How I Got Outed!

I was reminded yesterday of how I got outed by this very blog. I've tried recently to avoid mention of my parents, so I may have to exclude some details, but I think if you ignore the consequences - We're estranged from each other currently, and I have absolutely no desire to try to attempt to mend bridges again - It's actually kind of funny.

The person who got me into blogging some years ago, was the husband of a co-worker who used to go by the handle - The Mediocre Gatsby. He's still an active Mormon, but like to poke fun occasionally at the quirky aspects of the culture. Anyway, so after he got me into it, he put a link to my blog on his blog.

Overtime his blog morphed and so did mine.

I split my blog into two. This one, which dealt mostly with religion and my disaffection from Mormonism, and the other one "Being the Urban Koda", which was the original and which I tried to keep light and not as offensive.

His blog changed as well, and he started including people by name on his blog roll. So there I was... Brother Mackrory... Under the header of "People who may serve as character witnesses if I am brought before a Church Court.

After realizing he had done that, I figured it would be best if I took a few measures to hid this blog.

I didn't totally lock it down, but I removed all the links from my other one, and then took it off my profile as well.

So far so good.

It was about 6 months later however that I noticed some suspicious visits from their home town. What tipped me off was the number of page views on a given day. Someone from their home town had been on the blog and gone through every post. They'd been on the blog almost 8 hours.

Ironically, I'd invited them both (My mom and dad) to read the blog, when I first started it, but neither had ever bothered to so much as load the front page.

Anyway, after that experience, my mother started acting weird and so I locked it down. A week or so later my father attempted to come for a visit, and due to how he was acting about the whole thing, I figured it was for an intervention of sorts, and so I decided to come clean.

It turns out the intent of his visit was to 'correct' my erroneous thinking, and since he is a man with anger issues I figured it would be best to avoid that conversation. I tried to be pleasant about it, but it soon got blown WAAAAAAY out of proportion and... We're no longer speaking.

Anyway, from what I can tell, this is what happened:

My dad is big into genealogy and regularly runs a google search on our family name. The reference on Gatsby's blog got flagged and popped up on the screen for him.

The heading about "Character references for a Church court" was extremely alarming to him. Perhaps if he'd read Gatsby's blog, before jumping to that conclusion, I may have been better off, but he didn't. He has a good sense of humor generally, but when it comes to the Church, it's no laughing matter!

There really wasn't anything too offensive on that blog - well I did say that one of the leaders of the Mormon Church was full of shit for saying outright that members should not question leaders - even if the leaders were wrong. If the church didn't have an issue with some of the leaders using their positions to sexually assault woman and kids, I'd agree with him, but sadly they do.

Anyway... According to the logs, he then left my blog, and went to the blog of one on my readers. Ms. Gerli. Ms. Gerli is not a Mormon, just a good friend and an hilarious blogger.

Ms. Gerli had links to both my blogs, and I guess after a while the link between Being the Urban Koda and The Koda Think Tank became apparent, and over he came to this one.

Their primary point of contention is that my entire blog is a rant against them, their parenting skills and their Church. I think they're a little too invested in their Church with that last part, but the rest doesn't really make sense.

In 4 out of 300 posts I included references to my upbringing. Only 1 or 2 were direct references.

I was raised in apartheid South Africa, went to a segregated school, lived in a white only neighborhood, and when a black man joined our local congregation, the local leaders suggested he attend elsewhere.

South Africa was a racist place to be raised, and since they were raised down there too, they were part of my racist upbringing.

Anyway, those couple of references were incredibly offensive to them, and with my ensuing confession and attempt at reconciliation, I was effectively out to my parents and subsequently... Out of the family.

Oh well!