Dear Pigeon Guts: Are Homosexuality and Catholicism Mutually Exclusive?

This week! Does coming out ever get any easier? My parents are homophobic -- should I tell my 11-year-old brother I'm gay? How do GLBT people become foster parents?

A Note From the Author: Lots of advice columns claim to have “the answers” about life, but this one really does! How can I be so sure? Because these aren’t merely my opinions: they’re the actual wisdom of the universe, which I discern, like the mystics of old, by peering into a heaping pile of pigeon guts. But not to worry: these pigeon guts are gay, gay, gay.

Need gay-related advice about life? Contact me here (and be sure and include your city and state and/or country!)

Dear Pigeon Guts: You mentioned last week that it's normal for a straight guy to have the occasional gay sex dream, and I've heard this goes for gay people with straight dreams as well. Yet in all of my fantasies and dreams, I have never had one straight dream. Is this normal? Is it possible that I am too gay? My birthday is national coming out day, for crying out loud! My other question has more to do with identity.

I’m mostly out (parents, friends, brother know), but I feel sooooooo uncomfortable telling people I'm gay or queer or whatever. As I go off to college, I keep rationalizing that this is something I don't really have to approach with my roommates (just not talk about it), and I'm wondering if it ever gets easier to be comfortable with this "identity." I tend to over-analyze everything, but I'm concerned I'll never be able to reconcile myself with the title as "gay" because of all the extra baggage (political, social, etc). I've almost been out for a year, and I am pretty religious, but I didn't think I would be in this perpetual "awkward phase." And through all this, does this make me an excessively gay yet simultaneously self-hating teenager? – Neurotic Over-Thinker, Austin, Texas

The Pigeon Guts Speak:

First, repeat after me, again and again, until you really internalize this: “There is no such thing as normal. There is no such thing as normal. I’m now going to cash out my college fund and send all the money to AfterElton.com, making the check out to ‘Pigeon Guts’.”

For the record, I’m sympathetic to neurotic over-thinkers, because I happen to be one too. If pet-owners all say their pets are like members of the family, and pigs are more intelligent than both cats and dogs, why aren't more pet-owners vegetarian? Discuss.

What of your question: does coming out ever get easier?

You bet it does! Just like climbing a mountain, you’re sore the first few times you do it, but eventually you exercise those unused muscles, and then your muscles don’t totally freeze up the next day, causing you to wince with every goddamn step you take.

The reader of the wisdom of the "pigeon guts," atop 6500-foot Mount Townsend, 1 weekend ago

Does coming out ever get “easy”? Does climbing a mountain ever get easy?

Sorry, no, coming out cold to someone is always struggle, for precisely the reason you pin-point: when a person comes out as gay, they also take on all the baggage that the bigots have created over the years (GLBT folks have created some of that baggage too, but let’s face it: that’s mostly in response to the bigots).

Plus, you never really know who, in response to your coming out, is going to then come out as a Sarah-Palin-worshipping, Leviticus-quoting Christian. Talk about keeping you on your toes! The human characters in Invasion of the Body Snatchers had it easier.

So what do you do? Well, a lot of us move to gay-tolerant cities like Seattle (where I live) and inner Austin (where you live), where being gay really is (mostly) a non-issue. The braver and more stalwart among us stay in homophobic areas and continue to fight the good fight.

But mostly, we just keeping climbing up those mountains again and again. And when we get to the top, we sometimes stop for a minute to remind ourselves what an impressive thing we did, and to enjoy the incredible view.

Next Page! Are being gay and Catholic mutually exclusive?