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DALE SORENSON'S LIFE STORY SO FAR

It seems a bit odd to be publishing a life story when (hopefully) most of my life is still ahead of me. But here it is anyway.

MY FIRST LIFE - CHILDHOOD & ADOLESCENCE

I was born on December 21, 1968 in San Francisco. My parents chose to leave SF when I was seventeen months old. I've never forgiven them for that.

From there we went to Mountain View California (about an hour south of SF) until I was 7. Then we moved to Hollywood, Florida (just outside of Ft. Lauderdale). We lived there for two years and then moved again.

From age 9 to age 25 I was raised against my will in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was not a pleasant place to grow up. I attended East High School (the same high school my father attended) and the University of Utah. Ironically, my high school is where in 1995, the founding of the Utah Gay/Straight High School Students Alliance sparked a controversy that became national news. Brave kids!

I'm the oldest of five children. As such, I had a rather large hand in raising my siblings. (I've changed more diapers than most straight parents ever will.)

(Photo note: That white streak in the water was the trail left by a submarine heading out to sea! Neato, eh?)

MY SECOND LIFE - COMING OUT

At age 20, on May 6, 1989, I came out of the closet. It changed my life forever. On that day, I decided I would never again let anyone make me ashamed for being gay. In one day, being gay changed from being a bad thing to be hidden, to a good thing to be expressed.

Within two months I came out to my entire family, all my friends and my coworkers. It wasn't always easy. But it was always worth it. I refer to this as, "Dale's Whirlwind Coming Out Tour of '89".

I joined Utah Gay and Lesbian Youth and later was elected to serve as one of the group's officers. I joined the Lesbian & Gay Student Union at the University of Utah, the Gay and Lesbian Community Council and started volunteering for the Stop AIDS education and prevention project of the Utah AIDS Foundation.

I went on to become an executive officer of Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats (GLUD) for four years, including executive director from 1992-1994. GLUD was founded by my dear friend David Nelson. David is a brilliant political strategist, organizer, PR consultant and was my political mentor. His decades of volunteer service and leadership have earned him a place in history, and my undying respect and appreciation. GLUD operated with great success from January 1990 through December 1996.

In the summer of 1992, I was elected to be the first openly-gay delegate to a national convention from Utah. I attended the Democratic National Convention in New York City. While there I met dozens of Democratic politicians and queer activists, and I also fell in love with New York City. (The photo in this section is from a reception held during the convention.)

I've held numerous positions in different campaigns of progressive causes (gay rights, AIDS, reproductive choice, anti-death penalty, interracial and inter-community coalition building) and democratic candidates and committees (Congressional campaigns, state legislature campaigns, county commission campaigns, campaign for governor and attorney general, state platform committee and more).

I served as member of the board of directors of the Utah Stonewall Center for two years. I helped organize events for Utah's Gay Pride Day and National Coming Out Day. For several years, I was the Utah Canvas Director for the Human Rights Campaign, Speak Out Project.

These activities put me in the position of being the most-publicly-out gay man in Utah for about three years. I was in the press at least monthly, often weekly, sometimes daily. It was not uncommon for issues I was working on to be the lead story on all four TV news stations and run front page in both daily papers. Not surprisingly, after five years of full-time volunteer activism in addition to a full-time career in advertising, I burned out.

I discovered that my emotions and I were strangers. I was so driven, so rational, so cerebral, that I quite literally didn't know how to feel love or anything else. I realized I had accomplished everything I could politically, and that my life was at an emotional dead end in Utah. So, as an act of self preservation, I left.

MY THIRD LIFE - NEW YORK CITY

I decided to go to the place I'd experienced the strongest emotions I'd ever experienced, New York City. I moved here in October of 1994. Since then I've been much more private. (In fact, this little adventure in Internet self promotion is the most public thing I've done in years.)

I found myself....

And, here I am.

I'm always trying to take maximum advantage of the cultural opportunities that exist here. I love the theater, independent/foreign film, dining out and museums. The Guggenheim is a particular favorite of mine; I'm a member.

This photo is the view from the apartment I lived in for my first year in the City. It was on 42nd Street between 11th and 12th Avenues, above a greasy Greek diner for tourists, between the Chinese Consulate and the NYC Police Department Cavalry Station. Yikes! To be honest, it wasn't that bad. I had tons of space cheap, a great view, and it was so far west that it was actually past the bad neighborhoods.

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

Charles Darwin's insights were brilliant, but he lacked the technology to complete his understanding of natural selection. Neo-Darwinism is the field of science that has arisen from applying knowledge of genetics achieved this century to the framework Darwin laid 150 years ago.

I find learning about our origins and the evolution of life and consciousness to be fascinating and exhilarating. I'm particularly interested in cognitive science (research into the workings of the human mind), space exploration, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and cosmology. Understanding the incredible intricacy of life and the grandeur of the universe fills me with a sense of wonder and a passion for living.

I'm an atheist, neo-Darwinist. I've accepted the fact that I will only ever have one life. There were no past ones. There will be no future ones. And so I've resolved to get everything I possibly can out of this, my one and only life.

If you'd like to learn more about science, the origins of life and the universe and what understanding, purpose, meaning and morality can be derived from understanding these things, I suggest the following books. The insights they offer have changed my life forever.

Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Kinds of Minds

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden - A Darwinian View of Life

Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time-From the Big Bang to Black Holes

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot - A Vision of the Human Future in Space, The Demon-Haunted World, Billions and Billions, Contact, Cosmos - the PBS series now available on DVD

Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, Why We Are the Way We Are

Rudy Rucker, The Fourth Dimension, A Guided Tour of Higher Universes

Michio Kaku, Hyperspace

I also highly recommend the movie Contact, based on the novel by Carl Sagan. Here are some concept illustrations from the movie.

As you can probably tell by now, I am a great admirer of the late Dr. Carl Sagan. I feel a deep personal loss at his death in 1996. It was his life ambition to share the sense of beauty, wonder and inspiration that the pursuit of science and exploration of space offers us all. He has left a body of work that inspires and challenges us to fulfill our human potential.

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