The Highway.com

“They are an abomination before God!”  The words popped up on my screen in bold red font, the sentiment usual fare for the current forum, an AOL Christian chat room.  They  described yet another scapegoat for the Christian Fundamentalist‘s hatred, the homosexual.  Mention the possibility that someone is gay, and it touches a crude core of disgust within  many people, how unnatural it seems.  To my shame I have to admit that I used to be one of them.

For the longest time I was homophobic, seeing  homosexual men as having something seriously wrong with them. While I could easily relate to two women having sexual relations,  as a heterosexual male, I could not even begin to understand how two men could find each other attractive, let alone sexually desirable.  Burned within me were the stereotypical renditions of gay men:  flamboyant, feminine, floating through life as they floated through relationships. 

Little did I know how wrong I was.

A Place to Start

(August,2002)

While writing a book on an unrelated topic, I had the fortune to cross paths with several people who happened to be gay. These were real people, no different than me or anyone else.  Each had hopes and dreams, looking to find a place to fit in, call home in life.  Many of them were just looking for love; just as many had found it.  These were not the prancing, lisping men with limp wrists, who chose to be the way they are.  They were virtually indistinguishable from any “normal” human being.  Had I not been made aware of their sexuality, I never would have guessed.  Had it not been the issue that brought me into their world, I would have seen them as no different than me. I seriously began to question what I had always thought to be true.  I decided to get to know the people I had been afraid of for so long.

“When did you discover you were gay?”  I asked many, a bull stumbling though a china shop on three hooves, pulling the fourth out on my mouth.

“When did you discover you were straight?”  The sentiment was echoed repeatedly. 

My ignorance clearly showed in what I discovered to be an insult. For all I knew, I didn’t have a clue.  What I believed was a choice no different than what clothes I would wear the next day,  was anything but. They did not wake up one morning to a glorious revelation that they wanted to be different.  They realized that they were different, and the only choice open to them was to be what they were made to be, or to create a lie. The lie would make them safe, unnoticed, yet unfulfilled, unable to fully give of themselves or to appreciate the gift of someone else.  The truth would make them hated, ridiculed, mocked, cast out from society, yet able to love and be loved fully, completely.

They chose what I would have. . . the truth.

I had come to see them for the first time as individuals, not characters or statistics.  They were real people living real lives, some no different than mine. While some had not found the one they would settle down with, just as many had.  Some had the rare privilege of finding a pastor who would guide them through their vows; others made due with what the law and prejudices of society would allow, yet the commitment was no less sincere.  I remember talking with one man in particular, who had built a home and a life with his spouse of eighteen years.  Listening to him talk about his life, I often forgot that his spouse was also a man, the life he led no different than mine or anyone else’s.  That they loved each other was easy to see.

That they had found happiness was something I could relate to, being married myself to a wonderful woman for the past twenty one years.  In an age where divorce is as common as marriage itself, to be able to boast of our mutual longevities is truly rare. 

How could anybody ever think to call a commitment like that an abomination before God?

How could anybody really look at love, a real genuine love, as wrong?

While I have shed most of my homophobia in coming to know some pretty incredible people, I know that I still have more to work on.  Some things, like the common exchanges between a couple in love,  I know will become easier for me to accept with the passage of time, but I also know that I am better off not knowing the details about certain things.  I would never want to know those things in any relationship. Why should I change who I am there?  

Does accepting gays make me gay? 

No!

I will always be who I am, a happily married heterosexual man.  Do I worry that they will hit on me?  I used to, but now know that was the arrogance of my ego speaking.  Do I feel self conscious around them when they innocently banter?  Sometimes (which also raised my awareness of how I make women feel when I do it to them).  Do I see them as any different than I am?Yes, but life would be boring, if we were all the same.  Do I think they should be allowed to marry?  I think it is a crime that they are not, especially when they find love that could last a lifetime.   Love is a rare gift to be cherished and shared, not denied for any reason.  Do I think they should be considered a minority, treated as such? For now, it may have to be to guarantee them fair treatment under the law.

Maybe someday all of us, gay and straight, will look at each other and see only people with one thing in common: the need to love and be loved.

In my humble opinion,  maybe one man shedding his homophobia is a place to start.