on GLBT rights

Let's try another go at this blogging thing.  I've been meaning to say a few words on the subject of gay rights since that's kind of been in the news a teeny tiny bit lately.

First off, the explanation.  I'd always been in favor of equality for LGBT types.  I didn't really know any (except one friend that I always wondered about, but never really knew for sure and never asked) until ending up going to a gay bar with a friend and her roommate that I didn't know was gay until I found out that it was a gay bar that we were going to.  It was an interesting experience.  But anyway, the principle of equality for GLBT people was easy enough to embrace.  I mean, it means greater happiness for them and it doesn't harm me or other people in any way (we'll ignore the bigots who have their feelings hurt if they have to interact with someone they'd rather be discriminating against).  Win win situation from the principles I try to live by.

And then I accidentally met some gay people.  The guy at the gay bar I only met the one time.  We got along great, but after that night I never saw him again, I was only visiting the area.  But anyway, I like playing multiplayer computer games online.  One day I was playing on a server that, while not exclusively gay themed, had a lot of gay people on it.  For some reason I got invited into a group VOIP call after that, and I just sort of got assimilated into a small group of players where many of them were gay.  They were fun to play with so I kept joining them.

And then it got personal.  I don't know if any of them desired to get married.  But if any of them wanted to, and anyone wanted to stop them, then they were messing with my friends.  It's easy to support equality rights on principle as a kind of abstract thing.  Yeah, these people I've never knowingly met deserve the same chance at happiness that anyone else has, the same protections and opportunities.  But when it's someone you know, someone you've talked with and laughed with, it becomes a lot stronger.  I've actually met a few of that group in person now, through a series of amazing coincidences and crazy plans that I still can't quite believe worked out.  But even before that, it had still become personal.  "The Gay Agenda" had become these actual people who were my friends.  When you hear a religious person speaking out against gay marriage being this horrible thing for society and you know a gay couple that just want to be together and live a life together, something snaps in you.  You see the religious person for what he is.  A despicable person proudly parading his hatred in public, demanding the right to hurt other people to cater to his own biases.  You realize how absurd the idea that two men getting married and just forming a life together could bring down western civilization is. 

So that's the why to the next series of posts.  Speaking up is perhaps the least I can do.  But it's a start.  It's hardly even an act of bravery or anything, the polls show that a majority of Americans now agree, at least in terms of GLBT people deserving the right to marry.  At this point equality is the easy side to support, but in a much delayed gesture of support to the various GLBT people I've met over the years who have been good to me, there are some things I want to say.