When I was 18, I was part of a group called GPA (Gay People's Alliance) in Normal, IL. Oh the Irony. We would do speaker bureaus to educate students at Illinois State University on homosexuals. We would speak to psychology majors during the part of the semester where they would learn about human sexuality. Our goal was to show people, especially those entering the field where they help people.
One of the things I was so shocked by was the pure anger and hate that came from some people. They hated us because we were gay; no other reason. They expressed in creative ways exactly how much we were destroying the world by our existence and how we were the fault of every bad thing that happened in the world. What they always failed to see, and even to this day, is that gay people, for the most part, about 99.99% of us are extremely docile. We are always the ones on the defensive, staving off verbal and physical attacks against us by people preaching and proclaiming they are acting in the way of god; any god.
Sadly, because of all the negativity I felt from those people, and after doing the bureaus for about two years, I just could not take the anger anymore and I stopped. Shortly after I met my first serious girlfriend, someone I would be with for six years, and though not legal, we did get "married."
During our time together, we watched our kind get killed, lesbians raped to change them, two men I knew died from complications from AIDS, and the gay revolution began. We lived near Champaign, IL. and it was very progressive compared to Bloomington/Normal where I grew up. We still faced hatred. I recall one evening, my then wife and I were walking through the parking lot of the mall, not bothering anyone, not talking to anyone, holding hands, and just enjoying an evening with mild weather and a sky full of stars. We walked by a car loaded with young women who were talking to each other but fell quiet when we walked by. We didn't let go of our hands but walked with heads held high and soon we heard them making gagging sounds and then one of them pretended to shot us.
Fast forward to 1996 when I moved to California. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. Moving there was like clipping the strings that bound my being and I could finally breath. The whole time I lived there I never faced issues with me being gay. It was incredible. I loved every minute I was there. But it wasn't meant to be and I left January 4th, 2000 and soon after I moved to Pooler, Georgia. It was close to Savannah but the culture shock was very apparent. And being gay was frowned upon. I missed my mother ship known as California but on July 7th, 2000 I met the woman who would become the love of my life.
When I say she is my One, my equal counter part, my love and my life, I am not exaggerating in the least. For everything weird quirk I may have, she offers a balance that keeps me grounded. In this entire world, she is the One. September 9th, 2000 we exchanged vows, making promises we have kept, and in our hearts we were married. Because then it wasn't legal anywhere. Then in 2003 it became legal in Belgium, then in 2005 Canada, in 2007 Germany, 2009 Sweden. But in June, 2004, it became legal in Massachusetts and the wild fire began to burn. Soon, one country after the next was passing same-sex marriage bills, and slowly, every so slowly in the United States, one state after the next started to pass similar bills while others passed bans. But what astonished me was not the states that banned same-sex marriage, but the ones that passed it. In 25 years from doing speaker bureaus to watching television and crying at the thought that I too could get married to someone I loved even though it would not be recognized in any other state made me feel that the revolution had picked up steam and was NOT... WAS NOT going to settle for crumbs while straight couples got the buffet.
Fast forward to September, 2013. The United States, months after declaring that keeping gays from marrying was unconstitutional, declared that gay couples who got married legally within the U.S. could now file joint Federal Taxes. Why is that a big deal? Why should anyone care? Because, a gay couple will pay 38,000 dollars more in taxes every year than a straight who are together for the same length of time. Melissa and I have been together for 13 years. We are still, in the words of our friends, in the honeymoon stage. We are still very much in love, very committed to each other, and very eager to share our lives together. So, on September 9th, 13 years after we had our commitment ceremony, we got our legal marriage license in Niagara Falls, NY. On September 10th we will be legally married. We will finally be recognized as a couple.
I started to cry after we got the license because it took 25 years, 25 long years, for this day to happen. In my life time I am experiencing this first hand and I will know, finally what it feels like to have my government consider me real and equal and protected.
One final note that deserves to be shared. When we went to city hall and filed for our license, we were met with congratulations and kindness. When we went out to dinner and shared why we were in NY, we were met with the same. Attitudes change, everything changes. And even though it may take a while and in some cases a long while, do not lose heart.
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