Discrimination

Discrimination – now there’s a lofty subject.  I can’t speak for all kinds of discrimination, since I don’t suffer the consequences of them, but some that I love very dearly DO or WILL.

I don’t know exactly how to begin.  This entry was fueled by something I read about California and Gay Marriage.  It’s kind of amazing…I never knew how strong my opinions were on that subject until the other day. 

As a gay Christian man, I feel it is not someone else’s place to tell me whether or not I can marry a man.  The reason I said "Christian" is because that is a large part of what bothers me about the issue of Gay Marriage.  Supposedly, as a Christian, I am supposed to feel as if two gay people marrying will somehow threaten the sanctity of male-female marriage.  I don’t get that…at ALL.  I’ve gone – and continue to go – through my own personal struggle with acceptance of my homosexuality.  The LAST thing I need to hear is people telling me how wrong I am.  Well, I can deal with their thinking I’m wrong, really.  What I CAN’T deal with is that they act as if I CHOSE to be gay.  This is one of the most persistent delusional themes of most straight people.  I NEVER made a decision about which gender I preferred to sleep with. 

My own mother told me once that it was a choice.  I asked her if she chose to be heterosexual.  She said yes.  I said, "So then you thought about becoming a lesbian?!"  She said no.  I was like, "Then how the hell can you say you chose?!!!!!"  The lucky thing about my mother and our relationship is that, while she considers being gay a sin, she doesn’t JUDGE based on that opinion.  I can deal with people like that.  Opinions are opinions, whether I agree with them or not.   She doesn’t go around telling people, generally, that they’re going to hell.  I REALLY despise it when people say that.  I always ask them, "Who died and left you as God?"  I totally can’t understand how any human being can believe they can tell me I’m going to hell.  That’s GOD’S job, not theirs!!!!!  I have just as much a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, as they do, though they never believe that.  

Another example of this behavior:  I have a cousin, who shall only be identified as S, and her husband will be identified as G, who has an "open marriage".  As a married man myself, I don’t approve of that, BUT I love my cousin and her husband and their children, so it is not my place to throw what I feel in their faces.  S told one of her aunts one time that she and G had invited other women into their relationship, and the aunt said, "I don’t want to talk about it.  You’re going to hell!"  That angered me, but I bit my tongue and hoped she would grow less ignorant with time.  The aunt is NOT my aunt, thankfully, because I WOULD have said something to one of my own aunts.  I have, in fact.  But you know, I’m rather lucky where family goes.  I know that my mother and all of her brothers and sisters disapprove of homosexuality, but they still accept me and love me, even though I get occasional jabs thrown my way.  They never make me feel as if I’m deformed or diseased, like some people do.

Now, as I mentioned, I’m a married man.  With a WIFE.  It’s very bizarre being a gay man who fell in love with and married a woman.  This has actually caused some discrimination towards us from the gay community, too.  I have never been openly discriminated against because of it, I guess, but I get comments and jabs about how I’m not "really gay" or that I’m bisexual.  No, I’m not bisexual.  Yes, I am "really gay".  I have NO attraction to the female form.  That’s not what my marriage is about.  My marriage is about real, honest, lasting love and companionship, though we DO occasionally practice other kinds of relations, if you get my meaning.  Enough said about that.

I am also the son of a (deceased) illegal immigrant.  I was born a US citizen, because my mother is American and she gave birth to me in the same city in which I live now.  My father, however, was not American.  He was German.  When I hear people arguing about illegal immigration, sometimes it makes my blood boil.  I keep thinking, if they only knew what it was like to TRY to become a citizen of the US!!!!  Now, I don’t say that my father was right to sneak into the US.  He was denied visas, as I understand, for a past criminal record, as I understand it.  I don’t really know.  I wasn’t even BORN back then!  The point is that he was an illegal.  But he WORKED, he obtained a Social Security number OF HIS OWN, he served in the ARMY, and he died providing a life for his family.  It galls me to hear people talk about illegals the way they do.  They group MY FATHER in with what seems to be thought of as some kind of Loser’s Club, and I don’t like that one little bit!  Thankfully, in 1988, I believe it was, my father applied for amnesty (thank you, President Reagan!).  It was granted, and the road to citizenship began.  Unfortunately, my father’s status was only as "permanent resident" at the time of his death the following year in December.  That hurt me.  I kept hoping the powers that be would award him a posthumous citizenship, but I tend to be a dreamer.  They never did.  Why would they, I guess?

I have a niece and nephew who are in the same boat I was in.  Their father is an illegal, too.  I can’t speak for his Social Security status, but he works, too, and at a job anyone could get.  It wasn’t as if he said, "Hey, I’m an illegal immigrant.  Can I steal a citizen’s job?"  No, he worked to provide for his family, at least initially.  I could go on a really long and bad rant about him, but that’s not the point of this entry.  His mother and some of his brothers and sisters have chosen to go the legal route, thank God.  They have FINALLY been approved for visas, and they can now visit with my niece and nephew, if they choose to do so.  It took over TEN YEARS for their visas to be approved!!!!!!  Did you, dear reader, know it could take so long for something that’s supposed to be so simple?  My nephew and niece’s grandmother and aunts and uncles had no priors or anything.  Why did it take so long?!!!!!!

I’m pooped from typing out what I already have.  I just get so passionate about some issues, these being two of them.  I also intend, sometime in the future, to write about my godsons, who are biracial, as well as my nephew Hunter, who also is biracial.  I THINK things are easing up for biracial children, but I may not be correct.  Either way, I worry about POSSIBLE discrimin

ation towards my babies, just because they are half-white and half-black.  There’s also the issue of legal rights (and lack thereof) of step-parents that I eventually intend to address.  Right now, as I said, I’m pooped!  I’ll get back on my high-horse soon, I’m sure! 🙂

Love to all,

Jack