I remember vividly the day I realized for the first time that I was in love. A more magical, wonderful moment there has never been. I’d gone through most of my adolescence thinking love and sex were boring, stupid, icky things only jocks and dweebs cared about. And then in an instant the world, and my life, became more richer and fuller then anything I could have ever imagined before. When he smiled, I smiled. When he looked at me a certain way, my heart would skip a beat. Life was more wonderful, more beautiful, then I’d ever thought it could be. Everything my eyes beheld seemed to radiate the joy I felt inside of me. The future beckoned, bright with promise. So long as we could be together I thought, everything was possible. I was 17. He was 17. I would live my entire life over again, and every bully’s fist, every curse, every attack on my person, every assault on my intimate spirituality by piss ignorant bible thumpers, every job I’d ever been fired from for being gay, every opportunity denied, every tear I’ve ever shed in loneliness…I’d live it all over again, so long as I could live that moment over again too.<\/p>\n
Now I’m 53, and desperately lonely. But I know better then to blame my sexual orientation for that. Rather, I never fully appreciate how much harder a gay person has to work at finding their other half, even in the best of tolerant cultures, let alone ours. We are few, and when you realize how hard it is for heterosexuals to find the love of their lives, you wonder how gay people can even hope to stand a chance at it. But many of us do…I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and it is beautiful. Some people are just naturally good at the dating and mating game. But most of us aren’t, and especially the deathly shy and clumsy ones like me. But were I heterosexual, I’d have had the unquestioned support of the culture around me in guidance and nurturing and encouragement. Instead I had to endure not merely indifference, but outright hostility toward my efforts at finding love. I can’t help thinking now, how much different my life might have been had I lived in a culture where same sex lovers were given the same respect, the same chance to succeed, that heterosexuals take for granted. I’d have known earlier on that boys could fall in love with other boys. Perhaps I’d have been more ready when my first love came into my life. Things may have turned out differently. But I didn’t grow up in that culture. I grew up in one where the lives of gay people are the monopoly money with which so many heterosexuals buy their righteousness.<\/p>\n
My fury at the way same sex marriage is under attack is in large measure a reaction to my own loneliness I’m sure. I don’t think even my close friends know how utterly solitary my life is these days. Fighting off the loneliness is a constant battle and it leaves me emotionally drained. And then I hear some self righteous jackass step up to the pulpit to denounce same sex lovers as unfit to enter into the Sanctity Of Marriage and I think of how much that unmitigated contempt for the hearts of gay people has taken away from my own life and I just want to shove their faces into a burning wall. It’s that kind of anger that worries my friends, and I’ve had more then a few recently tell me that I’m getting too angry. But as long as I still believe finding my other half is possible to me, I’m unlikely to act it out. When I meet him, I want to be worthy. But I won’t deny that it is a struggle to keep anger, from becoming hate.<\/p>\n
Sanctity. I’ve loved and lost several more times since I was 17, but even so my dating history is a pitifully short one. I’m just too damn shy. Most of the heterosexuals I knew in school had been on several times as many dates as I’ve ever had by the time they were out of college. You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find prince charming<\/em>, as they say. And it’s true. But when it did happen to me, it was so wonderful, so awesome, so profoundly life affirming that to this day I just can’t grasp what kind of bottomless pit must exist in someone’s heart to make them want to spit on the affections of two people in love. But every time they say they’re fighting to protect the sanctity of marriage, that’s exactly what they’re doing. And I am convinced now, that a lot of them do it knowing full well how deeply it cuts into the hearts of gay people. But if we don’t bleed, they’re not righteous. So we have to bleed.<\/p>\n Sanctity…let me tell you about Sanctity…<\/p>\n\n