On Thursday, October 18 I returned to my hometown of Miami, Oklahoma to sell and sign my book Open: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Sexuality in the Heartland.  For the first time I was doing a public event in my hometown as an out gay man.

I pulled up to the back entrance of Chapters, the local bookstore on Main Street.  Long ago public parking lots were built behind the stores on Main Street and those stores created back entrances.  When I was a kid this was the primary way most people visi...