Coming to accept the gay man!

Something that has always bothered the piss out of me is gay people. Gay people themselves do not bother me; some of my closest friends have been gay. It is what accompanies them that annoys me so. I cannot stand the ignorant people who dislike gay people because of, for what all I know is a natural phenomenon. I am a liberal, and I have always felt that you are entitled to your own opinion. However, your opinion is just that, your opinion. Just because something is your opinion, does not mean that your opinions should be enforced upon others. Also, your opinion does not entitle you to judge others based on your opinion.

But however much I might not like to admit it, I used to be the same way as these annoying people. Gay people were icky, disgusting abominations. This mostly was due to my upbringing. The good ol’ Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve argument, homosexuality is a sin, a man should not lay with another man, God hates fags, and many more views that are ignorant.

Luckily, at that critical time when a youth begins to shed his/her parents views to form their own I met a very special person. When I was in ninth grade, I had a physical science teacher named Mr. Campton. He was an amazing teacher. I remember on the first day I asked him what TNT stood for. From that moment, he and I had a special bond. I was his prodigy child, and he was my mentor. I always questioned everything and I think he, like most teachers, loved that.

When I first met him at open house I remember thinking, this dude is weird as fuck. He has to be gay! And the signs were pretty obvious to anyone, including me. But after him and me, started talking and he turned out to be pretty cool, I completely ignored what was so obvious. I had to; I could not like a gay guy, much less look up to him. So I worked it out in my head, that he was not gay. He was just eccentric. Eccentric was much better than gay. 

The year continued, and he and I became good friends. Then I changes schools and the obvious truth came out. My brother had been dating a girl whose mother worked with Mr. Campton's mother. When I transferred schools, my mum figured that I did not need to be ignorant of the truth anymore. So, one day as I was complaining about my new school and how I missed Mr. Campton's class, she decided that it was time for me to know the truth. She told me, "You know that Mr. Campton is gay right." At first, I denied it, and she told me that my brother's girlfriend had told them that he was gay. Neither his girlfriend nor my mum had any reason to lie, but I didn't want to believe what my mum had to say. I figured that it got lost in translation or something. Anything but him being gay!

When I finally accepted the truth, my first thought was to completely ignore the fact that I ever knew someone named Mr. Campton. It was much easier to ignore it, than face the truth. Then I got pissed. All the times I had spent my lunch period talking to this man, and not once he felt the need to mention, "Hey, by the way, I'm gay!" I felt betrayed, even lied to in some sense, and hurt to say the least. 

Then reality set in. Why was I feeling this way? I had liked him before I found out that he was gay, why the hell would that change anything. I felt like I was acting like a racist, although Gay is not a race, and I cannot stand racist people. But it was worse, I had once liked this person, but now I did not because of something that they could not help. 

Who in their right mind would choose to be gay, and face all the animosity that gays usually face if they could choose to be 'normal.' If being 'normal' was that easy, I think that, everyone would choose to be 'normal.' But everybody knows that there is no truly ‘normal’ person out there. Do not get me wrong I realize that there is a choice in being gay. The person chooses to listen to their heart and live that lifestyle. But, I do not think that it is my place to judge. I have the right to choose to be with whomever I want to be with as a strait person. Why shouldn't someone else. I finally decided that I did not care anymore; I liked him before I knew, and why would something as trivial as his sexuality change anything. 

I decided that I was not going to let this new information affect my high regards for this man. I continued our friendship and when I transferred back to my old school, I completely disregarded the fact that I had ever learned anything about his sexuality. It was his sexuality, not mine to judge. It was his sexuality, not mine to question. It was his sexuality, not mine to fear. 

I initially did not like it that my mum had withheld this bit of information from me for almost a year. I felt that she, my brother, his girlfriend, someone, should have told me. I felt that they had lied to me by omission. But, I came to accept my mother's answer to why she had done it. She wanted to protect me, because she knew it would hurt or bother me. I can appreciate that, but now I am glad and thankful that she did not initially tell me for another reason. By her not telling me, I was able to get to know Mr. Campton without regard to his sexuality. I was able to come to care about Mr. Campton for the amazing person that he is, and not the fact that he is gay. I saw him as a person before I seen him as gay. Once you see someone as a beautiful human being, it is very hard to tarnish that with anything, even the fact that this beautiful person may be gay. 

One of the mantras that I always try to live by since this experience is: 

We are all human, love and accept our humanity. Once you love humanity, the comparatively trivial factors that make up a person do not really matter, because we are all a part of humanity. 

May Peace be with you all.

To "Mr. Campton":

 Although I did not use your real name, in order to protect your identity and not possible expose you to unwanted scrutiny, but you know who you are. I would like to thank you so very much for making me the person I am today. If you ever read this, I would enjoy the opportunity to talk to you about Star Wars sometime. 

May peace be with you,

S.