Closeted Footballer’s Harsh Coming Out

These stories gut me sometimes, because I see them all the time, and I’ve witnessed them personally. In this case it’s about an Australian footballer, Lachlan Beaton, who lived in the closet for years, dealing with all kinds of emotional issues as a result.

Now 34 and a happiness coach based in New York City, Beaton said although he had known since the age of 15 he is gay, he was afraid that he would be rejected by his friends and his identical brother Charles who he was very close to.

He said in the video he first came out when he was 27 after he became tired of his own self-destructive tendencies and suicidal thoughts because he felt like a ‘lesser human’ who ‘hated’ himself.

He first came out to his twin brother Charles, then brothers Sam and Nick, his footy mates and his parents Juddie and Andrew months later.

If anyone wants a good example of what hell must be like, just read more stories like this. I just hope that if anyone reads this and they are still in the closet and living the way Lachlan did, this helps them understand there’s nothing wrong with being gay.

You can see the video Lachlan made here.  

Gay Denied Communion at Mom’s Funeral

This one hits home because I was raised Catholic and went to twelve years of Catholic school. However, I don’t practice Catholicism anymore and when I have to go to a family event now as a show of respect I sit in the back row and wait until it’s over. I wouldn’t set myself up for something like this.

In any event, here’s what happened to a gay man in the south.

Tim Ardillo, who was an altar boy at the very church where the funeral was held, was in line with his young son next to his mother’s coffin when the pastor of the church Rev Mark Beard refused the man communion.

The funeral Mass as held at St Helena Catholic Church in Amite, Louisiana, on July 10.
According to the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper, Ardillo said the priest told him that he’s being refused because he was married outside the church. He however believes it’s because he was listed in his mother’s obituary as being married to another man.

The newspaper reported that Beard did not return multiple calls when he was contacted in the week following the funeral.

You can read it all here. I can’t preach to anyone about what they should believe or what religion they should follow. I just happen to think the Catholic church treats LGBT people in a very shabby way. You have a choice. You don’t have to take it.

Gay Teen Hanged In Iran

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that our President and our politicians and even our press went into great detail recently about Iran and nuclear weapons, but none ever bother to mention the way gays are treated in Iran?

I can’t help but wonder how they would react if this had happened to any other minority:

Akbar Zargarzadeh, the young teen, had been at an Islamic boys’ camp when the cleric accused him of being gay.

The mullah told the other boys that the young teen was ‘deserving of death’.

Amir Taheri, a former editor of Iran’s main newspaper Kayhan, first posted the story on Twitter yesterday:

The rest is here. The sources seem reliable. What always worries me the most is what we’re not hearing about.  Obviously, it’s not important enough or sensational enough to make the evening news.