I won't be going back to the restaurant where the old crowd had taken to going after rehearsals.

Actually, it's a gay bar. No, it's not a seedy place, the prices are quite reasonable, the food is terrific, and the sanitation grade is quite high.

I mentioned my intention to one of the men in our circle, not a Catholic, but active in his own church, and his response was, "Yeah, the cigarette smoke was really bad in there tonight."

I couldn't explain to him, because we are operating out of such different paradigms, that the cigarette smoke was the least of my worries (singers always worry about smoke) -

It was the spiritual climate of the place.

I had to get up and walk around a bit to find the waitress, which gave me a look at the establishment's clientele: young adults, mostly - the men downplaying their masculinity with unisex attire, or sporting long hair and think pointy goatees that looked as if they might have been theatrical makeup on such think, immature faces. A couple of them, I had to glance to see whether they had Adams Apples - the women demonstrably ill at ease with their womanhood, hiding it behind oversized, shapeless clothes, bad haircuts and a defiant lack of makeup -

All looked haunted, troubled. There was among them none of the animation that characterized our own group. Even those I saw laugh lacked real animation; their laughter did not reach their eyes.

This experience was so consistent with the observations I have made of my ex-husband since he came "out" - the secondary issues of homosexuality have not been publicly explored or discussed - I've never heard them admitted.

I have come away from this restaurant more convinced than ever, by empirical, personal demonstrations, of the truly disordered nature of homosexuality and its destructive effects on individuals and on society.

St. Michael, pray for us!
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