Coming Soon: The Voice of Stephen Polich

A few months ago, I got an email from "someone in Surprise AZ who agrees with you".
Imagine my "surprise" when that person turned out to be
Kerri Gaffield Polich, ex wife to Stephen Polich.

About six months before my ex Beecher & I split up, Stephen married Beecher's "best friend" Kathryn Rock. At that time I was told that Kerri had died of cancer five years prior.
But this was no ghost who contacted me. Kerri is alive and well,
living wth her two daughters by Stephen in Arizona.
After a few emails, Kerri & I spoke on the phone.

Kerri spoke eloquently and openly about the mind control games going in Stephen's household. She verifies my claims that Beecher is being controlled by his housemates.

Kerri has her own horror stories to share~~both she and her elder daughter
endured beatings from Stephen.
So those in the gay community who ignored and/or laughed at my cries for help weren't just enabling the creeps who destroyed my relationship with Beecher, they were enabling a creep who thinks its OK to beat women.

My very next post will contain quotes I got from Kerri Gaffield Polich as to what goes on in that household~~I post them with her permision.
That post will also include links to MP3 audio files of the two court hearings between myself
and members of that household. Those audios prove byond any shadow of a doubt that Kathryn & Stephen Polich resorted to mail tampering, fraud & perjury to get Beecher to live with them and to isolate him not only from me but from all his true friends.
The audios further prove that Beecher's housemates have repeatedly used his disabilities as a control device, and that they "rescued" him from problems they deliberately provoked behind his back.


A few days ago, I got another unexpected email: Niki D'andrea, the out lesbian reporter for the Phoenix New Times who misreported my story last year (deliberately ignoring documentation when she did so) wants to "bury the hatchett." Her email was heartfelt and poignant~~but as I told her privately, in order for us to make peace, she must retract her original story and report the truth.

Niki, as a gay man speaking to a lesbian, I hope you'll listen to those audio files carefully. Then look deep in your heart.
People like Kathryn & Stephen want to hurt us. The legal system in red states like Arizona are behind them, because in Arizona, LGBT people don't count.

I hope you'll do the right thing, Niki.

David Alex Nahmod
SF CA
Nov 2009

The Sweetest Facebook Friend of All

Over the past 1 1/2 years, I've blogged quite a bit about my ex, Beecher. He continues to live in Arizona with Kathryn & Stephen Polich, the conservative anti-gay Christian couple who have literally hijacked and control his life.
Beecher is on SSI.

Two years ago, most likely while in a manic state, Beecher calld me, screaming that I should leave him & his two sons alone~~never mind that I wasn't trying to contact any of them at that time.
I was told that the boys hated me.
I now have proof that he heard this not from his boys but from his housemates Kathryn & Stephen, who lie to him constantly.

Two days ago, one of Beecher's sons added me as a Facebook friend.
In a Facebook message, he said he was glad to be in touch with me and thanked me for my kindness over the years.

I set up my Facebook page a few months ago, but until earlier this week, I didn't maintain it. I had gotten busy with some work related projects, so I didnt post a profile, didn't invite friends, or respond to friend invitations.

But I began working on my page a few days ago and it's been a blast! I've connected with people I lost touch with, including my long lost close friend Hudi, who was my next door neighbor in Tel Aviv Israel nearly 20 years ago.
I hope to take a trip to Israel in 2010 to see him and other friends.

But being added by Beecher's son Scott was sweet. Beecher's anti-gay housemates have put me through a lot~~tampering with his mail, taking out phony restraining orders against me, taunting me behind his back.
Sometimes I dealt with this well, sometimes
not so well~~there were times when I let my anger get the better of me and ranted, to say the least.

Though I know that I could never get back together with Beecher, I always knew that he didn't "hate" me, that he still cares, as do I.

Nothing proves this more that the warm reaction I got from his son.
Thank you, Facebook, for helping Scott & I find each other.

It's my hope that I can get Scott to tell his Dad the truth about what Kathryn
& Stephen have done.
Nothing would make me happier than to get Beecher away from those evil people and back to Connecticut, where his boys miss and
love him.

David Alex Nahmod
SF CA
Nov 2009

When Is It Our Fault?

Two weeks ago, President Obama gladly signed the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill.
The following day, he announced that the HIV travel ban is lifted as of Jan 1st, 2010.
The President has also publicly called for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell & the Defense of Marriage Act.

Yet nationally known gay rights groups and gay activists, many of whom haven't accomplished a thing in years, now complain about how the President is "not keeping his word to us."

Bullshit. Like most of our straight allies, Mr. Obama has done far more to advance LGBT equality than our own good for nothing activists.

When I needed the community's help, scores of gay activists, gay journalists, and every gay rights group that I called, told me to "get over it."
Oh, there was a trickle of support here & there, but not enough to make a difference.

Over at http://www.queerty.com/, I see that about 500 comments per week are being posted by other LGBTs from all over the country who also say that they're tired of our do nothing gay rights groups. They're just us tired as I of the "bitchy queen" back stabbing that passes for our social norm.
What I find so disturbing is that many of those who behave this way justify their actions by hurling false accusations of homophobia at other LGBTs who refuse support gay on gay hate.

In her new book, The Ties That Bind, lesbian author Sarah Shulmann argues that negative, anti-gay reinforcement from our birth families and society in general can and is causing a lot of dysfunctional behavior in LGBT relationships. Dr. Alan Downs, who is also openly gay, makes similar arguments in his book The Velvet Rage.

I completely agree with both authors.

But where dos our own culpability begin?
When is our own behavior our own fault?
When is the lack of support for each other that one finds in the LGBT community, or the rampant bitchy queen/angry dyke nastiness the fault of the perpetrators?
When is it OK to tell those who behave this way to act like adults and accept responsibility for their actions?

And when are our gay rights organizations, who ask for our money, ignore our cries for help, and get nothing done, ever. When do they get held accountable?

When does it become OK for me as a gay man to demand a real community?

David Alex Nahmod
SF CA
Nov 2009

In Defense of NG, part two

A follow-up to this post:
http://davidsopenforum.blogspot.com/2009/10/in-defense-of-ng.html

When a nationally known gay activist "warned" me not to associate with Nelson Garcia, the blogger know as NG, here was the proof I was offered:

http://americansfortruth.com/news/nelson-garcia-aka-ng-blog-boy-lover-with-criminal-child-porn-conviction-blasts-aftah.html

The website is Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. It's run by Peter La Barbera, a conservative "Christian" hatemonger who has also called for all people with HIV to be locked up in internment camps.

If NG really is a "dangerous pedophile", then I want to see actual proof, not the rantings
of a Jesus freak whose only goal is to take rights away from LGBT people.
That a gay activist would consider La Barbera's anti-gay hate as "proof" of another gay man's "guilt" is not only shocking, it's typical of how some of our more famous "activists", and many of our gay rights groups, have conducted themselves for the better part of 30 years.

And that's why we still don't have full equality.
No wonder NG & I sometimes get so angry: look what we have to put up with from our "own people".


David Alex Nahmod
SF CA
Nov 2009

President Obama: A True Friend

I'm so proud of our President today: he signed the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I never doubted your word for a second.

Once again I wish to say that I'm sorry about how much anger I allowed to spill out into this blog in earlier posts.
I was one angry dude~~maybe I still am.
There's just been so little unity in the movement, so much grudge holding, and so much back stabbing. It's been holding us back for years~~I yearn and ache for something better, for a real LGBT community.

It's my fervent hope that the signing of this bill will be the first step towards true LGBT equality in the USA~~and maybe a first step towards healing a fragmented community.

David Alex Nahmod
Oct 2009
SF CA

In Defense of NG

Like me, the blogger known as NG, who I thanked in my last post, has put up with a lot of shit. Both of us have had to contend with simultaneous abuse from anti-gay "Christians" and from self-appointed gay "leaders" who actively seek to crush other LGBT voices.

I can't honestly say that I agree with everything NG says, but that's OK. No two people can agree on everything, but that's no reason to turn against each other, a concept that appears to be lost on much of the gay movement's leadership.
NG is clearly someone who cares deeply about LGBT equality, and about justice.
That makes him OK in my book.

There's a particularly nasty Wiki page, about NG, that's floating around cyberspace.
The page accuses him of all manner of "perversions". Several anti-gay "Christian" groups take credit for having posted this~~they offer no documentation whatsoever as to their claims.

Several gay activists have since "warned" me about NG on the basis of this Wiki page.
As this page offers no documentation, these activists should know better, especially since it comes from a group that identifes itself as anti-gay.

Maybe I'm being simplistic and idealistic, but I expect higher standards from the gay rights movement, which claims to stand for equality and justice.
NG deserves better~~and so do the rest of us.

David Alex Nahmod
Oct 2009
SF CA

Thanks, NG

My recent interview with Judy Shepard, Matt Shepard's Mom, continues to be quite a guiding force for me.
Here's that interview from Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco:
http://ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=books&article=480

I also wrote versions of the Shepard interview for ON Magazine in San Jose CA & Q Notes in North & South Carolina.

My encounter with Judy Shepard's quiet grace & dignity will forever be my role model for dealing with issues that are important
to me. The lack of unity within the LGBT community, the callous disregard that LGBTs
routinely inflict on each other (even when such behavior impedes our fight for equality) continues to be a major bone of contention with me.
I will never again allow myself to express this with anger~~that's what I got from Judy Shepard.

I recently became aquanited with a woman who embodies the very best of what we can be. You may know Molly Mc Kay from her many appearences CNN, MSNBC, etc.
She's a co-founder of Marriage Equality USA, and she's conducted interviews in a wedding dress. It's her shtick, but it works!

Molly doesn't just talk about equality and unity, she lives it. You get no attitude from her. In addition to her activism, she works full time as an attorney~~yet she always has a moment to offer someone a kind word.

In my quest to make things better withn the LGBT community, I interviewed Molly.
Molly's elegant, eloquent words were as wonderfully uplifting and moving as Judy Shepard's.

I'm sorry to say that a man who runs a widely read gay news blog, someone I thought was a friend, now refuses to post either my Judy Shepard or my Molly Mc Kay interviews, because, as he puts it, I'm a bigot.
For daring to speak the truth, for demanding something better, I'm a bigot.
Well, shame on him.

Judy & Molly are putting out messages of love, hope and inclusion~~it's been a long time since I heard these kinds of things spoken of by gay activists who mean it and live it. I don't see how anyone can justify
silencing either of them.
We can't always agree on every talking point, but that shouldn't make enemies: we're all fighting for the same rights and we need each other.
Shutting each other out accomplishes nothing, other than to hold us back.

Last night, Nelson over at NG blog posted my Molly Mc Kay interview.
Though it will appear next month in several print zines, Nelson was the first to publish it. As he put it, we're working towards a common goal.

Right on dude.
Thanks.

Here, from NG Blog, is my interview with Molly Mc Kay:
http://nlsngrc.blogspot.com/2009/10/david-alex-nahmod-molly-mckay-could.html

Erase Hate!

David Alex Nahmod
SF CA
Oct 2009