i grew up relatively privileged. white, middle-class, christian-in-the-south, and straight. i was fairly liberal as white christian southerners go, so i was fine with “the gays” being around, but i was pretty certain they were going to hell. i was very much in the “but some of my best friends are gay!” camp (although that should have been modified to “teachers and co-workers”, because i was much too good of a christian to have actual friends who didn’t follow the word).
things were going pretty well in this bent for a long time. i went to college, fully prepared to become a music minister for the methodist church. i joined up with UMCM (united methodist campus ministry) on campus and was intrigued to find that it had a pretty high concentration of gay members. even some of the student leadership was gay. again, being relatively liberal, i went with it, and found that i really liked some of these kids. some of them were much more christian than a lot of the people i’d known growing up.
at my campus job, there was this really sweet, kind of dorky guy, who seemed pretty intent on developing a friendship. in my massive naivete, i believed he had a crush on me (FYI, my gaydar hasn’t gotten just a whole lot better). turns on, he was gay, and apparently thought i already knew, because i actually found out via one of our other co-workers, to whom he had come out on national coming out day. again, i had a little bit of a moment, but went with it.
so, life goes on in college and i discover that “the gays” aren’t all that bad, and a LOT of them, at least in this area, believe in all the same things i do, except for that little bit in Leviticus. this led me down a path that ended with my picture on the front page of our campus paper, decrying a move by UMCM’s new leader to keep homosexual students out of the leadership by forcing everyone to sign an abstinence until marriage clause.
so, that’s the pre-lude to the best part of my story. i continued to be active in our GLBSO (gay, lesbian, & bisexual student organization – T & Q weren’t on our radar yet) until graduation, when i went into “the real world”. as an aside, the real world sucks. pretty much. i had lots of reasons to know this already, but there were a couple of shitty-ass years there. eventually, though, the suckage stopped and i landed a decent, if not what i was looking for, job. over these years, i dated a few guys, 2 of which i was pretty damned serious about and pretty much planned to marry. so, i get to this job and one of the first people i encounter who seems worth talking to is this girl, deanna. i only met her once, at a happy hour, before she took another job. i was a little disappointed, but you get over these things. i made other friends there. after about a year, a new girl joined my team. my gaydar still may be a little off, but the lesdar has always been a little better. via some clues, she figures out that i’m “gay-friendly” and we start talking and going to lunch and what not.
i don’t know, maybe 2 months later, i hear someone mention that the girl from happy hour is back. i think, “cool, i liked her”. also, new friend and i can recruit her to our non-suburban, liberal lunch group (gawd, this place was painfully stifling for the socially conscious person). sure enough, they start hanging out, along with their girlfriends, outside of work, and i get to see them at work and develop a pretty good work friendship. time passes, the HH girl breaks up with her girlfriend, and i become a sort of confidante about how to handle some weirdness in that process. through a coincidence of over crowding, my desk is moved over to just one row away from hers, so we talk a lot more, and start getting closer. she’s advising me on my latest disaster of a boyfriend, and i’m advising her about what kind of apt to get to avoid the lesbian-uhaul syndrome. somewhere in this process, i break up with the disaster and realize that i’ve got more than a good friendship desire going here. i find excuses to go sit at her desk and accidentally bump my leg against hers. it’s SCARY. i don’t know what to do, but i like it. i like her. aside from my preconceptions about what i need under the pants, she’s actually got everything i want.
*shorter next few months*
BUT!!! WHAT?!?! i can’t be a lesbian!! i can’t date girls! i’m straight! WTF?!?!?!!!!!eleventy-one!!!!!
around christmas, i finally gave up and realized that i was full-blown in love with this woman and weren’t nuthin’ gonna stop it.
that christmas was almost 2 years ago, and i’m still full-blown, crazy as a bat/fox/loon in love with her. we’re planning what will have all the trappings of a wedding and will count as such for us, because our state doesn’t recognize the most important, longest lasting, most stable relationship of my life as more legitimate than any one-night-stand i could have had. i could have taken any one of the disasters to vegas and had a wedding that would, apparently, support and over-mine the sanctity of every straight marriage that ever was or ever will be. but, because we both are lacking the penis, all of the work we’ve put into this relationship and all of the plans we’ve made, and will make, for our lives and our future children’s lives, is irrelevant.
there are a lucky few in this great country, whose states recognize that work and recognize their worth as equal members of society, deserving of the same recognition and protection, as those privileged enough to live in the heterosexual world of romance. don’t let fear of the unknown and the false take that away. if you’ve got the power to vote in california, please do. if you’ve got a few extra dollars, send it their way for a last minute advertising blitz. if all you have is time, blog, email, call, or pray for them. do whatever you can to take down proposition 8 and say that you believe all i, and so many millions of others have gone through, was real and worthy of your support.
