On Friday night, after leaving a party in Hollywood (where my picture was taken twice without my permission), I saw a homeless man who had bedded down in a doorway. He was about half a block from the intersection my date and I were crossing to get to my date's car. I told him to wait a minute and he asked what I was doing. I told him just to wait. I approached the man and saw that he was ill. I thought of calling an ambulance, but he seemed to need no immediate medical attention and I knew not to involve the police. (In America, often the police are summoned when an ambulance is called and the homeless man would probably have been arrested for vagrancy.) I gave him a dollar coin and told him what it was. He looked back at me with vacant haunting eyes within a gaunt face and nodded his thanks. When I returned to my date, he said, "That's one of the things I like about you."

I am a practicing Christian; I go to Episcopal/Anglican Mass as often as I can and take Holy Communion with the full knowledge of my bishop and my parish priest. I am gay and my date that night (whom I am continuing to date) is an atheist transsexual. I just read an article that put him and me in the same class as murderers and adulterers. (I guess I have good company in Moses, St. Paul, and King David.) The article was written by someone who wanted America to turn back to its Christian values. Funny, I thought I had them...