Same-sex marriage may seem to be the ultimate goal for many gay people but for many, it is just being treated the same as everyone else, without condemnation. Personally, I do not intend on every getting married (save the exhortations please) because it just is not something I want. I like living alone and at my age, I am way too stuck in my ways to share a home, let alone a bed, with another man.
What I do want is the same rights as everyone else when it comes to employment, renting or buying a home, or if I choose to, holding hands across a restaurant table with someone I am on a date with, without a religious person saying I should be ashamed, because I am not ashamed. I am not flaunting it in their face either, I am just doing what straight people feel comfortable with, and I should not be treated differently by doing it.
I am not transgender but if I were, I would also like to be treated the same by choosing to dress the way I feel comfortable dressing and going to the restroom I feel most comfortable using, without fear of arrest. I also would like to be treated the same as everyone else – if I was transgender that is – when it comes to employment and renting or buying a home.
There are many who think LGBT people are asking to be treated special, by what I read on social media. I do not know how they come up with this assumption but I do not know one single gay person or transgender person who wants special treatment. I have never heard of one instance where a gay person has asked to be given special rights over straight people.
One thing that really bothers me is when a straight person says that gay people choose to be gay. They use words like “lifestyle” and “behavior” to describe a gay person’s sexual orientation. I would like to inform them that gay people all have different lifestyles. I like staying home most of the time and watching movies, playing video games. I am not into bars and I am not an outdoors person, nor do I enjoy sports, playing or watching. Some gay people love to party and some love to play or at least watch sports, just as straight people do. Some gay people like to participate in outdoors activity, such as fishing, camping and hunting. We are a diverse group of people, because we have different lifestyles. One’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with the lifestyle they choose.
We also do not have a particular behavior problem because we are gay. True, certain gay people behave badly, but so do straight people. However, just being gay does not mean one behaves badly. Some same-sex couples are as faithful to each other as any straight couple is, and there are probably same-sex couples who run around on each other and cheat, just as straight people do.
When it comes to fidelity, honesty, trustworthiness, dependability, etc. gay people probably average out about the same as straight people. Some can do a great job raising children and some should never raise children. I am one of those people who should never raise children because I just do not have the patience with children that others have. Oh, I love them dearly and feeding hungry children in poor countries is one of my passions but kids are for other people to raise, not me. Still, many of my gay brothers and sisters can, or do, make excellent parents; just as well as straight people can or do.
It is not our differences that defines us but our similarities with our straight counterparts. Most of us are probably progressive liberals because being gay opens your mind to the differences of others but some of us, for whatever reason, are conservative, at least in some areas, such as fiscal policy or foreign policy. Some gay people do not even believe we should have the right to marry. Of course, I think those particular gay people are about as ignorant as some straight people I know but it does go to show you that we are not the same in so many ways.
There is no gay agenda, and if there is, it is simply to be treated equally. We also would like to be given the benefit of a doubt that our sexual orientation is not something we choose. Attitudes among younger gays may be different now but I do know growing up in the ‘70s, it was not easy being gay. I know if I could have changed my sexual orientation back then, I would have in an instant.
It was a lonely world living in a straight world where those around you talked about homosexuality as though it was the worst thing ever. It was as though we had no right to even live, let alone be given rights. Many religious people still feel that way toward gay people. They take every opportunity they can to spew their hateful feelings toward LGBT members, quoting their favorite Bible scriptures to support their hate, picking and choosing which ones they follow and which ones they do not follow. It is obvious they have created their own Jesus, who is nothing like the one portrayed in the Bible, who was full of love and compassion for sinners. I do not know where they found this other Jesus, perhaps in their own imaginations.
For me, it was also frightening back then and all I wanted to do was run as fast as I could away from my sexual orientation. I tried a few time to take my own life, hoping God would forgive me, because no matter how much I prayed, I was still gay and I could not stop being gay, no matter what I felt the Bible said. I do hope that has changed or is changing, because LGBT children should not have to hate being what they are, and it is wrong for religious people to try making them hate themselves, because there is nothing Christian about it.
Gay people have the capacity for love and for hate the same as straight people. We have the capacity for compassion the same as we have the capacity for selfishness. There is nothing special about us, though many of us are creative, insightful, and perhaps innovative. I do not know if that comes from being gay or from just the experience of being gay in a straight world, but perhaps God has a way of gifting those whose road has been fraught with pain and anguish, as it has been for so many LGBT members over the course of history. I also know many African-Americans who are gifted with such great talent in music and sports, as though God seen fit to grant those gifts after all the heartache they have gone through in life, with their ancestors and even now with the way police profile them.
Life is such a wondrous mystery to us all and we have all been put here with all our differences and with all our similarities, not to hate each other but to understand and respect each other. For those who would stand in the way using religion to justify their hate and bigotry, to separate us all, perhaps in the end, the only people who will be left standing out in the cold will be them. Perhaps it will be with a confused look on their faces, wondering with the same ignorance they have always shown with their hateful words, why the gays got in and they did not.