Truth and Consequences:
A Cautionary Tale About Desire, Denial, and Delusion

Truth and Consequences is at once a cautionary tale, a memoir, and an extended essay about a gay man’s struggle to find his feet in the shifting cultural landscape of America since World War II. His story is both timely and timeless in its relevance to the effects of religious fundamentalisms and nationalist political movements everywhere. The vehicle for the author’s essays is his relationship with his mother (1919-2019), a loving and temperate Southern Baptist lady who voted for Harry Truman in 1948 and supported traditional standards of decency. As TV evangelists and megachurches began to appear, she caught the waves of Evangelical fear-mongering about secular institutions and elites. By 2016 she was supporting the very un-Christian Donald Trump, whom she would once have dismissed as a low-life. What brought this about? How did it affect her family, her community, and society more broadly? When millions of ordinary men and women catch the waves of anti-secularism and Christian nationalism, their influence is bound to be felt in legislatures and courtrooms. Personal liberties are then at risk. This is where the author’s sexual orientation and the story of his personal life intersect with matters of religion and politics. This book is an attempt to recover and recount a life experience that was unnecessarily painful until a decisive turning point was reached and self-realization became possible.