We were in San Francisco the day of the Pride Parade but I’m sorry to say we missed the main events. With New York finally coming on board with their adoption of a same sex marriage bill, there was plenty to celebrate and it was supposed to have been awesome. California is still suffering the setback caused by some overzealous Mormons with deep pockets, but Proposition 8 is bound to come down. It’s only a matter of time.

I’m looking forward to a time when this sort of thing is as mundane, when loving couples aren’t singled out and discriminated against because they happen to have the same toolset downstairs. Perhaps that’s too hopeful. There are always going to be douchebags who would do anything to sever the rights of any group of people they frown upon. We’re hoping for a governmental policy change and as much societal change as is possible.

I’m sorry to say that I used to be in the camp of those who loved to hate. Of course, we fundies called it, hate the sin, love the sinner. Ugh. What a crock of shit. When I was in high school and a devout Baptist, we had a pastor who loved to talk about the evils of anal sex. He had reams of Christian-biased “studies” that went into explicit details regarding all sorts of things that apparently every gay person did with the ol’ turd cutter and how angry it made baby Jesus.

I know this because in my creative writing class, we had to write a paper in which we took a side on something controversial. I hate to admit this, but I wrote a paper on all the evils of homosexuality and used a bunch of bullshit studies provided by my pastor as research. My controversial paper’s subject was nothing more than a denouncement of butt-sex in a feigned scientific tone. And I got a fucking A. I feel dirty, and it’s not because my pastor’s literature introduced me to such terms as rimming. It’s because in my ignorance and conceit, I accepted and parroted that nonsense without giving it a second thought. Being an anti-gay Christian is all about accentuating the ewwwww factor, and that absurd indoctrination the most disgusting thing of all.

Most of my life was lived as a devout Christian fundamentalist. I know that when the subject of homosexuality comes up, most fundies can’t get past their mental picture of a two dudes going at it. I’m pretty sure that straight Christian men think more about gays having sex than do homosexuals. They are obsessed. It’s all they see.

Fundies often refuse to see people as people when it comes to gay tolerance. It doesn’t matter how skewed their frightful image of what physical love between same-sex couples may be, they can’t separate their picture of what might be happening behind closed doors from the people involved. I find this sadder and sadder every day. Why the consensual sex acts of any adults are the business of holier-than-thou, complete strangers is beyond me. It’s unnerving that their obsession with other people’s sex lives has such a stranglehold on public policy.

A few months after my wife and I were married, I made a comment about how the whole push for gay marriage made so much more sense to me. I was greeted with a confused and distrustful gaze until I assured her that, indeed I was straight, but that I understood things much better. Relationships and marriage aren’t defined by the hanky-panky that goes on behind closed doors between consenting adults. It’s so much more than that. I love my wife completely. I can’t imagine being without her or even away from her for an extended period. To think that some selfish twats want to ruin that kind of relationship for people with matching bits just sickens me.

I applaud the gay community for the pride they carry and for the strength which they’ve gained. It’s a movement which can’t be stopped; only stalled. Equality will come. I disdain the type of person I was when I focused on all the wrong things. I look forward to the day when this is just another surprising period in our history books: one in which a bunch of douchebags wanted to deny equal rights to all but were eventually overcome.