Gay Marriage Chronicles: Feeling a Little Raw

So I turned 40 today.

There, I said it.

My life hasn't ended.  The world hasn't fallen down around me.  Good so far, right?  But there's something different.  I'm a little raw around the edges.  A little exposed.

And maybe, just maybe, I'm seeing things that aren't there.  Like, at lunch in our little conservative town, when the guy who looked like an ex-marine kept staring in our direction.  I mean, yeah, he was facing our way, but you know, that funny feeling you get at the base of your spine, when you can feel the hot stare, the kind that people give you that says "I know you're different"?

It's like that old quote about being Jewish - don't worry about forgetting what you are, because some jerk will come along and remind you.

Or take the guy in the parking lot who might have said "fag" when we walked by, or maybe just something else we misheard.

When you're gay, you get used to it - you develop a thick skin from the school-yard taunts, the random and unexpected verbal attacks over the years.  And yet, sometimes that skin wears a bit thin.

Sometimes I'm so hopeful for this human race of ours... as we make fits and starts toward progress.  But sometimes it's just the opposite.  Sometimes the hatred and the lies and the just-plain-misunderstandings pile up until the weight of them all breaks through the thick blanket of protection we've learned to weave for ourselves over the years.

Each week, as I prepare the updates for the Gay Marriage Watch feature on this blog, I read through hundreds of news entries - commentaries, blogs, articles - so much information.  And each week I find a little bit of hatred - usually wrapped up with a gloss of false logic and a sprinkling of facts to hide the essential hollowness of the arguments.

Did you know, for instance, that almost 25 years into the HIV epidemic, some of these folks are still spewing crap about how gays and lesbians all sleep around, and how we brought this thing upon ourselves?  You can always tell when you see us called "homosexual males" where the writer's bias lies.

That government representatives  can still say things like "homosexual faggots with dirt on their fingernails" and get away with a mere admonishment?

Or that out-of-state groups spent $1.5 Million paying people to gather signatures to keep my partner and I from ever being able to marry in the state of California?   Or even worse, that they were able to collect 1.1 million signatures?

When you see the broad picture, what hits you is how much hatred and fear is still out there, how many people are still guided by the lies and the rhetoric.  We're far from being an orientation-blind society (just as we're not color-blind, either).

Just when you think things are going our way, the religious right comes by like an angry and  spiteful Santa Claus to snatch away our hopes and dreams.

I look at myself in the mirror, and I don't see a guy who sleeps with 1,000 other guys.  I don't see a monster who wants to molest poor little straight children.  I don't see a "homosexual" with an "agenda".  I don't see a guy who's going out and looking to contract HIV to place an additional burden on the health care system.

It's just me.  I'm an average, just-turned-40, brown-haired brown-eyed guy who happens to think the world of another guy.

Sometimes I wish they could just see me.  Just feel the normal.  Just let go of the fear and the hatred.  One can only hope...

But in the meantime, I have to thicken my skin up a bit once again.  It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

--Scott