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"Seeing with rainbow eyes."
(slightly edited from the original version).
I'm a straight, married guy and I'm okay with that.
My wife and I went to the gay pride parade in Seattle last year and, upon returning to work, I happened to mention it to a former co-worker (got laid off that job) who blinked at me in amazement.
She's one of the nicest people I know, and has dealt with unbelievable hardship over the past few years, including her young son being diagnosed with a serious disease, her teenage daughter committing suicide, and her mother dying of a massive stroke that might have been caught in time if someone had have just noticed what was going on.
She looked at me and asked "why" whe'd gone to the parade. I said it was because we wanted to show our support. Now, she's pretty naive. She's one of those genuinely innocent people, I think, who don't harbor any animosity toward anyone, but has never gone to any trouble to familiarize herself with things outside her own experience. She's had a fairly sheltered existence.
She asked me how I'd respond if one of my boys were to come to me a few years from now and tell me he's gay.
I thought about it, shrugged, and said "I'd tell him to be careful. And that I loved him." I shouldn't have to explain WHY I said that about being careful. I'd say the same thing if he were straight and told me that he was being sexually active.
She nodded, considering. As someone who'd just lost one child, and had reason to fear losing the other one, she seemed to take this in stride.
The basic fact is that I don't care if my boys are gay or straight. I just want them to be good people. Their mother has her own issues, but, from what I can tell so far (I'll know more later after I get to spend some time with each of them this summer) neither of them have picked up on them. She really didn't like being called a bigot during the child-custody hearings, but I think it rocked her back on her heels a little. So far I think she's done a fair job with them, even if we didn't talk for nearly five years.
Long, painful story. It's much better now.
It's funny, but I've accidently become the advocate for gay rights among many people I know. With my dad I just asked "do you remember a time when you CHOSE to be straight?"
To his girlfriend I simply remarked "all of the gays I've ever known were really nice people." She had to agree.
My niece (his girlfriend's granddaughter) wrote an essay at school about it, saying that it's none of anyone's else's business. I just wish I could break her of the whole "that's gay" thing when she means "that's stupid." It's slang and doesn't really mean what it sounds like, but it's offensive. I've chastised her for it.
I think my former co-worker walked away with a slightly different attitude after our talk too.
I proudly stand up for the rights of GLBT people and will never flinch from it. Even here on DU I wince everytime people refer to Annthrax as "Mann Coulter." There are far better things to target her for, even if she IS transgendered. (Especially if she's transgendered, now that I think about it).
I still remember a girlfriend I had when I was eighteen or nineteen. She played Frank in one of Sacramento's Rocky Horror casts. She introduced me to a transgendered friend and I have to say that s/he was one of the neatest people I'd ever met.
Maybe I've always had an open mind in this way. I don't know. But I can't remember ever thinking that there was anything "bad" or "evil" about being gay.
I'll freely admit that I'm one of these horrible guys who thinks that two women making love is extremely erotic. And I married a woman who thinks the same about two guys doing the same.
I'm not sure what that's all about. But, regardless, GLBT folks have me in their corner no matter what.
And that's not a bad thing.
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