By Alonzo G.



 

How does my marriage threaten you? What if they protested straight marriage?

Folks take a stand against men and women who want to love other men and women.

 

They say “Preserve sanctity.” Why not preserve hope, love, charity, good will, peace, understanding, forgiveness, and tolerance?
How many chapel doors have the same key as the courts of divorce, domestic violence, broken hearts, broken dreams, annulments and family division?

If I am able to love then why are you not able to allow me to love?

If you love me then why do you condemn me?

How does my marriage threaten you? Do you want me too?

I chose to be straight in a world that chose to despise me. I was preached at all my life and taught to hate what was different. I chose to marry my wife to appease the crowd so that they would not think I was anything less than a man. I chose to deny my true nature and live amongst my peers only to be look through as if I had no soul.

When I chose to be straight I chose to marry outside my race. My race sneered at me for not going black. My wife’s people were uncomfortable with me not being brown. My neighbors wanted to move because I was not white. School moms abandoned their friendship with my wife when I showed up to pick my son up from school.

Strangers mocked us in public because I was married to a woman whose skin was fair while my skin was dark. I chose to prove to everyone that I was straight and struggled year by year with this agonizing pressure to be me.

Was I a threat then? Am I a threat now?

Years gone by, people grew to accept our inter-racial love and finally began to respect our differences and see us as a couple and not an undercurrent of hate and fear. That’s when I woke up and discovered me. My marriage to the straight world ended after 23 years now I can do me.

I fell in love from my heart this time; I met someone who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Struggling with the peeling off of layers of heterosexual conditioning I no longer wish to fight for who I am. I asked myself, if I could would I marry again? If I could marry the person I love will I be hated again because I married outside of my … Gender? Or should I say inside of my gender!

Again I ask, how does my marriage threaten you? Anything different is perceived as a threat. Funny, you can’t even compare race to same-sex discrimination without offending someone. However, there was a time when I was looked upon with malice and spite because of such misdirected ignorance and hate.

Now we are in the year 2008, as a couple I can live next door to you without any problems as long as I have no public show of affection. But dare I hold hands with the man I would marry and walk down our street? I can’t hide the fact that I am black but I can hide the fact that I am gay. The question is why should I have to hide at all?

Who are you to decide for me who I can love? What gives you the right to speak for God? Are you God?

Reciprocation of love is all I desire and being made to feel desired is not a crime nor a sin. I don’t want to judge you nor do I need your judgment. Why do you care so much about my soul? Why not look in the mirror and judge yourself.

I don’t have to take a position on who can legally get married because we all deserve civil rights. This is the land of the free. We are free to do whatever we want as long as it does not pose a threat to another person in any way. So again I ask, how does my marriage threaten you?

If I marry a man will the whole world turn gay? Will it bring perversion into your neighborhood? Psst. I have news for you take a look around – its already there! Baby mamas, baby daddies, paternity denial, wedding ban lines appear on a ring-less finger and the question rages on just who’s doing who. I don’t know – ask your wife or maybe I should ask you– What’s in your wallet?

Christians were once persecuted because of their belief. Non Christians were persecuted because of their non conformity. The “church” even killed those who failed to convert. Now you repeat history by condemning what from what I can see is fulfillment of prophesy.

But then again this world has never really had peace. There are so many other things to protest against – world hunger – greed –violence – poverty – ignorance to name a few. So why do you care what goes on in the privacy of our home?

I haven’t walked down the aisle yet but when I do I can assure you it will bring you no harm. Think about it this way if you condemn gay marriage then you are condoning couples living together and premarital sex.

Just my way of saying live and let live. Let God decide who is right and who is wrong. It’s sad that we can live in a neighborhood for most of our lives and not know the person who lives next door. I guess that makes it easier to protest against him.

How does my marriage threaten you?