I know I have many friends who struggle with the issue of same sex marriage (their religious beliefs vs being fair on a civil level). I frequently post things on by blog or Facebook about this, and wanted to explain why I feel so strongly about my support for it. So here's my story... It's from the heart....
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"I hate myself. I am so ugly. No one would ever want me. No one can see the potential in me. Nothing I ever do is good enough." I've said these statements to myself many times over the years. When you tell yourself these kinds of things over and over you truly start believing it to your core. It's a self hatred that permeates your soul. So where did it come from for me?
I grew up in a religious home... evangelical Christian to be specific. My father and his father were both ministers during my childhood years. Watching them preach from the pulpit gave me a feeling of pride. When I was barely old enough to talk I would walk up to the front of the church and stand next to the pulpit and wave my finger at people and in kid gibberish would mimic my father and grandpa preaching. When I was younger I wanted to follow in their foot steps and preach God's word.... that we can all be saved through Christ's sacrifice for us and that God calls us to love one another.
In first grade I knew I was different. Most of my friends were girls, I didn't care for sports, and I was extremely sensitive. I was in fifth grade and living in the Bay Area the year Harvey Milk was murdered. I remember hearing people talk about the fag that was killed. It was during this time that my mom would have to sit in her car close to the bus stop and make sure the kids weren't picking on me. They would typically spit on the ground around me and call me faggot. The girls would sit behind me on the school bus and say I had lice and dandruff and the whole bus would laugh at me. I would run home from the bus stop and run into the hills behind our house and sit there looking out at the valley feeling so lonely. Why were they picking on me? I was a good person and was just being me. I was only ten.
But I had a secret buried so deep, no one knew for certain until I was 19. A secret that made me feel ugly and sinful. I knew I was going to hell for feeling the way I did. I was attracted to the same sex. I prayed to God at night to take the feelings away. I didn't want to feel this way. I knew I'd be rejected and hated. As I grew older, the attraction to the same sex grew stronger.
My coming out at 19 was rather traumatic. My parents found out quite by accident. When my parents confronted me and asked me if I was gay, I said no because I was so ashamed and confused. I knew to my core I was gay - but up until that point, I hadn't even kissed anyone! But I finally told them the truth. The shame I felt was horrible. They sent me to a counselor in Seattle. This place specialized in helping homosexuals escape the 'lifestyle' through prayer and immersion in Christ. I went along with it for a while until my parents determined it was too expensive to have me drive from Portland to Seattle once a week. So I began seeing a Christian counselor in Portland. Nothing changed about how I felt. I was gay.
I eventually saw gay friendly counselors of my choosing later in life. It's taken years of counseling and encouragement from friends... but I like who I am now. I happen to believe that God made me the way I am. I no longer argue with people over whether I was born gay. Simply put - why would anyone CHOOSE to put yourself through this? The only thing I've chosen is to be happy with who I am. I am continuing to learn to love myself more every day.
For so long, I never thought I was good enough for anything. I always felt I was average in everything. Even when it came to things like 'civil unions' or 'domestic partnership' for gay couples... I used to think - that's good enough. I don't deserve to get married. I’m not straight. Even me, a gay guy – didn’t believe in same sex marriage.
But in the last couple of years it finally hit me -- I DO deserve to get married to the person I love. 'Civil unions' or 'domestic partnership laws" are NOT enough. I am good enough and deserve marriage equality like any heterosexual couple does. Why should I not receive the same governmental recognition and benefits that anyone else does? Because the person I love is the same sex? This isn’t an issue of whether your religious beliefs say it’s wrong. It’s about governmental recognition and the benefits provided to married couples.
For example, I could be with my partner for 40 years - and he will never be able to get my social security should I die. I worked my whole life for that – the person I love should receive the benefit from that. But that can only happen at the federal level. And that’s just one small example of the multitude of benefits most straight, married people take for granted that are given at a civil level.
Perhaps this whole same sex marriage issue is making straight people look at their own marriages. I get really tired of the argument that same sex marriage will destroy “traditional” marriage. I think the threat to marriage is divorce and we know the statics on that. Maybe it should be more difficult for people to get married and harder to get divorced. Then maybe people would take marriage more seriously. You have a group of people here who DO take it seriously and want to simply be given the same civil/governmental benefits. Whatever your religious views, you must be able to see the inequity there.
It’s taken a long road for me to get to a place where I can stand tall and proud of who and what I am. When I hear people say same sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed, I flash back to those days of being scared, taunted and spit around as a child. And I won’t be treated less than anyone else ever again. I deserve better. We all do. It's why I am so adamant about this issue.
I don’t expect everyone who struggles with this issue to read this story and suddenly be in favor of marriage equality. I just hope I’ve opened up your eyes a bit to what it’s like from my perspective, and why I feel so strongly about this. In a time where the economy is in the crapper, people are struggling to make ends meet and people are starving, I would think the church would be rallying to spend money to help these folks. Instead churches are spending millions to keep loving couples from being able to have marriage equality. I’m pretty sure God’s message was about love. At least that’s what I thought when I wagged my finger from my grandfather’s pulpit.
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