My schedule has allowed only snitches of time to complete reading “The Other Side of Silence” that I previously mentioned. I thought that my experiences in the Navy had demonstrated to me the common practices of abuse, violence, illegal entrapment, and humiliation that gays in American faced. By remaining firmly in the closet in spite of a romantic interlude on the Lido in Venice and active solicitation by the roommate at a beach house in Maryland, I avoided these entrapments and exposures that ruined many careers and needlessly cost lives. John Loughery poignantly relates these stories of how gays were the victims of political strategies, societal mass hysteria, police corruption, extortion, and targets of closeted gays filled with self-hatred imposed by the psychology of the times.

During Advent we are to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Christ and the Kingdom of God on the Earth. This involves more than just a retelling of the birth story and reading various scriptures. It is more of an adjustment of attitude to especially focus on the spiritual rather than the material.

It was in this theological, spiritual, or philosophical vein that the group of RUMMIES who gathered at Caleb’s for our regular meeting got into a lengthy discussion of what sin is and how does the Methodist Church define it. In the broadest sense, sin is whatever separates us from God. In trying to interpret that into a more manageable form, we have the Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church and The Book of Discipline. Much of the discussions at General Conference for the past decade have focused on the wording of certain sections of the Book of Discipline.

Recently while suffering from recurring bouts of insomnia, I turned to a “cure” that was guaranteed to put me back to sleep. Over a period of several weeks I plowed through John Boswell’s 1981 “Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality.” Dr. Boswell was a history professor at Yale when the book was written and followed an academic approach with lots of footnotes on every page so that it was easy to lose my train of thought. I won’t try to summarize his discussions of the scriptures, social change, and theological traditions, but it is interesting to note that in the early church homosexuality wasn’t an issue. It existed not only among the laity but also the clergy, but it didn’t become an issue until the Middle Ages when the church assumed a much more repressive role.

The media saturation coverage of the political campaigns for the past year had so dulled my interest in politics that it was a strange serendipity that I happened to pick up at the library a book by Republican pollster Kevin Phillips: American Theocracy: the period and politics of radical religions, oil, and borrowed money. At least it was a relief from the steady diet of murder, mayhem, sex, and antics of the rock & roll stars in rehab; rappers spouting obscenities; and movie queens and athletes confessing their drug problems not only in the tabloids but also the mainstream media. Even with 250 digital cable channels, I sometimes find it difficult to find a program worth watching so it was interesting to read a serious discussion of issues that affect all of us.

Mr. Phillips traces the influence of the radical right in the 1980’s and 1990’s and their political agenda not only to dominate the airwaves with talk radio but also to highjack the Republican Party. His review of the Middle East and how Great Britain and the United States propped up dictators in collusion with the major oil companies so that they served as de facto ambassadors was very revealing of how we got ourselves into a mess even before the invasion of Iraq. Deficit financing has weakened not only federal government programs but also the lack of personal savings and imbalance of trade has made the United States a second-class debtor nation.