What is in Kelvin's Head?

Dear Tom

03/12/2013

Dear Tom

Like so many people I saw your video yesterday. Within minutes of you posting it, it was appearing in my twitter stream along with loads of messages supporting you. Then you started to appear on the news and the radio and no doubt your picture will be in the press this morning on many a front page.

And all because you said you are in a relationship and had found happiness with another man.

My first response was to hope that you can carve out a bit of privacy to enjoy being with someone who makes you happy.

My second response was to think how lucky other young people are that people like you are around these days. I remember a time when no-one talked about these things at all. Even though sometimes it seems a bit over the top these days, and I bet you wish everyone would leave you alone to mind your own business at the moment, trust me, these are better times than when I was young. In those days no-one talked about these things in public. Or at least if they did say anything they didn’t say anthing terribly helpful or kind. To see so many lovely messages sent to you in the last day warms my heart no end and makes me realise that we’ve managed to build a better world. I know it must be intrustive – forgive me though whilst I appreciate this moment when a happy-looking young man’s relationship with another man is headline news for all the right reasons and not a bunch of nasty reasons. I never thought I would see such a day.

When I was your age there was something new to think about too – AIDS was hitting the public consciousness in a very new and very scary way when I was 19. I was just at college and hearing a pretty stark and shocking message – that loving someone might kill me. It was not a great time to be learning about life.

Sadly, it is the case that HIV is rising again amongst people of your age and the health campaigns are not terribly focused now.

What you’ve done in coming out about your relationship will be hugely significant for lots of people. Hopefully in being honest about who you are you will inspire others to do the same. Honesty is one of the keys to making the world a safer place.

There’s a load of nonsense being talked about labels today – people are saying you are gay because of your statement and others are arguing that you are bisexual and then bickering amongst themselves about what that means. Take no notice of any of it but take some time to work out what it means for you to be whole.

There are so few people in same-sex relationships in the sports world who find themselves able to be honest and that’s what makes your video so significant. It will inspire people. It will also sadly enrage a few people but thankfully far fewer than ever there were before. Any prejudice against you will be exposed for what it is and be widely condemned. You are helping to build a world where such actions become ever less acceptable – and thank you for joining in that struggle.

Even though you probably think that there’s no-one left in the world now who doesn’t know about what you’ve said, you’ll probably find that you end up remembering this moment throughout your life as it is repeated in smaller and less public ways. I came out very publicly (in the pulpit rather than on youtube!) and I know how often I still find myself coming out all over again, even to people who “know”. In some ways, it lasts a lifetime and I never understood that when I was first starting to talk about my own sexuality in public. Be strong and take each day as it comes. People are excited for you because they can see so many wonderful opportunities that could lie ahead for you and we’ve not had that many role models like you. But don’t get hung up on being a role model – just enjoy life, live well and work hard at your sport.

Stay safe and encourage others to be. Stay grounded too and find your own place in the world to stand. And enjoy this time. Enjoy being with someone who makes you happy. Heaven knows, you need someone who can support you in amongst all this hullabaloo.

You are loved by thousands. And you are also loved by one particular someone.

Good wishes to both of you amidst all the media circus.
KELVIN

coming out, Tom Daley

7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

Paul Hutchinson

14/10/2015

Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

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1. Kelvin
  
  14/10/2015
  
  Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.
  
  The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.
  
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Seph

14/10/2015

It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

Can you tell I’m upset about this?

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Daniel Lamont

14/10/2015

I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

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Father Ron Smith

14/10/2015

My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

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David Campbell

16/10/2015

Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

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1. Kelvin
  
  16/10/2015
  
  Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.
  
  I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…
  
  Reply