I was surprised when first Biden and then another man in the administration and then finally President Obama came out and said he supported Gay Marriage and that this is the first sitting President of the United States ever to support Gay Marriage. And this seems kind of strange that this is the first one who held this position as a sitting President. My position on Gay marriage has always been sort of neutral. On the one hand I understand how people feel that marriage can only be between a man and a woman and some people could get really dangerous still who feel this way. On the other hand I have seen the suffering of Gay people all my life in many different situations along the way. So, even though I have always been interested in women only I have also had many friends that I found out were gay along the way. I'm sort of the person who people have always trusted and the kind of person who people have always told their stories and secrets to. I tend to be pretty much a non-judgmental person around the people I meet. I think it is because I almost died of whooping cough, then childhood epilepsy and then I was suicidal for a couple of years because of being asked to leave my childhood religion. So, even though I have never been gay I have always felt different inside than most people. So, I tend to be protective of people. And since I'm 6 foot 4 1/2 inches tall if I give people a certain look when I'm quiet they are usually scared of me because of my size. So, protecting women and people not able to physically protect themselves was something I was always good at because of my size.
I met my first gay couple in about 1960. I was 12 years old and my father had an Electrical Contracting job working on their very successful music recording studio in Hollywood. There were many gay people in Hollywood then and now. In those days my father didn't like people being gay. But, if they were his friends he also felt very protective of them. At first, I patterned after my father.
However, by age 15 I was tall and handsome and one day a man drove up to me on the street and said, "Hey. Let's go have some fun!" At first I thought he wants to go to a movie with me. But then I realized this was a Gay Come on and I almost threw up right then. So, I said, "No." and the man drove away. Different men kept falling in love with me throughout my life and I found this kind of difficult because I didn't want to be put in the position to have to hurt someone, either emotionally or physically.
At one point a guy I knew was drunk and high at a party and came up to me in a party and stuck his tongue in my ear. Luckily, I had a girl I was dating on the other arm and said to him, "Hey. I'm not into that." If the girl hadn't been on my arm I might have had to hit him then because of the way the culture was then in 1970. But luckily people saw him as being just high and inappropriate and I was relieved.
Also, while I was single in between marriages, at least 2 of my girlfriends I found out were Gay along the way. To me, what was sad that one of them wanted to be with me while having female lovers without telling me. I thought this was kind of sad that she felt she had to lie to me about it. Another girl that I wanted to date in a new church that I had joined during the 1970s was in a 3 month seminary college program that I had just graduated from in Pasadena, California. However, she had told her room mate at the church college that she was gay and the church had put her up in front of several hundred people and condemned her for her admission. She came to me for help at this point because she was suicidal. I tried to save her by taking her off the church college grounds before she killed herself to a New York Lady psychologist that I knew in Oceanside, California that might save her life. Though I was kicked off staff of the church for doing this I felt saving this girls life was more important than belonging to any church. I succeeded and so did my New York Psychologist friend and my gay girlfriend eventually went home to Florida in one piece.
About 10 years before he died a friend from Church told me that he had always been in love with me and had been one of my best friends since I had met him at age 6. I told him,"I don't really want to hear that. We have been platonic friends since I was 6. Why are you telling me this now?" I felt sort of sorry for him because he had been married twice because of the church we were raised in but since he was gay all the time it was kind of sad, especially because his first wife had died in a pool from alcohol and muscle relaxants when he wasn't there.
In the 1980s a friend of my 2nd wife's had been her helper and protector and had even considered marrying her because he loved her in a non-sexual way because he was gay. However, about that time I came into her life and we married and eventually had my oldest daughter. However, her friend eventually by the mid 1980s got AIDS and died in the Tenderloin of San Francisco and my then wife spent the last two weeks of his life with him while I took care of our 3 year old daughter and the rest of my kids in Mt. Shasta.
So, how do I feel about Gay Marriage? I feel Gay people have suffered a lot and I know they don't choose to be gay they just are. So, if you don't let them get married they can either commit suicide like many did (and still do around the world) for thousands of years, or become priests and ministers and molest your children, or you can let them get married and lead normal lives like everyone else.
When something is accepted and out in the open everyone stays alive. When things have to be hidden too many people have to die whatever it is.
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