I don't care what they say, straight marriage will never be equal to gay

I used to be gay. Not as an orientation but as a lifestyle (orientation stays, statically and fluidly as bi/pan).  I went to gay bars and saw drag shows. My gaydar was always on and I got the joke when Karen threw the keys and neither Jack nor Will moved to catch them (Grace: The gays don't catch.).  But then the woman I fell in love with had a penis and I married him and we settled down into blissful suburbia forever. But sometimes, sometimes I miss my gay card.
I watch Project Runway (Yay, Mondo! Sorry, Austin. Stop crying, Michael Costello), but I've never seen RuPaul's Drag Race.  I've never seen Glee. I barely even know who Lady Gaga is!  I just, I miss the glitter and the disco lights and the men dressed as women with lipstick outside the natural lines of their lips.  I love my husband very very much, but sometimes I wish he were gayer.

I wonder

There is no gay agenda and no one "promotes homosexuality" or tries to recruit anyone, but just for a second ignore that and ponder this. What if people did promote homosexuality, and try to recruit people to be gay? Why would that be bad?
Keeping in mind that you're either born gay or not, which is, you know, fact, why would people care if someone were to tilt at those particular windmills?  What if I decided to promote blue eyes, and recruit people to have blue eyes? It would be ridiculous and stupid, but who would it offend? I suppose if I got popular enough, people might notice and decide that I was unfairly discriminating and treating poorly those without blue eyes.  And that might hurt their feelings, to be told, however indirectly, that blue eyes are desirable over other colors.  Is that the problem? Are the straight people sad because no one wants to recruit them to be straight? Are they upset that no one is starting a straight straight alliance, or holding big leather boy parades for them? Are they sad because we get Rupaul and they get Ozzie and Harriet?  (After all these years, I still say we.  How quaint."

shame and patriotism

We are the United States of America. We support human rights all over the world. We are a moral high ground with a determined purpose to help end atrocities globally. We grant asylum to people who live in countries which do unspeakable things. We guarantee religious freedom, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, from police and government brutality, from cruel and unusual punishment.

I feel shame when our president won't sign declarations against discrimination because it would interfere with our ability to deny marriage rights to gays. I feel the same sadness and shame when we can't sign a pledge against genital mutilation because we want to be able to routinely circumcise boys. We won't decry atrocities because we want to continue to commit them. That makes me sad.

it IS judgment

Imagine you hear some one say this, or imagine someone says it to you.

I have friends who are bad mothers. I don't judge them for it at all, but I can see they are bad mothers.

What if the person said it about you. Would you feel unjudged? Or would you feel very much judged and very much insulted? That is exactly what it's like when religious people say they don't judge gays, even maybe have gay friends, but that they still know gay people are living sinful lives. What they're really saying is that they do judge, but they know they aren't supposed to. Or maybe they aren't clear on the meaning of the word judge. Remaining friends with someone, even though you know deep down that they or their life are bad or wrong or sinful, isn't the same as not judging. Not judging means not forming an opinion either way about it. Like this:

I trust that God has a plan for everything and everyone, and that I am in no way on a level to be able to know or understand God's plan. If HE sees fit to let me know why some people are gay, He'll tell me. But until then I will just trust that God knows what he's doing and it's not my place to try and figure out what that is. Gay, like blond or freckled or tall or left-handed, is just a human variable that I can't understand. A human variable so inconsequential as to not be worth an opinion at all.

That is what it's like not to judge. And for the record, I judge people all the time. I shouldn't, but I do. And I do know some people who are bad parents, at least in my opinion. And while I try not to judge them to be terrible people because they lose their tempers or feed their kids crap or neglect their kids or whatever, I still admit freely that I am judging them as parents. I believe most people do this. Maybe it's easier to use spouse as an example. How many people who are absolutely morally opposed to adultery have friends who have cheated on their spouses? And they still stay friends. But they also still judge, not just the behavior but also the person capable of the behavior. The thing that makes being gay different from cheating or being a bad parent, is that being gay doesn't necessitate a victim.