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I can explain the division of our country in one powerful sentence excerpted from a conversation with my dad on the phone tonight, where he stated, “You and Katie wear your being gay like a badge of honor, and make sure everyone knows about it.”
I didn’t know I had a badge, much less one of honor, but now I know what it looks like to some.
As were furthered our conversation I realized that his comment was not born of hatred or anger or even embarrassment, but simply founded from fear…..fear of the unknown….fear of something he’s never seen percolate to its finale. Maybe if he had been surrounded with more non-traditional relationships growing up, he wouldn’t think as he does. Maybe if he had been subjected to more loving relationships, he wouldn’t be as afraid. But the truth of the matter is that we’re all just a product of our own small worlds and what we think we know to be true.
It’s fear that keeps us separated as a people. It’s fear that keeps us from fully listening to a contradicting opinion, for it may hold an ounce or resemblance to our own. It’s fear that chokes us into believing that we can’t give freely to someone else for panic that it might deplete our own supply. It’s fear that keeps us from accepting one another because we don’t know what it would look like, and it’s fear that makes my dad think when I introduce my wife as my partner, other mother, or wife, that I’m trying to be militant about being gay.
Entwined in an almost-20 year relationship with my wife, with whom I’ve shared 5 feral cats, 3 apartments, 3 dogs, 3 homes, 3 fish, 2 children, 2 pregnancy losses, 2 hermit crabs, 1 frog, and all of our history, family, and friends, I do wear a badge of honor, that of love. I am damn proud of it too, not because Katie’s a woman or because we were allowed to get married or because I bucked the system, but because this shit is hard!
To maintain any relationship is hard, but to not only maintain, but sometimes almost overturn the boat and other times rock the hell out of this marriage, is a pure miracle, peppered with a lot of hard work.
Thank you, Dad, for sharing your thoughts with me. I’m a better person because of our conversations, even though I don't always like them nor their topics. I don’t judge you or feel angry with your comments, as I know exactly where they came from….the only thing you know, same as all of us. But now it's time for all of us to see something different and challenge what we know, so that we can see the world for what it is....filled with a variety of people different than us.
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