Editor’s note: This is the second story in a two-part series.
The story so far
Part 1 described gay BC student Jason Medlock’s experience since coming out in Bakersfield in 1993. At the time, he was attending Canyon Hills Assembly of God, a local church with a doctrinal stance against homosexual behavior. Medlock left the church after he says it became clear to him that he was no longer wanted, a charge disputed by pastors.
Medlock went on to attend an Assembly of God school in the Santa Cruz area called Bethany College, but he said he had a similar experience there. Once again, he found himself at odds with traditional Christian teachings.
He ended up back in Bakersfield, pursuing a promising relationship and a new career at State Farm Insurance.
A rocky road
Medlock’s promising new relationship proved to be anything but. His lover turned out to be a methamphetamine addict. Soon, he found himself joining in the drug use.
He said he lost a promising career at State Farm Insurance and was spiralling downward into drug addiction before he ended the relationship (and the drug use) in 2002.
“It was just three years of hell,” he said, “and then I finally realized that that’s not who I was. I don’t want to be a druggie, I don’t want to be a loser.”
He laments his inability to find a suitable partner.
“I want to find a relationship that includes companionship, and trust, and monogamy, and sometimes I feel like that’s things that gay men in general can’t get a grasp on.”
“I am on that eternal search for the love of my life,” he added.
After losing his position at State Farm and declaring bankruptcy, Medlock says he kept himself afloat doing temp work and moonlighting as a performer at Spotlight Theatre.
He said his financial situation drove him to return to school.
“When I got out of the relationship, I was still doing theater and working at Spotlight Theatre for a while, and that’s when I realized ‘I need to get back to school.'”
During his abortive love affair, Medlock said he spent time tutoring his lover’s nephews – one of the few good experiences to emerge from that period. The experience was so positive it inspired him to resurrect his old high school goal of becoming an elementary teacher.
“Being a teacher is probably the most important job in the world,” he said, “because when you think about all the presidents, all our great leaders, all these great people, they all had teachers.”
In the fall of 2002, he returned to BC as a liberal studies major.
Being gay in Bakersfield
Medlock knows that gays are not always welcome here. He compares Bakersfield unfavorably to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“There’s not enough diversity (here), or what diversity is here isn’t recognized,” he said, adding that his degree will be his “ticket out of Bakersfield.”
“What amazes me about Bakersfield is there are a lot of gay people here. There’s a big gay community. Only half of them are out about it because the other half stays in and doesn’t really go out to the bars or anything because the way Bakersfield is, they stay in the closet.”
He remembers the local case of James Merrick, a middle school science teacher who had half his students removed from class because their parents thought he was gay. Merrick wound up as an administrator after his district and the teachers’ union agreed that he had been treated unfairly.
Tai Alvarado, a 26-year-old Cal State Bakersfield student who has been close to Medlock for the past eight years, worries about him as a teacher.
“Unfortunately, when it comes to kids, parents are really crazy. Being a parent myself, I’d be upset if my kid were in a class and his/her classmates’ parents took them out of class because their teacher was homosexual, but I’m very open-minded.”
Medlock has already seen some prejudice in Bakersfield. Usually it’s been nothing more than someone yelling “fag” at him outside one of Bakersfield’s two gay bars.
Earlier this year, something more disturbing took place. While walking between two local gay bars, two men pulled up in a pickup and asked him if he was gay. He said yes, and they squirted pepper spray in his eyes. Medlock was philosophical about the whole incident.
“It could have gotten a lot worse. They could’ve gotten out of the truck and beaten me to a pulp.”
Still, he said he believes gays are on the verge of a civil rights breakthrough, and he remains hopeful that same-sex couples will eventually have the legal privileges that heterosexual couples enjoy.
“In the last 10 years, you’ve seen more people come out than you ever have before, because we’re starting our revolution of saying ‘Hey, we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.'”