Well, I had my first phone call relating to the election this evening. I am sure that it was in response to my profile (which I posted here) that was in the local weekly paper on Thursday. The subject-matter was just too coincidental.

Anyway, I should probably start by saying that I have a cold. It seemed to start last weekend as a sinus infection, but it mostly cleared up other than the fact that I have a terrible case of laryngitis. As a result, when the phone rang, Ray answered it because I can barely be heard over the telephone.

Obviously he ended up handing the phone over to me. After hearing me, she asked if I was in good health because I sounded out of breath. I told her that I had a bad cold, but was otherwise fine. She told me that she was a resident who was looking to get more information about where I stood on issues in the school district as she was preparing to vote on Tuesday. I assumed she was going to ask about the teacher contract situation, which is basically a nightmare that is in its third year of troubles.

She started explaining that she was a teacher at one of the Catholic schools in Providence, our capital city, and that she had a concern about some of the curriculum in the school district of Burrillville, particularly relating to the way morals were taught within the health classes, such as with the promotion of homosexuality and other immoral acts. I am assuming the latter referred to the instruction relating to birth control. There has been a movement to promote abstinance only recently that has been fought off.

A part of me can't help but wonder if she was attempting to trap me here. At the same time, she was really sweet and nice. I started by telling her that the district really didn't define the health currculum. It is defined by the state. As with other subjects, there is a certain amount of leeway in how information is presented in the classroom, it is still supposed to include certain subject matter.

I continued to say that in all reality I thought certain subjects needed to be taught in our modern world. I then dropped the bomb and told her that I was, in fact gay, myself. And from my own experience and my background and training on youth issues, gay and lesbian teens had the highest level of suicide. That in fact telling them they were wrong and evil was basically contributing to that suicide rate.

She replied by saying that she respectfully disagreed with me. I told her that was her right. We obviously disagreed on that matter. She was actually very polite in ending the call at that point. She said that she appreciated my honesty. I clearly was not the candidate for her. As she was saying good bye, she did say that she hoped I got over my cold quickly and that I had a good weekend. I wished her the same.

Ray said he thought I should tell her that I was Catholic myself. I told him that I couldn't do that. I would have felt I was lying if I did that. I was raised Catholic, though in a liberal family. I no long consider myself Catholic and I have no faith in the Church itself, though I do respect a lot of the things I was raised with. Anyway, I was not going to lie to her to get her vote.

Overall, it went about as good as it could have been. It is not like we ended up in a shouting match (not that I could shout, anyway), and there was no hateful namecalling. I do wish that I had thought to tell her that I was not running as a gay man. Schools have so many things involved with them that there really is a lot I do want to focus on, and that I was not running with a gay agenda. I am someone running for office who is gay. Nothing more, nothing less.