Fuck them...My sexual orientation isn't up for a popularity contest.

[Liberal Veteran]

(reposted here from my lounge thread for the the non-lounge lizards)

Never has been, never will be.

You see, regardless of how hard they try, who I am is not up for a debate.

Oh sure, they can make a few things more difficult in my life, but when push comes to shove, their stupid little rule against gays in the military didn't stop me from serving. There stupid little rules about marriage aren't going to stop me from continuing to enjoy a relationship that has existed longer than my straight brother's marriage, almost as long as both my straight father's marriages, longer than any of my straight oldest brothers pathetic failed relationships and longer than any of that drug addicted fuck Rush Limbaugh's marriages.

Do I like it? No. When push comes to shove, I learned pretty early in adulthood that I really don't require anybody's approval. Once in awhile they sneak one in that hurts, such as my brother who basically hid my existence from his children so as not to expose them to my "lifestyle". But I survive. As I see it, he's not only a bigot, but a liar and pretender himself. Not to mention he is only fooling himself with those kinds of antics. I washed my hands of him when he told me it was his wife's wishes only to have his wife (who I barely know but seems like a nice lady) turn around and tell me that it most certainly wasn't anything she suggested.

So what the hell. My life will go on much the same as did before they tried to put my existance up to vote.

In the final analysis, if I can deal from with bigotry from my own family, the bigotry of some nameless masses who think they can please their God by their futile attempts to legislate who I am comes in pretty fucking low on my list of concerns.

So as I said, fuck them. I gotten this far in life as have millions before me without their approval and I'll survive this as well.

My life, my being, my love isn't up for little popularity contest.

And their attempts to make it a popularity contest says absolutely nothing about me, but speaks VOLUMES about their own insecurities and hatred.

I can live with that.

[hedgehog]

1. If it is any consolation

people like you have fought a good fight and spared so many others the pain you face. Because gays put hemselves front and center, my daughter was able to figure out that she was gay and we all were able to support her all the way. We've learned that the stereotypes are fantasies. She'll have a good life because of people like who who stood up and fought.

[stranger_with_candy]

2. with all your posts about your sexuality

yesterday apologizing, today this... seems like all you really want is a popularity contest. oh, the drama. we know you're gay.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Liberal Veteran]

5. Your observation is that I should stop flaunting my sexuality...

Got it.

[stranger_with_candy]

6. for attention?

yes you should.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. I am here to speak my mind...if you don't like you can ignore it.

Understand?

[stranger_with_candy]

8. i'm here to speak my mind too

maybe you should take your own advice.

[Name removed]

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[hedgehog]

15. Yeah - and I bet you think

those black people wouldn't have any problems if they only pretended to be white. And those Latinos better start speaking English in public, too.

[stranger_with_candy]

19. i'm certainly not asking anyone to pretend to be something

that they aren't. i'm saying don't contradict yourself in posts.

[Liberal Veteran]

23. Last time you get an explanation from me....

If you don't understand yesterday was a day I felt defeated and wanted to wallow a bit in a sense of betrayal and today I woke up with my fighting spirit, then I don't how I can make you understand.

I'll may censor myself in public and among stranger, but I'll be damned if I'll do so here among many people I consider my friends and brother's and sisters in arms.

If you can't understand and support that, there is truly nothing left for us to discuss.

[stranger_with_candy]

28. i'm not asking you to censor yourself

i'm saying don't contradict yourself and how you feel just for sympathetic responses.

[Liberal Veteran]

33. You are. You are asking me to not commisserate and share my feelings...

...at a particular moment in time with a group I feel a great deal of kinship with.

I think many of us have made many posts that vaccillate between self-doubt, pity, and affirmation.

Is that a crime?

Do you truly not comprehend why yesterday I may have felt a sense of defeat and internalised it (and had the gall to express it)?

[stranger_with_candy]

36. your post was that your sexuality was not up for a popularity contest

and that seems to me that's all your making it out to be.

[Liberal Veteran]

42. Hardly...what I was expressing was the spirit of SURVIVAL.

Do have any comprehension of what it felt like yesterday as gay person to realize that 75% of America thought that BIGOTRY against gays should be CODIFIED?

Do you really know what it feels like to know that YOUR OWN FAMILY probably voted to codify bigotry against you?

I've been through this many times. Too many times to count. Did you honestly believe that yesterday when most of us here were feeling a sense of defeat and anger and loss that some of us might say some things that really wouldn't stick?

I fail to understand your lack of empathy at how it must have felt yesterday for those us "unfortunate" enough to be gay realizing that hatred and bigotry drove people to the polls.

But today I woke up with my sense of spirit to survive in spite of the hatred I have put with all my life and the double standards imposed upon me without my permission and I expressed that.

I have explained it, not once, not twice, but three times to you.

Instead of having the decency to understand that I am merely a human being with the same range of feelings as you or anyone else here including sometimes feeling sorry for your and internalizing blame that doesn't I shouldn't, you chose to be snide and made a remark I think was uncalled for and shows a lack of empathy I don't really expect from the people on this board.

Is that really so difficult to understand? Is it really so difficult to say "I'm sorry. I misunderstood your intent."

[stranger_with_candy]

46. you aren't getting it

i have said NOTHING about promoting bigotry or hatred. i made no claims of implying you are any less than anyone else for being gay. i said, don't use it as a popularity contest and claim you aren't.

[Liberal Veteran]

52. Which is basically saying....

...stop flaunting your sexuality by having the audacity to make remarks about how you feel about an election in which my sexuality was used as a wedge issue.

How do you dare claim that is attention seeking and a popularity contest?

Maybe you are correct in some respects that I posted that comment for affirmation, but if we aren't here to back each other up, then what the hell are we?

Let me put this to you in terms perhaps you can understand:

When I admitted to myself that being gay is part and parcel of what I am I knew full well the stigma attached to it, but it is who I am and I had to make a choice to say "Fuck those people who don't understand!" and right then and there I dropped out of the popularity contest of among the general population. I had to stand up to my family and say "I don't require your approval. I am who am I and it's not open for debate. The only thing open for debate is whether or not you are willing to accept me as I or whether we can go our separate ways in life."

If I wanted to win a fucking popularity contest, I would be hiding my precious self-protective closet in order to win the affirmation of those who would just as soon that everyone be exactly alike as though God were some Betty Crocker with a cookie cutter.

And for you to acuse me of using my sexuality as a popularity contest is basically calling me a liar for having the audacity to stand up for myself, express my feeling without apology, and say take it or leave it.

[stranger_with_candy]

55. I understand what your original point was.

I don't think you need anyone's approval to be gay. You certainly shouldn't. Personally, it sickens me that all those states voted against gay marriage. And how about instead of saying.. "fuck those who don't understand"... help them to understand. I know you won't convince them all, but that just makes you look as bigoted against them and their beliefs as they do against yours. My only problem was the hypocricy of several of your posts, and claiming not to use them as a popularity contest.

[Liberal Veteran]

57. But you see.

I am saying telling those people they can play their silly games of trying to legislate gay people away, but it ain't gonna work.

I don't care what kind of law you pass, I will not wake up tomorrow and be straight and NO ONE...not you, not them, and those who really don't care but want to use my sexuality as lever to promote their own agenda...can take away who I am or take away the 14 years and counting my boyfriend and I have together.

THeir sodomy laws didn't do it. Their restrictions on gay marriage won't do it. Their silly code against gays in the military didn't stop me from serving my country.

And yes, if several of my posts happen to mention my homosexuality (of which two out of approximately 200 posts I made yesterday actually did), then I am sorry you jumped to an erroneous conclusion about the intent.

And to some extent this latest post was to hopefully inspire some who felt like I did yesterday into NOT internalizing and blaming themselves and having the guts to stand up for themselves.

It may not work, but I am doing my part to help in this case. I had "my poor poor pitiful moment" yesterday and I am done with it.

Now I feel somewhere between re-energized and downright offended. So then someone comes along and acuses me of crass narcissism, are you really shocked I went for the jugular in response?

[stranger_with_candy]

58. i'm not surprised at all that you went for the jugular

i posted it fully expecting to get ripped a new one. but if i can't post my opinion or observation about a post... what is the point of calling this a discussion board?

[Liberal Veteran]

59. Very well...let's both prove here and now that we can be magnaminous.

I can agree that I should have been kindler and gentler about disabusing you of my intent instead instead of going for the throat. I think emotions are running extremely high right now and that's why have a "Fighting and Acrimony" board.

[Name removed]

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[Moonbeam_Starlight]

12. What's your problem?

Damn if he can't talk about stuff like that HERE.....

Just hit the hide button or put him on ignore, there's no need to be nasty.

[stranger_with_candy]

14. it's not my intention to be nasty

was just stating an observation. when several posts from the same person contradict eachother... it only looks like a plea for attention.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. i think we know your candy is poisoned

:eyes:

[Liberal Veteran]

18. Apprently you don't understand the process of healing and introspection.

Yesterday was the day to wallow in self-pity.

Today I got my spirit back.

And that's more of an explanation that you deserve for your lack empathy.

[Name removed]

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[La Lioness Priyanka]

yes you are right ...he is really flaunting it...

not protesting how unfair the no gay marriage constitutional amendment would be.

are you sure you are in the right place?

[stranger_with_candy]

21. did i say anyting about how unfair the amendment was?

thats not the issue. i'm against it. i'm against anything that seperates fellow human beings into different classes and gives them different rights than others. that's not the issue.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. well we arent all the same

some of us have have far many more rights than others of us...why should we pretend to be the same?

:eyes:

[stranger_with_candy]

24. tell me where

i suggested we all pretend to be the same.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

27. can you tell me what your exact point is?

[stranger_with_candy]

29. that his posts

from the last few days completely contradict one another. and now he says he's not here for a popularity contest, when it seems that's all he wants.

[Name removed]

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[stranger_with_candy]

32. i'm not looking for it either.

[Liberal Veteran]

30. Nevermind.....it's not worth it.

We are all going through a healing process. Yesterday I felt down on myself and made a post saying as much. Today I came to my senses.

I should know by now that some people don't understand what it's like to feel scapegoated and come to the realization that it's not you who has the problem.

If that seems a contradiction or a "cry for attention" to some people, I can handle their poor opinion of me with enormous fortitude now that I have recovered my fighting spirit.

[Name removed]

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[stranger_with_candy]

50. it's a discussion board

i'm entitled give my observation and opinions just as much as you are.

[alexisfree]

10. this is red america remember?

[Touchdown]

16. And FUCK The people on this board blaming Gavin Newsome.

It's pure bigotry and scapegoating. Whatever his motivations for the gay marriage ceremonies, he did the right thing. If you disagree, then you're really not a liberal and are a BIGOT!

[hedgehog]

20. Someone had to be the first to refuse to move to the back of the bus!

[Taverner]

26. Gavin Newsom is a hero and a patriot

And history will prove him on the right side...

[Taverner]

25. Kick ARSE man!

Don't ever let anyone make you feel substandard.

VelmaD said it better once somewhere, but you knowwhatimean.

[Name removed]

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[Liberal Veteran]

35. Don't you? I've rarely met a straight person that didn't.

Most straight people I know advertise their sexual orientation dozens of ways a day.

From taking their date to the prom, to "guy talk" about how this or that supermodel has a nice ass or telling how you went out with such and such last night to sending out wedding invitations to driving down the road in a car that says just married.

Every single day WITHOUT fail in my life I have been exposed to heterosexuals flaunting their sexuality for all the world to see from the subtle to the outrageous.

[Name removed]

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[QC]

45. Um....

When did the wedding band become a way for straights to "advertise" that they are straight????

Well, considering that straights are the only people allowed to marry in this country, a wedding band is kind of a dead giveaway, don't you think?

The last time I checked, being gay wasn't cultural.

You haven't given this issue much thought, have you?

[Liberal Veteran]

48. Oh really? Let me ask you this.....

If I were in mixed company and someone commented on my wedding band and asked about my "wife" (the assumption nearly ALWAYS being that I am straight until proven gay), and I corrected them and said I don't have a wife....I have a husband and began to tell people how we met and how we fell in love and talked about him the same way I hear straight people speak of their spouses.

Can you honestly say that I would NOT be accused of flaunting my sexuality?

You haven't a clue as to how many times a day the average gay person at work usually has to modify the most casual of conversation to avoid giving the appearance of "flaunting" while the same remark from a heterosexual would be viewed as commonplace casual conversation.

[Haviland_42]

51. I can't speak for those people

And yes, I believe you probably do have to alter some of your most casual conversations to suit the needs of others. And as I stated, I can't speak for those folks. Personally, I'm not offended.

But I live in the South (in a very not-so-accepting) state and I can tell you that alot of folks that I know are more bothered by the parades and flags and pins, etc. than they are by the "gayness" itself. Believe it or not.

[donheld]

38. No you don't have to wear a pin/flag etc

if you had been bashed/hated/put in a 2nd class status you might understand, and then again maybe not. I bet you don't wanna understand.

Hetero sexual orientation is flaunted every single day, every where we go. I'm sorry if a rainbow flag, or a lapel pin offend you. I'm sorry if our parades scare you. OK i lie i'm not a bit sorry.

p.s. your homophobia is showing.

[Haviland_42]

39. Hey, do you pay taxes?

Do you live your life without infringing (criminally) on others?

Then you aren't a "second-class citizen" to me.

[donheld]

41. Thank you

that's most kind. I know most of you are accepting, but it's surprising how many liberals do not.

[RetroLounge]

44. Why does it make you so uncomfortable?

and thanks for joining DU just to set us "straight"

:eyes:

RL

[Haviland_42]

49. Geez....

I joined DU ages ago. I'm more of a lurker but this election drew me out of my shell.

Do you have to be so suspicious of EVERYONE?????

I'm not here to set anyone straight on anything.


*crawls back into shell*

[MotorCityMan]

54. Oh for fuck's sake!

Bringing up that same old fucking argument? I don't care if you're gay, just don't let me know about it in anyway?

Try growing up in a world that has hetrosexuality shoved down your throat as the ONLY way to be, knowing you're not like that.

The only choice involved is whether to be true to what you ARE or to force yourself to be what society THINKS you should be.

[jacksonian]

40. OK, I'm going to flaunt my straightness

and say the gays are talking much more sense that the heteros.

I can't believe people watch TV and say gays flaunt it. When the world is your oyster you don't see the pearls, I guess. Sheesh.

And as for someone's life and loves not being a popularity football, I say DAMN RIGHT.

[gator_in_Ontario]

47. Yes! Yes! Yes!

Bravo, my friend....well said!!!
Thank you!!!

[LordshipLadyship]

53. sheeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssh

When are we going to grow up? When will we look at people and see THEM, not their sexuality, color, creed, etc etc etc. gay bashing is soooooooooo stupid. Its like walking down the street and you see a person with a gay pride button on and OMG!!! I'm going to be affected!!!! Rabies!!! (gets into clean suit) Shhhhhhhhhhhessssh. if someone flaunts their sexuality (to use that phrase) uh..there's this word. Two letters. NO. You can use it on everybody, even straights. Godddddddddd this subject drives me up a tree. (whacks head on desk)
Hell, I wish I had sexuality to flaunt <vbg> People need people to feel superior toward. That's what is behind this gay thing, this black thing, this bias thing. People feel superior when they can use that NOKD (not our kind, dear) Picture yourself in a burning building. The fireman climbs up the ladder to save you, and he/she is gay, black, handicapped, (fill in space) What are you gonna do? refuse to get saved? Say send up a WASP, please?? AAAAARRGHHH. Until you've been discriminated against (and I have for mental illness and a lot more) you can't make a judgments. We have to see people as individuals, and agree or disagree with them, for Christ's sake. Life is too damn short to be stupid.

[radfringe]

56. Just imagine walking into a polling booth

and one of the questions is:

should there be a constitutional amendment banning HETROSEXUAL MARRIAGE and Hetrosexual Domestic Partnerships

put the shoe on the other foot and see how it fits

I was with my first partner for 17 years -- she died of ovarian cancer
I was not allowed to visit nor make any medical decisions until I showed them the HEALTH PROXY
Whenever she was admitted to the hospital -- I had to show them the HEALTH PROXY, whenever there was a decision to make --- I had to show them the HEALTH PROXY. I took to carrying several copies of the HEALTH PROXY with me at all times.
When she died -- I wasn't allowed to make arrangements, nor was I allowed to sit with the family at the funeral, but they sure wanted some money from me to pay for the funeral, I told them they made the arrangements and excluded me, didn't offer any help while she was dying -- so go "f**k-off"

I met another woman about 7 years ago, we have been together since then -- we have health proxies, power of attorney, and wills clearly stating each other as the proxie/beneficiary -- and we hope it's enough to protect ourselves