Well, there's one thing that you will find in Bakersfield that most liberals don't believe actually exists: Lots of good, loving Christian people who will accept you as you are, even if they may have a different point of view as it concerns the issue of sexual orientation. 

Welcome to Bakersfield!  If anybody tries to drive you out of town, I've got your back. 

Very thoughtful, Whitney. You can run but you can't hide.  The whole appeal of your blog, to me, is that one's home belongs to them no matter what any other may say. It's a noble and good thing to insist on your place at the table.  I wish I had your tolerance for pain, however.  I lived most of my adult life in Fresno, was out, but not in any kind of political way. Just wouldn't lie about being gay. Had it not been for the violence directed towards my family, I would have lived my entire life in Fresno, no doubt. But when you must protect your child and husband, and the police won't do anything to help, what alternative does a family have?  

We moved from Fresno for our safety and because the vandalism of our property, the harassment and job discrimination we endured, was too much to ask any family to shoulder. It gives me the shivers to remember it; be deaf and lying in my bed at night wondering if someone was shooting a gun at my home and family again, wondering how much it would cost me to get the spray paint off of my driveway and house, wondering if some other school district official would call ahead on my next teaching job interview to destroy my chances of working in a job I took seven years of college to prepare for.  All these troubles made our decision easy. We got out. My husband, after nearly 50 years and I after 22 years in Fresno. It's not easy to pick up and leave but we had to say goodbye to all that.

Live your life as you see fit.....BUT....I am obligated to let you know ...being gay is wrong in the eyes of the Lord.

Thanks for the feedback, Timec. Just don't shoot anybody, vandalize their property, bully their kids, discriminate in employment or housing or expect any gays and lesbians to like paying taxes that provide you with benefits that don't benefit gays & lesbians on an equal basis. I'm glad your eternal salvation is assured. But while you're here on earth, try a little Christian love toward your neighbor and speak up when someone seeks to harm your neighbor. Heaven is your reward for doing so.

I am not trying to be a smart a**, but I'd like to know what makes your partner the one that is the Husband. I hope you can answer the question without being insulting. I want to try to understand something I just don't.

I also do many things that are wrong in the eyes of God, but, with all due respect to you, timec, and your beliefs (many of which I'm sure we share)  I wouldn't want that to be the first thing somebody points out to me when I first introduce myself. 

In fact, I probably wouldn't receive that too well from anybody, especially from someone who had never taken the time to get to know me as a person. 

It is cheaper to live in Bako than L.A. or S.F.

You'll have to forgive some of my conservative Christian friends.  They may have forgotten the parable involving Jesus and the woman at the well. 

It is easy to throw stones, but we must look at the example of Christ, and listen to the song that sangs, "They will know we are Christians by our love."  

Does that mean we have to agree with their ways?  No, but we must approach every person with a sense of humility and not a spirit of self-righteousness. 

Blogroll 

I have posted on one or her blogs before so she is not new to TBC. I remember seeing her pictures on her wedding day.

HM

You can bet this. I will never treat anyone bad due to them being gay. Gays are everywhere and I don't treat them any differently. I also pay taxes and I am discriminated against........it's called life. I have gay co workers that I have tremendous respect for I just don't approve of their lifestyle. If one of my children told me they were gay.....my world would crumble....but I would not love my son or daughter any less.

 I am not trying to be a smart a**, but I'd like to know what makes your partner the one that is the Husband. I hope you can answer the question without being insulting. I want to try to understand something I just don't.

It's certainly an innocent question. I've refrained from answering it when it was posed by certain others who posed it to mock me.  It's the tradition in most of the world to refer to a male as a husband. In a same-sex marriage, that would mean there are two husbands or two wives.  So, in my home we do, indeed, refer to each other as "my husband".  In the old days, when marriage was an impossibility, gays joking used the term husband to refer to their long time partner.  Not any more. It's now taken seriously. Gay people call it what it is these days. They make clear distinctions between whom is "partnered" (meaning in a legal domestic partnership) and who is married.  For a very, very long time the disclosure by some opposite-sex "married" guy that he was married drew a near universal hostility when he was cruising some gay guy for sex.  Gay people saw that as someone who was really gay, but was married to a woman, and was willing to allow gay people to do all the heavy lifting in gaining the rights of citizens while this "married" guy never had to take any heat. He just reaped the sexual rewards, but never lifted a finger to keep some gay guy from losing his home or job via discrimination.

Now, gays see "husband" as telling it like it is.  It's a badge of honor to be a husband, even when it refers to to men. It's a badge of honor to be a wife, even if it refers to two women who are married to one another.  That's the real, honest answer and one of the great emotional benefits of being married. 

I know that parable. Jacob's well. Jesus told her to get him a drink of water. She stood up to him, and Jesus scolded her for having been married five times and for presently shacking up with some guy. Jesus won the argument, but I don't remember if she ever got him a drink of water or not.

Hate the sin not the sinner.

I'll be the first to admit.....it is way easier said than done. :-O

Lots of good, loving Christian people who will accept you as you are, even if they may have a different point of view as it concerns the issue of sexual orientation. 

How many of them will vote to take away this nice lady's marriage rights in November?  Those ones are neither "good" nor "loving."

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I am not trying to be a smart a**, but I'd like to know what makes your partner the one that is the Husband.

If I may be so bold as to answer for Ray, the "male" in the relationship is the "Husband." 

In other words, they *BOTH* are husbands.

being gay is wrong in the eyes of the Lord.

Then the Lord needs glasses.  Or perhaps you need to remove the beam from *YOUR* eyes, timec.

I will never treat anyone bad due to them being gay.

Just so long as you don't punish them in November by removing their marriage rights.

HM, I do appreciate the fact that you didn't get sideways because of my question. I almost didn't post it, thinking it would be taken wrong regardless of how I worded it. Thank you for the answer. Both are considered Husband, or both are considered Wife. O.K. Then!

Rf

I will vote against gay marriage in November....it is my right!

The Lord does not need anything........he said it is wrong and I believe him!

It is a free country.  Random would like everybody to see things his way, but there are many different viewpoints and variations on this issue.  You don't have to see eye to eye with someone in order to love that person. 

I think it is just as big a mistake to assume that somebody who doesn't agree with gay marriage is automatically a bigot and a hater, as it is to rush in with statements pointing out how the person is wrong in the eyes of God.   I don't judge timec, because I too was brought up to go around doing that.  Then God revealed to me just how much of a sinner I was and I was forced to humble myself. 

Timec, you may believe that the Lord says so, but maybe she doesn't follow your religion.  If she does choose to adopt your religion, then you might be able to get somewhere.

How would you like it if people voted against interracial marriage?

Who is supposed to care if you lap carpet? You getting a sex change too? Are you a dyke?

What else is different about you? Surely not using your orientation to get attention.

Who are you talking to?

 The Lord does not need anything........he said it is wrong and I believe him!

I realize that your concern for your eternal soul is the priority. So that means if you think for yourself on this matter, and view it from a religious sense as opposed to a citizens rights sense, you'd be going against faith and putting your place in heaven on the line.  What the bible specifically calls same-sex relations is "abomination".  The common meaning of "abomination" is "disgusting" and I'd argue that something that is disgusting is a far cry from "wrong".  Stiring the soup with a used but thoroughly cleansed flyswatter is "disgusting" but not wrong.  Some find it disgusting to be in a hotel room and able to hear the couple in the next room having sex. Disgusting, perhaps, to some, but wrong?

The entire cannon of religious belief about same-sex relationship is prefaced on the term "abomination/disgusting".  Why not call it a moral sin, then, instead, if it's "wrong". Here's why. Because to the ancient Isrealites, it was merely disgusting and they at least understood that there was not victim when two men or two women fell in love and had sex.  Absent for all of biblical history is the explanation of why sex between two consenting adults is somehow of such harm to people, it merits endless condemnation.

Why is it a sin?  That's the question.  What make a loving relationship sinful? Love is a powerful motivator for good. So, if you can intellectualize on this for a moment, what about two men loving each other and being sexual it like, say, murder? Or like, say, rape? Or, like stealing?  What happens to everyone else when two men love each other and express that love sexually?  The bible is silent on this question.

Sorry, but when I pray it's "Our Father" not our "mother."

Interracial marriage still involves a male and female as long as it's heterosexual.  THAT is the point.

I accept gays because I know it's not a choice and it is what it is.  Living the lifestyle is up to them and I want them to have all the legal rights any couple has.  But marriage?     No.

Back to disaproving and accepting.    Big difference.  I disapprove of a lot of things my kids and grandkids have done but I accept them the way they are and love them unconditionally.  My guess is they feel the same way about me.

WOW Catpaw, that doesn't sound like you.

Nancy,  I appreciate your tone, but I wonder if you realize how much is legally tied to the M-word marriage.  Just a couple of examples:

1. If my wife should pre-decease me, I could not collect a penny on her Social Security benefits, although she has paid in for thirty years.  A surviving wife of a man could easily do that.  The Federal Government will not recognize a domestic partner or even those married in Massachusetts or California.

2.  If we should take a trip outside California, and one of us, say her, should require hospitalization while unconscious, the hospital would legally be bound to ask her mother for permission to proceed.  Married heterosexual couples can speak for each other, but domestic partners cannot.

3.  If my wife were a veteran, she would lose all medical benefits from the VA by entering into either a domestic partnership or marriage with me in California, under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." A heterosexual marriage would not kill these benefits.

There are over 1000 rights, state and federal that straight couples have when they marry.  Gay couples in California and Massachusetts do get some of those rights in their home states, but all federal rights are forbidden. 

I know a woman who married herr partner of twelve years back in June.  She quickly set about changing her name, and Social Security agreed to accept California marriage licenses for name changes only.  So she changed her SS card, her driver's license, credit cards and so on.  Then she sent a copy to the State Department for a passport, and they rejected her.  (Kept her check, by the way.)  They said they would not honor gay or lesbian marriage licenses from California, although they are still accepting them for straight couples.  So now she has one identity at home and another on her passport.  Wonder if she should even try to get back into this country after a trip abroad...

Obviously this creates a second-class status for gay and lesbian couples, which is patenttly forbidden by the 14th Amendment.  we cannot have a legal system that says, "you over here are accepted into this protection, but you over there are not."   Marriage must be for everyone.

Not only that, but for people who consider marriage a religious or spiritual rite as well as a legal arrangement, it's a question of freedom of religion.

As a Wiccan, we often refer to marriage as Handfasting.  However, it's still marriage, and as a spiritual tradition it is our right to define our rites, solemnizations, and sacraments, and if the government is going to give legal privilege and recognition to one religious rite, it must treat all equivalent rites equally.

Most Wiccans have no objection to handfasting partners of the same gender.

 Husband,

Thank you for your posts this afternopon.  It is precisely because of stories like yours in fresno that I believe we must work even harder in the heartland.  I don't think I want Bako to become a little LA or SF...then it would lose it's nique country flair that makes it feel homey.  But I would like to see it shed it's stereotype, the redneck, hick town. 

And catpaw, if that really is you,  I am a dyke, if you wnat to be rude, and yes, that is pretty much how I get attention.  I'd likwe to point out, though, that the main reason I get attention is because those who are intolerant point their fingers at me (and others like me) and scream to the heavens about the filth they think I am.  It is only in rising to address that, that I am in the spotlight. 

It is my hope that there will come a day when extremist anti-gay zealots are fewer and fewer, and far less powerful than they are today.  My ultimate dream is a world where being gay is like being left-handed; just another variation of normal in the world.  If my neighbors didn't care, if people didn't have to worry about getting or keeping a job, if they had all the right they are legally entitled to...then I could stay home more, maybe work in my garden or actually get to watch the World Series. My name could begin to fade into history tomorrow, and nothing would make me happier.  But the extremists are still speaking, loudly, and trying very hard to ensure that I will have second-class status forever.  I can't very well just sit and watch that happen. 

As Apollo mentioned, many religious groups are denied their freedom of religion to solemnize legal gay weddings.  The Unitarian Universalists, the Unity Church locally, The Wesley Methodists, many United Churches of Christ, the Church of Religious Science...the list goes on.   Why should one set of churches have one legal right, and the others be denied?

Whether you agree with the gay lifestyle or gay marriage, that is up to the individual.  Save the judgment for your day in heaven, if you get there.  Catpaw, I really like your compassion for the animal world but, you need to work on the people world.  No need to get rude and crude to those who live a life different than yours.  We all need to accept people for what they are and what is in their heart, not for their beliefs in sexuality, politics, etc. 

Wlwedd, I have seen you several times on TV and I respect the fact that you stand up and fight for your rights in the gay world. 

"It is my hope that there will come a day when extremist anti-gay zealots are fewer and fewer, and far less powerful than they are today. "

Amen, sister.

And you can always come sit next to ME--especially if you have a good sense of humor.  If you don't, you can sit next to my mom or my sister.  ; )

Great post wlwedd~ it takes courage know yourself,but why live any other way? Clearly your an asset to the community. Especially when you handle  muck with such ease and grace~ that makes you an asset,in my book. Hey this is how I get attention too, posting here is sure to bring some.

Not sure how and where I stick my penis would make a difference in whether I am an asset to the community or not, but if it does,  l am hereby letting the world know that I like putting it in a woman, especially my wife (sorry, wlwedd, no can do for you).  I don't have a nice poster stating that I am Heterosexual and nice, simply because I don't think people really give a flying eff how I roll.  I know I certainly don't give an eff how others roll. 

Timec:  I find it very sad indeed that your world would crumble simply because one of your children may tell you they are gay/lesbian/transgendered.   What a fragile world that must be.  How unfortunate for the children and how nice that you could love them anyway.   Somehow that doesn't seem to meet my idea of unconditional love.  Good luck to your children and you.

Husband: Welcome and I am glad you were able to find a safer place here to call home.

I do appreciate the kinder comments to my wifes post, it is nice to know that not all of the christians in this town are bigoted.

Wlwedd, nice post, baby.  I'll be here by your side as long as it takes to win this fight for equal rights.  Nothing could have blessed my life more than becoming your wife in June.  It is heartbreaking to know that in order to keep this civil right of marriage we have to fight.  Even more heartbreaking to know that there are people that feel justified in taking away our rights in order to make themselves feel superior.

 Ron, I appreciate the humor, truly I do, and I just wish there were a lot more people who didn't give a flying  eff about how we roll, so they wouldn't  propose laws like Prop 8 to take people's rights away based on that roll. 

And my sweet love, kahli!  I would fight for marriage rights even if I were single, just on principle, but it sure is sweeter doing this work with you.   I work harder and do more because of how much you mean to me, and how amazing I feel being married to you!

wlwedd, I've been racking my brain thinking I know you from somewhere. I just figured it out when I came back to see what folks were saying. You look like you could be the Sister of that guy who does a FOX news show in the afternoon. Don't remember his name. Have you ever been told that before, or are you?

Proam, I am not aware of any Fox news person who looks like me.  I guess I might have to just hold my knows and watch it just once to see if it's true.  You are the first to make the suggestion, but hey, that could be fun!

Kahli, you are Wlwedd's wife?

I am so pleased and honored to virtually meet you.  :)

May you two live happily ever after!

Spam code: SCRYZ.  Maybe I should.  :)

wlwedd, If I remember his name, I'll give you a shout out.Oh, I think his name is Neil Cabuto. Huh, something like that. Anybody else see what I'm talking about here? "just hold my knows and watch it just once" Funny girl!

Well, I just don't understand why someone would post a blog about who or what they are having sex with. I don't broadcast the fact that I have a vasectomy or my sister has a reconstructed breast. Firstly, it's nobody's business and secondly, I don't expect anybody to care or be interested.

Why not, catpaw?  People in the US appear to be *INTENSELY* interested in other peoples' sex lives, about which they should care less.  There's even a statewide initiative in November aiming at taking away thousands of peoples' civil rights based on it.

.

I will vote against gay marriage in November....it is my right!

Odd that your right seems to be to take away someone else's.   But not uncommon.  There were *LOTS* of folks in the Old South who thought they could vote away other people's rights--and get this:  *THAT* was on the basis of skin color!   Silly, I know--why should anyone have the same rights as someone else if their skin's colored wrong?

Fortunately there's a Supreme Court to protect people like blacks and gays against prejudice.

Homosexuality is a birth defect.  I fully understand that you have no control over it and can not change your sexual preferences. But please quit trying to convince me you are normal. You are not and never will be and I resent your continuing effort to ram your agenda down my throat. (no pun intended)

 catpaw: I have re-read my post several times and I don't find any references to sex anywhere.  Are you suggesting that just saying I am gay is somehow a sexual comment?   It is not.  I think you need to really examine how you got a sexual comment where there is none.

Charlie:  As I mentioned, I would be pleased as punch to shut up completely and live a very quiet life just as soon as the extremists stop trying to take away my rights!  It is not I who is trying to ram anything anywhere, (and I appreciate the pun,) but they who insist on attacking me, and those in my community.  I rise only in defense of my rights. 

Charlie wrote: "Homosexuality is a birth defect."

Charlie, would you mind citing the scientific source for this claim? I enjoying asking you this because I've been reading the science of sexual orientation for 30 years and I can assure you that no scientist has ever called homosexuality a birth defect. Since your claim is based on biology, just to let you know what biological science says about homosexuality is that it has the same biological footprint as a genetic trait.  In fact, homosexuality has a the EXACT genetic profile as another "behavior" -  left-handedness.  We don't call left-handedness a birth defect and that's what makes your claim all the more weird.

Understand that YOUR DNA and that of a chimpanzee has a total difference of 2%, meaning humans and apes share 98% of the DNA.  Obviously, there is a significant difference that that 2% difference accounts for. Is that birth defect? No. It's a genetic variation.  If you focus only on what you can see, as with blacks, whites, asians and hispanic/native people, you're missing out on a whole lot of genetic variation you cannot see and that's why the field of behavioral genetics is so important.  There are CLEAR indications that the human brain works differently in different people.  While the behavior of "disgust" is a learned behavior, excitablity runs in families.  While the behavior of prejudice is learned, intelligence runs in families (even if we don't want to acknowledge it).  Why, then, is it far fetched to understand that DNA can effect whom an individual is emotionally and sexually attracted to? The answer is that it ISN'T far-fetched.  I just read in the science periodical "Science News" that people who have high sensitivity to disgusting thing and situations can actually have that reversed by tweeking a spot in their brain. That's brand new science and since the study of disgust reactions has always relied on the definition of disgust being a learned behavior, this new study has turned the field upside down.  Will  you now say that "disgust" is a birth defect?

I fully understand that you have no control over it and can not change your sexual preferences. But please quit trying to convince me you are normal. You are not and never will be and I resent your continuing effort to ram your agenda down my throat. (no pun intended

And I fully understand that YOU have no control over your heterosexual orientation. By the way, it's not a "preference" just like heterosexual orientation isn't a preference. If you woke up one day and made the deliberate choice between being gay and straight, THAT'S a preference. But neither gays or straights claim to have done that. It's just an "orientation" to the world that is there like being right handed or left handed. That's what gay people say and a hell of a lot of straight people never were compelled to even think about. If you lying on the couch watching TV, are you STILL right handed, even if you're not engaged in any right handed activity?  Yes! Obviously!  That's EXACTLY the way sexual orientation works. It's there even when you aren't acting on it.  Your sexual orientation will alert YOU to what it is attracted to, not the other way around. You don't decide each moment, "Oh, I think I'll be attracted to that nice looking woman."  The opposite happens. You suddenly discover you ARE attracted to someone and had to make NO effort. Your brain was pre-wired to tell YOU what your find attractive. That's exactly experience homosexuals have.  What part of that is a birth defect? None of it is. 

That doesn't represent an agenda. It represents the homosexual orientation to the world around them. If we do not want to endure discrimination because we are wired this way, why is that very human desire to be treated fairly and equally an agenda? Don't YOU like to treated fairly and equally? Well! Then you have a clear basis to understand why homosexuals want fairness and equality.

Wlwedd wrote: "catpaw: I have re-read my post several times and I don't find any references to sex anywhere."

You didn't.  When homosexual talk about their lives with the partner or spouse, like heterosexuals do, the Catpaws of the world call that "talking about your sex life.  See, the catpaws of the world sexually objectify you. Talk about going to Walmart with your wife, and he'll say you're talking about your sex life.  Mention that your wife picked you up at work, Catpaw thinks that's about your sex life.  Say that you spend Thanksgiving at your wife's relatives - it's your sex life, Catpaw will say.  Sexual objectifying homosexuals is what the Catpaws have always done to keep that one small part of your life as the main focus so that the rest of what you are never matters. To catpaw, you are only about sex and nothing else. If you work ten hours a day, go to school on weekends, pay your taxes, keep your yard and home looking good, attend to your health with exercise, to Catpaw, it only about the SEX.  

And, of course, he's wrong.  It's about ALL that you are.

HM, "If you woke up one day and made the deliberate choice between being gay and straight, THAT'S a preference. I know of two women who had went through a few very bad relationships (marriages actually), then ended up in gay relationships. They did indeed make a choice. As far as I'm concerned that is between them, and their maker. Not me. All involved have been for the most part very good, tender hearted, hard working productive people. Matter of fact I'd say Very Good people...

The 'gays' I've spoken to over the years have always said that it was a way of life for them....

HM,

Homosexuals both male and female represent a minuscule percentage of the worlds population as does downs syndrome, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus and on and on. Human beings like all living things on this planet share a core DNA. The #1 factor that all living things share is the need to reproduce. Homosexual couples can not reproduce. So in the great scheme of things you are a waste of natures energy.  If homosexuals are hard wired to be homosexuals from birth as you claim and you can not change it and you are a deviation from natures norm, you have a birth defect. It's not rocket science. I am not attacking you, nor do I really care how you choose to live your life. Just quit trying to convince me you are normal and deserve all the rights of normal married couples. You don't.

About ten percent is "minuscule,"  Charlie?

In the great scheme of things, Ray's much less of a waste of human energy than are those people trying to drag California back to the dark ages on specious arguments.

Fortunately, your people are not only a minority, you're a rapidly-decreasing minority.  And it appears to concern you a *GREAT* deal how Ray lives his life.  How sad. 

You know how far back in history blue eyes go?   Here's a hint--we've been brewing beer longer.  Guess I'm lucky *THAT* particular "deviation from nature's norm" didn't get stomped out.   No, it's not rocket science.  It's genetics.

It`s a home run ...Bingo

Proam, if they made a choice, they CHOOSE not to pretend to be heterosexual any more.  I made the EXACT same choice. I was married to a female and fathered a child and I knew every day of my marriage I was a homosexual.

But aside from that, if you read the science of sexual orientation, what is CLEAR for women but NOT for men, is that a very significant percentage of females have a fluidity of sexual orientation. Men? NO!!!!!!! There are many, many men who CLAIM to be bisexual, but the studies on THOSE EXACT MEN show that the claim of bi-sexuality is a STAGE in coming out as a homosexual. It's "safer" - literally - for a man to first say he is bi-sexual, just to test the impact it has on his family and friends.

I was a devout Pentacostal Holiness for 30 years which is very, very similar to what Sarah Palin and her family are now. I wore the knees off my pants praying to be "healed" from homosexuality.  What I leaned is what EVERY homosexual learns about having faith - God does NOT hear the voice of a homosexual. You can pray 24 hours a day and believe with absolute certainty that God will remove your attractions to people of the same sex and you'll still end up being a homosexual. What then happens is that you will try your best to continue to follow your religious beliefs, and if you're like me, NEVER act on your homosexuality. But there's a DAILY price to pay. Even if you NEVER act on your sexual orientation, your HEART will, and you'll feel like an adulterer every single day of your married life.  The bible says that if you lust in your heart, you are an ADULTERER. Well, in that regard, I was an adulterer who never betrayed my duty to my wife and child. NOT ONCE.  Those women you know went through the same experience I did and YES, it does come down to having to make a choice:

1. Stay in your marriage and focus on the positive aspects and that focus will be of some comfort to you even while your homosexual orientation may torment you.

2. Divorce. Do this when your mental health is such that if you don't, you will be in a constant state of depression. Find your heart's desire and embrace that person.

The really scary thing about these choices is that for a great many homosexuals, the never had ONE experience with someone of the opposite sex. They don't really know if that person they've longed for will give them the emotional peace the want.  With heterosexuals it a whole different experience. If they change spouses, it because of personality conflicts, bills, children, infidelity, death of a spouse, and a hundred other reasons. But homosexual are by and large making a move for the very first time in their lives not knowing if it will truely matter since they have no basis for experience. They have to plunge in and see if this thing calling to them will be emotionally satisfying.  That's what my experience was. I knew exactly ZERO homosexuals my entire life and had exactly ZERO people to discuss my emotional life with because I was from a fundamentalist Christian family who lived on a farm my entire life.  I was STUNNED when I walked into a gay bar for the first and to discover that NOBODY was wearing a dress and that NOBODY wanted to wear one. I was sooooo relieved to find out about that.  And, yes, after my divorce, I tried out the romance side of being a homosexual and, yes, it met my hopes and expectations like NOTHING I'd ever experienced. Finally, I knew.  Before that happened, I was around straight people just like YOU, except I must admit you're a lot kinder than my family, who never had a single positive WORD to say about homosexuals.

I then paid my price. My two brother not only wouldn't speak to me, they told other people they didn't have another brother. These two guy whom I lived every single day of my life with denied my existence and were PROUD of it.  The wanted to punish me and the succeeded beyond their wildest imagination.  So, people think homosexuals choose to be homosexual. What SANE person would risk having their family ties severed if it was simply a matter of choosing? No me. I was as Christian as my brothers. I walked to church with them, chopped the same cotton row, attended the same school, stood up for them, handed over my pay to my parents after working 10 hour days in the fields, attended their weddings, cried over the loses, hailed their victories, handed down my clothes and shoe to them.  They LOVED me and I knew they did. They loved me until I stopped lying to them. Then, I wasn't their brother any more.  What is the better measure of a person's character; to lie? Or to tell the truth? My brother's and many, many Christians think it's better to lie or at the very least, don't EVER speak of what is in your heart.

I don't CHOOSE to lie. And I don't CHOOSE to have horrible mental health. Neither did your lady friends.