How can there still be people in my life who claim they love me and care about me and YET still qualify their "love" by saying crap like "I don't agree with your lifestyle," or call being gay a "choice?" WTF?
The truth is, any argument or retort I might have to offer these people tends to be a waste because their minds don't ever want to be changed, they're almighty in their assertion that they are right, and I, therefore, must be wrong.
I suppose I'm just as guilty of that logic.
Point me, if you will, or if you can, to any credible evidence that proves I ever had any choice in being gay.And don't quote me any lemming bible - that is NOT evidence.
Because all evidence I have is to the contrary.
I know many folks who live a falsehood, by hiding their true selves in an unsatisfactory marriage or lonely bachelorhood - wishing, of course, to avoid the "consequences" of being "out." They forget that they are involving innocents in their deceptions - spouses, children, family and friends.
Had I made that "choice," I'm sure I would have committed suicide many years ago, or at the very least, have been victim to severe depression or other mental disorder.
My "lifestyle" is NOT about sex, or lust, or debauchery.
It's about identity, and about having the capacity to love a PERSON, and gender has little to do with it.
And don't tell me "don't knock it until you try it," because not only have I tried it (relationships with women), but I challenge you to find a vehemently straight person who felt the need to "try it" with a same-gendered partner before they "knew" they were straight. They KNOW they're straight, same as I know I'm gay.
And I refuse to live a lie, especially not to satiate religious, societal or moral expectations of a misled and misinformed group of people or individual.
So, I am forced to move beyond such arguments with people who might never be convinced by logic. Instead, I'm forced to examine the importance of my relationships with such people: Just how important is "family?" My assertion is that "family" is defined by people who actually ACT LIKE IT, and most times has absolutely NOTHING to do with blood ties. And in that sense, family is very important to me.
My assertion is that love of a person is unconditional, but the degree in which I need that person involved in my life is directly related to my comfort level with that person. Obviously, if they're willing to try, so am I, and in doing so, I might gently change their minds through example - through them seeing that my relationship has richness, fulfillment, quality - and genuine love. They may be able to see that whatever prejudice or preconceived notion they may have about a gay person is changed by their willingness to care, to be involved, to be open-minded.
With such open-minded or open-hearted people, it is easy to see a clear path for association, for friendship, for quality relations.
But just how (and why) do I need a person in my life who is closed in mind and heart? Shall I just dismiss them, count them out, edit them out of my life? Should they be deleted (in modern terms) from my Facebook, my twitter, my newsfeed? Should I recognize that they are unchangeable, immovable, hopeless - in terms of their capacity for unconditional love?
One thing I know for sure: I'm NOT editing my life for their personal comfort - NOR should they. Certainly they are entitled to their opinion, and I defend their right to do so, just as surely as I defend my own right. But i don't have to compromise my integrity, my happiness or my identity.
But I have to ask, if that is their mindset - if their hearts are truly closed, why do they insist on calling me "family?" Are they relying too heavily on a deep-rooted "traditional" definition of the word?
If "family" is so important to them, why does it seem to come with conditions (I love you but I don't agree with your lifestyle...), with prerequisites (we don't talk about, or just simply ignore, the "gay" thing)?
I'm left with the only logical conclusion - and that is simply that they're leaving a door open for dialogue, whether it be locked, barred, bolted, welded or otherwise - the door is still there, and I should not give up hope. If the door wasn't there, why do they bother? Why not just simply be completely uninvolved? Why include me in their life at all?
So with that in consideration, I have to study intent. Perhaps the phrasing, the word choice, is a an accidental offense, one that comes from a lack of familiarity or association with real-live-gay-people. Perhaps they simply do not know they are being offensive.
So, I'll just continue to be myself. They can continue to be themselves. Perhaps by continued association, we will both learn the intent of the other, and it won't be so bad as it was in my head. There are keys to locks, pry bars for bolts, the inclined plane was invented for exactly this purpose. The gentle wedge shall prevail.
And if it doesn't, time will solve it, eventually - TIME - the simplest machine of them all.
I think that perhaps some folks just don't know how else to talk about it. They don't realize that the term "lifestyle choice" was for years used to demonize and belittle gay people, and thus using it today carries a hurtful negative connotation. Even the Catholic Church has agreed that being gay is not a choice. And as people have learned more about what being gay ACTUALLY is (which is far more conventional in reality than most people guess), the use of that kind of terminology has become stale and dated. But it still pops up from time-to-time from folks stuck with 80's logic. Remember, when we came out, there was no internet, no gay-support chat rooms, no gay-straight student support groups, nothing. We know it's not a choice because we grew up in a generation where very, very few would ever purposely choose to be gay. Where being gay was a family tragedy, filled with questions of "where-did-I-go-wrong" and painful, tear-laden coming-out conversations. But we did it, because we knew that it was who we are, who we were born to be, and there was no way to compromise without betraying our true, whole selves. No, being gay was never a "lifestyle choice", but living openly and honestly, that's a choice we are proud to have made. So don't let a misinformed relation dredging up tired, decades-old rhetoric get you down. I guarantee you for every crusty relation who still believes it, there are any number of others who have seen your example of living openly and honestly and have had a change of heart, no matter how subtle, and that is what makes all the difference in the end.
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