Column: Political strife of a gay man

The Gay Agenda: Life and times of a modern gay man.

J.R. Hensley

J.R. Hensley

J.R. Hensley, Reporter

I wish I found politics as interesting as my husband does. Right now he is in heaven watching the endless mudslinging debates and political commentary. For him, he sees politics like the majority of society, that it is all an opinion.

For me, the presidential race is more than that. When many politicians use taking away the rights I have gained as their platform to pander to their base, the acid in my stomach begins to churn, and I fall into a depression that is difficult to recover from.

It’s silly, I know. I begin to sound like one big conspiracy theorist when I start shouting that this person is going to make it so we can’t adopt and will then throw me and my husband in a camp to die.

What can I say, I have a flair for the overly dramatic. But such things have happened before, and my community is easy to vilify.

My loved ones will try to subdue the crazy by saying, “Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen.”

How can one be so sure?

It wasn’t that long ago, 2008 to be exact, when the people of California voted to ban gay marriage: California, the perpetually blue state. To add insult to injury, the election and results were on my birthday.

The only reason I was even allowed to eventually marry the man I had spent (at the time) 10 years with was because of the legal process that eventually made its way to the Supreme Court. They were the ones that took pity on my community and declared the law unconstitutional, which then nullified similar laws across the country. And even with them, it narrowly passed with a single vote.

If it hadn’t been for their decision, I would still refer to my husband as my “boyfriend” or worse yet, “partner.” God, that word makes me cringe.

It isn’t that just one seat that has been vacant since March, it is that most of the justices are coming to retirement age and no one has a clue who will fill them. That is where most of my fear lies. These potentially conservative appointed judges could reverse the decision, and we could be back to square one.

However, it has come to my attention that it is really difficult to reverse a Supreme Court decision, almost as much as making revision to the Constitution. So, I should rest easy but I can’t.

It boggles my mind why people have an opinion on something that will never affect them and harms no one, just because their religion happens to disagree.

Forgetting that the government isn’t supposed to have any favor toward one faith over another, that same dogma doesn’t agree with a lot of the things that happen in society, but no one is rushing to outlaw those. That is because those laws would inhibit them from doing what they want. Saying gays are bad is easy because it has no bearing on the majority’s lives.

I am really looking forward to when all of this is over. I want to go back to liking my friends and family and not judging them for who they want to run the country.

I make it personal, like they want me to go back to being a second-class citizen, when in the end it is just opinion.