belongings and moved me to another state.

And then my wife.

My career worked out too. I eventually went from being a high-school dropout who got kicked out of the Navy to teaching at a college. I taught accounting and network operating systems. I enjoyed teaching. It was one of the more rewarding things I ever did. God provided opportunities, but I had to do the work.

We bought and paid for a nice house.

Now I'm retired comfortably.

I'm not rich, but I'm comfortable.

You never know what's right around the corner.

A few months after retiring, I fell and messed up my hip. Now I walk with a cane.

Would have been nice if God had pointed out the icy sidewalk to me.

Being a Christian doesn't mean bad things won't happen to you. Sometimes the bad things are where you discover whether your faith is authentic.

Sometimes it's okay to get mad at God. That's because you still believe He's there and you just feel let down by Him. We are only human.

It's when you stop getting angry, stop talking to Him, and simply give up on God that you should be concerned.

Look at my life.

One other thing...

People have told me I denied my "true self."

You're gay. You should be out. You shouldn't be married to a woman.

But think about that.

I am living my true self.

My married life is my true self.

I'm living my values.

And one last thing.

Remember, back in the mid-70s I lived with that MCC pastor. I was young and still trying to figure out who I was and what I believed.

I asked him one day:

"Is being gay a sin?"

His answer has stayed with me all these years.

He said,

"It's a sin to live the wrong life."

That was his answer.

So, Db, that's my testimony.

I'm not saying I believe my life is better than non-Christians but I wouldn't want it any other way.

When I look back, I believe God was there.

He was always with me.

I believe He still is.

Db,

"You should be able to tell us proudly how, as a Christian, you exhibit a better life than non-Christians, as a testament to your faith."

Ok...actually I can give you my testimony. But a much more summarized version.

I joined the Navy at 17 after dropping out of high school.

I was kicked out of Navy in 1975.

While I was in the Navy, my dad divorced my mom and remarried a woman with two young boys. I was a supreme disappointment to my dad. His new sons were perfect for him. His new wife's family wanted me to stay away because I'd been kicked out of the Navy.

I never saw my dad again in my 20s. He never met my wife or his grandchildren.

Actually, to be honest, I was the one who kept everyone apart .

He had never really been a father to me. As a child he mostly ignored me. I was an only child. Dad was in the Army and we moved every couple of years or so, four times in the middle of a school year.

Enough of that.

The point is, by the time I got out of the Navy, I felt pretty much rejected by my parents and the military.

I ended up in a very big city without a penny to my name.

A guy I had met offered to buy me a meal at a restaurant. We were sitting there talking and I was telling him I had nowhere to go and didn't know what I was going to do.

A church pastor overheard me.

He walked over to me, a complete stranger, and offered me a room in his home with him and his partner.

He was a pastor with MCC.

There was no ulterior motive. They helped me get a job at the bathhouse I've talked about before. Another friend later helped me get enrolled in college after I got my GED.

The gay life wasn't for me.

I liked men, but the life I saw around me seemed to revolve around everybody sleeping around. The gay men I knew cheated on their partners. I met lots of people. I was unusually tall and good looking. I had "friends."

But I was still lonely.

Then I met a guy from another state. Talked over the phone. Exchanged photos. He got a trailer, drove to where I was, loaded up my stuff and moved me to where I live now.

That turned out to be another blessing.

He was gay too. He eventually became a Mormon and moved to Utah. We've stayed in touch all these years, although we've never seen each other again.

I started college at my new residence (big city to smaller city) location and got a part-time job.

That's where I met my wife.

We became fast friends. We even went to gay bars together.

It was about a year before we slept together.

My first time with a girl.

WOW.

But she still wasn't a guy.

We got married.

After I got married, I stopped messing around with men and haven't since.

Yeah...I still miss it sometimes.

What can you do?

You appreciate what you have and go on.

My wife was a Christian. She had attended church as a child with her parents.

When she was eight months pregnant with our first child, she and I were crossing a busy street.

I had just about reached the curb on the other side when I heard a car screech.

I looked to my left and briefly saw a headlight fly past behind me. Then I saw my wife twirling through the air and landing on the other side of two lanes of traffic.

Sure would have been nice if God had made us walk a little faster.

Or if my wife had kept up with me.

But she was eight months pregnant and ready to deliver.

That's life.

We came through it, and actually we became even closer. I knew how much I loved her.

Tragedy can bring people closer together. The baby was fine.

(part 1)

Clown,

I'm sure I am.

Db,

You are a piece of work.

You throw sand in someone's face, call them names, tell them they're a bad person, and then ask, "why won't you play with me?"

"Because you are threw sand in my face and you behave badly."

Then you tell other kids, "don't play with him...he's a complete idiot"

So who exactly is the problem here??

I didn't bring up mail in ballots.

Someone else did.

Eb,

When I look back at issues on which my views differed from prevailing opinions on this site, I often find that public policy eventually moves in my direction.

The border. Transgender issues. And now mail-in voting.

The USPS has now finalized a rule requiring states to provide a list identifying every voter scheduled to receive a mailed ballot and place unique tracking barcodes on both the outgoing and return envelopes.

The rule would apply nationwide to mailed ballots used in federal elections.

It originated with one of Trump's executive orders. The rule is currently blocked by federal injunctions, and the administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow it to take effect.

The rule would not turn every mail-in ballot into a traditional absentee ballot or require every voter to apply for one. However, it would require every mailed ballot to be part of an identified, voter-specific tracking system much closer to the way traditional absentee ballots are handled.

The system would provide better information for reconciling the number of ballots mailed and returned, tracking their progress and identifying ballots that were lost or otherwise unaccounted for.

It does not adopt everything I have advocated, but it moves substantially in that direction. The concerns I raised were not nearly as unreasonable as people claimed.

If the Supreme Court allows the rule to take effect, states will have only a small window in which to comply with the new requirements.

I hope they are already working on it.

Snoofy,

*"Like most Evangelical Christians, Westboro Baptist Church exists to annoy people around them."*

Who even talks about Westboro anymore except a desperate troll with nothing of value to contribute?

Do you seriously think Westboro represents evangelical Christianity?

Db,

"Lots of people seem to think Jesus spoke like the KJV."

I don't know who those people are.

No one I know believes that. It's understood to be a translation.

Besides, Christianity doesn't have an official language. And it certainly wouldn't be seventeenth-century English.

Laura,

"You know if you're minding your own business in said community. You won't be bothered by the call to prayer that these mosques are airing"

Minding your own business works both ways.

You're saying I should not offend them and just mind my own business?

What else could you be implying?

Their rights are more important than mine?

They should want to not offend people around them.