blogger interrupted

I’ve been conflicted over writing about Prop 8 in California, the measure to revoke gay marriage which passed narrowly on November 4.  Then I saw this comment from Keith Olbermann, which really got to me, and then someone who cares sent me this comment from Andrew Sullivan.

The religious folk who believe that Jesus stood for the marginalization of minorities, and who believe that my equality somehow threatens their children, will, I pray, see how misguided they have become. And make no mistake: they won this by playing on very deep fears of gay people around kids. They knew the levers to pull.

But some perspective from someone who has fought this fight as long and as personally as anyone in this country. Twenty years ago, equality of gay couples was a mere idea. Forty years ago, it was a pipe-dream. 

The issues of black civil rights and gay civil rights are identical in their genesis – people who are different from the majority fighting for the rights the majority take for granted.  It’s why the gay rights movement is growing, getting more mainstream every day, and taking on a hue of struggle.  It’s an inevitable evolution, and a good one.  And Olbermann’s comment ties them together perfectly, noting that in 1967 blacks couldn’t marry whites in a third of the states Barack Obama now leads.  

But for me, as a guy who once hid in a closet that destroyed his life utterly, this debate is more personal, and harder for me to get my head around.  I’m bisexual, and a day doesn’t go by that this essence of who I am catches me by surprise, and re-ignites a little of the outwardly imposed “shame” that this bizarre world places on the “different”.  It shouldn’t be this way – but a small minority of haters makes sure that it is.

For example, last night I was in a bar hitting on a girl who was there for open mike, and it felt as normal as anything.  Other nights I’m hitting on a guy with the same excitement and thrill of the chase.  This level of humanity, instead of being just another brush stroke in the masterpiece that is life, rather than being celebrated, or even accepted, or even “tolerated”, is somehow so odd, so threatening to others, that the word “shame” is the only way to describe the source of my surprise at my own being.  

I don’t get “surprised” by my bisexuality because it’s kinda cool that I’m this unique.  I’m “surprised” when I feel these things because an instinct remains inside me to hide it, thanks to things like Prop 8.  No matter how thoroughly destroyed my closet is, the outside world is still there, waiting to shove me back into it.  I’m learning to hold out my uniqueness as a source of pride and awe, even virtue, and over time, I’m learning to let that “surprise” catch me, and instead of getting scared by it, laugh about it.  And learning to accept myself enough to know that whoever decides to fall in love with me someday will be one lucky SOB.

But it ain’t easy.  Because people like those who voted for Prop 8 are still out there, still infecting this country with their petty self-loathing and ignorance to the point of putting it into law.  It’s the same reason a stupid mistake I made 7 years ago this month still haunts me, instead of disappearing into the sands of time.  Fear of “the other” has a permanent place in our society, and the only way to beat it back is with a fight.

I’m not that concerned about marriage – it is a known joke.  I have friends whose marriages are nothing more than a DNA connection with their offspring.  I have relatives who cling to marriage as their one source of worth as human beings even as that source is toxic to them and all around them.  You can have marriage, I don’t want it.  But if some people do want marriage, they should have it.  

My concern is that my life is often governed by this ignorance and hate, too, often to the point that I am made to feel scared by who I am.  I’m not going to let that happen anymore, and I’m quite certain that the Prop 8 debate, hotter now than it was even before election day, will find that other Americans refuse to let that happen anymore, too.  And I stand with them.