First, I should start by saying that I am a devout heterosexual. I really really like women. In fact, there are some who would say I like the ladies a bit too much. But that's another story for another time.
Anyway, I also have to admit that for many many years I just couldn't deal with the thought of gays being around me and wondered what was wrong with them. I also openly discriminated against them, told crude jokes and all types of other things that hillbilly types do.
But as I grew older and wiser and actually started to know some gay people, I started to realize that homosexuals are just like the rest of us, except they happen to love people of the same gender. Not as friends or siblings, but as married people love each other. And I thought that there is nothing wrong with that. The first openly homosexual guy I knew was the brother of a girl I used to date. She often sneered at him, as she was feeding her four children (none of them mine lol). I occasionally joined her, but after a while, I realized that he was just another guy. He had a hot rod, a '69 Mustang fastback, he watched football and understood the game more than most of my straight friends, he was a whiz kid at euchre, and he ate chili, etc. just like me and my straight friends. Eventually, me and his sister broke up and went our separate ways. I also lost track of her brother.
But I was starting to question why I had a "thing" about gays. And I came up with several reasons, chief among them being ignorance and fear. Fear of something different. I started to speak up. I asked why should gays be treated any differently than anyone else when it comes to jobs, housing, military service, and life in general. And I couldn't come up with any satisfactory answer. And about two years ago, a gay couple moved into a house down the street from me. They invited several of the neighborhood people over for a barbecue. The food was delicious, the beer was cold, the music left a little something to be desired, but we can't have everything, and there were only six people attending. Most said they had "other committments", but at least two residents just flat out said that "We don't want them in our neighborhood". The gay couple, Paul and Derek are still there and the two residents are either gone or soon to be gone. One guy said he wasn't going to expose his kids to "those" people, while feeding his grandchild that his 16 year old daughter gave birth to. I don't talk to the other people as they are rock ribbed righties and are not worth wasting my time on.
Paul and Derek invited me to a euchre tournament at a local gay bar and I accepted. After all, free food is free food. Not one guy tried to hit on me. Not one. Quite frankly, I wasn't sure whether I should be flattered or insulted. Anyway, I really had fun and plan to go back again. Not because I am gay, but because I am human. I like cheap beer and I like good conversation. The bar gives me both. So I guess in the last thirty years, I have come nearly full circle in my understanding of the "gay lifestyle". It seems to be people who go to work every day, who want to make car payments and house payments, and people who simply want to live their lives among all of us, just as we who are straight want. And to all the gay haters out there, whose business is it that two guys or two women are in love with each other and share the same bed? It ain't yours and it ain't mine. Just as it is nobody's business who I am sleeping with or you are sleeping with.
In closing, I want to apologize for ever hating gays. I know it was years ago and I have changed, but it was wrong to begin with and I think I am a better man for now accepting gays as "regular" people. Gays are as regular as anyone else. And besides, define regular.