It’s time to end the nonsense.

I miss my mom.  One of the things I miss about her is her unfailing ability to realize what was real about life and what was bullshit.

My mom saw all the right things as bullshit.  Hurting other creatures without cause, killing, hurting, selfishness .. that sort of thing – all those things were on her bullshit list.

When it comes to Same Sex Marriage, it is also time to end the bullshit.

Let me be honest though.  My mom did not understand same sex attraction, while she was alive.  And the story behind that is also worth telling.  Sometimes my mom did not even realize when bullshit was coming out of her own mouth – it was only important, to her, that she believed it was not bullshit.  But when she did – you could guarantee, she would make perfect sense -- to the rest of us.

The first thing I remember my mom telling me is, "Why don’t you try a woman".  And, I guess, it was an interesting proposition.

So, not that I was following mom’s direction exactly .. but I did meet a woman.  I was never dishonest.  I told her I liked guys.  I told her I was homosexual – not bisexual, before I ever touched her.

She (the woman I met) liked that I liked guys, and after a time, our relationship became sexual.

But it was fake.  

One of the things the heterosexual majority might find odd to imagine is, I found it embarrassing to be around her, being thought of as her boyfriend.  Yes, I know, it’s the natural state of affairs.  But it embarrassed me.   You see, it wasn’t ME.

I know I might be talking to the wind.  I might be talking to people who don’t understand, yes, it is possible to be gay and not bisexual, and still make love to a woman.

So, I’ve done that.  Been there.  Done that.

My mom got cervical cancer.  One of the last things she ever told me was "Andy, don’t get AIDS".

For whatever reason, my life seems to follow the path my mother lays out.  Since she died, I haven’t gotten AIDS.  

But, you see, unlike the assumption of the general  populace, I don’t have sex with everyone I meet.  I don’t have "hundreds of partners" a year.

Life doesn’t always work the way the people who prescribe "lifestyles" tell you.

So I’m here to tell you, my life has followed a far different path, had it taken, were  I to have been totally accepted as the person I am.  You know that alternate history craze in fiction?

For one thing, if I hadn’t been gay, I wouldn’t have been kicked out of my dad’s house when I was going to college and told he was either going to send me back to Colorado as if I was a crate, or be subjected to psychotherapy on account I was gay.

I would never have gotten involved with one person named Henry, who was a soulmate, with whom I couldn’t share my soul.  Not really, because he was straight.

Gay people might not be so shallow – from my perspective, because they are marginalized – that the entire reason in the world for them to connect in a sexual way with someone of the same sex is, well, sex.  

Because, you see, sex is inextricably intertwined with our core being.

One of the problems I have with people like Hagee, and Donnie McClurkin, and Paul Cameron, and others, is how they demean and diminish us.

You, the broader straight community, continue to marginalize us at your own peril.  And I don’t really understand it.

You talk about terrorism.  You talk about "the other".  

But you create terrorists.  You create the other.  

One thing I see with the California decision is that  this  might be changing.  It better change, more quickly, I hope.

Because, you see, if it doesn’t, there might not be any hope left for us, at all.