Excuse me, I'm affecting your marriage how?

I'm not quite sure where to begin. Between Maggie "NOM" Gallagher and M.D. Harmon from Maine, I'm not sure who I'm most offended by.

First, let me say I've played a heterosexual - not on TV, but in real life. I gave all I had to the part, and wound up with some serious substance abuse problems for my efforts. But hey, what's a Southern Baptist cum (forced) Lutheran girl to do? (you'll have to wait for the memoir there, folks).

For the record, I'm an Atheist now. I believe in the power of love and compassion. But I don't truly believe in gods or goddesses - although if I need the word, I'll pull goddess out before god, because I'm also a dyed-in-the-wool feminist. Old School style. No, really - I mean old school.

It helps that I have four daughters. It's a major impetus to feminism, having multiple girl-children. As a mother, you get protective. You develop not only a defense, but an offense. You foresee the difficulties your offspring will face, and you prepare them for battle. Which is why I will spend two nights a week for two weeks driving my college sophomore home from her self-defense classes this fall. For the record, it was her idea. See how well I raised them?

Seriously, though, I was brought up to believe - by my mom - that I could do whatever I wanted to do. Trouble is, I didn't take that advice to heart until I was 41. That was 17 months after I left my last husband - and 10 months after he died. By that time, most of my extended family was dead, or not speaking to me, what little was left. Until that point, I had been trying to fit in. Trying to salvage the last bit of respectability and acceptance I thought was available to me. I had lived in fear - both of rejection, and ostracization.

Because, let's face it, on some level - unconscious as it was - I knew I was gay. The trouble was, it was unconscious. I had crushes, well after that first girlfriend and two subsequent husbands - but I never acted on them. I couldn't. I had children. And my last husband threatened to take them if I left him, which I tried to do. By having an affair with the guy at my real estate office. Hey, denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

But despite my own insanity and denial - and it was deep and unsound, my denial - I raised good kids.I taught them not to make fun of others. I taught them that people are different, and that making fun of those differences was unacceptable. That's one thing they learned firmly - it is OKAY for people to be different. Even my own mental illness couldn't keep me from teaching them that.

And they learned. They carried it with them through elementary and middle school and high school and beyond. It was a good thing. And I'm sure it helped immensely when one of my children came out as Bi, and another as Gay, as difficult as that was for both of them - and make no mistake, it was hard for them, even with me out-of-the-closet. It's never easy to admit you are 'different'.

So to read the bullshit from the right wing - people like Gallagher and Harmon - my mother instincts kick in. I'm enraged. I'm outraged. How dare these narrow-minded a-holes dictate what a relationship between two loving individuals should be? How dare they take MY and my KID'S taxes, apply them to heterosexual couples, and leave MY kids out in the cold? What right have they?

None. That's my answer. They have NO right to dictate who I or my children love. They have NO right to appropriate OUR tax dollars to support THEIR heterosexual families. If I, or my children, are deprived of the federal rights granted to every heterosexual family, then dammit, queers shouldn't have to file taxes, State or Federal!!!

Seriously, why should we support them, if they work to deny us? If we're second-class citizens, why should we pay First Class Citizen tax rates? I spend thousands of dollars annually on property taxes. I do this because I still have a child in school. But let's think about this. Once that child graduates, as two others have in this School District - why should I pay taxes?

I'm not allowed the same benefits as a heterosexual is. If I partner with someone in the State of Texas, I am forbidden by Constitutional Amendment to marry them! So why should I pay for other people's kid's education???

It's not like I'm a single heterosexual with the ABILITY to mate and marry. I'm a queer. I've paid for MY kid's educations. Why should I pay for YOURS? I mean, if we're going to be fair about this - why the hell should the heterosexual community expect a dime from me? We pay taxes based on representation, yes? I'm NOT represented. I owe you nothing.

It could be argued: well, single people have to pay taxes, too. Yes, but what if a gay couple isn't single? Do they get the same tax benefits when they file their taxes for PAYING those property taxes? No. They don't. They are treated as two single individuals. Not spouses. Singles. Their relationship is not only unrecognized, their contribution as a couple is unrecognized. Where is the fairness in that?

Heterosexuals who do not marry have the OPTION of marriage. We don't have that in Texas - or most states. We are treated as Second-Class Citizens, despite the fact we pay taxes on wages, taxes on property. We are given fewer rights, for the same input to our government. We ARE Second-Class Citizens. We give, yet get less in return than our heterosexual counterparts. And why?

Because we are different. Because there is a faction in current society that sees us as a threat - they have yet to explain exactly what that threat is, but by God, we are a threat. To their marriages, their children, their churches. We are the Evil that threatens their standard of living - even though our tax dollars have been financing it for years - gay couples sure as hell don't benefit from SSA survivor benefits - as I and my child do from my late husband, and her sisters until they graduated HS. Even though they have Gay family members they deny - just as my Christian brother denies me - even though we teach their children, participate in their non-profits - we are, in fact, everywhere. In all professions, all fields. All families.

I am the only openly gay mother who has picked up my youngest from her elementary for the last 4 years. I have never encountered hostility from her teachers, her classmates, or their parents. Some of them might have found me a bit odd, with the tattoos and lip rings and short hair - but they were kind and courteous. My child has never been abused by her teachers and classmates. She has not been ridiculed. In fact, she's so confident, she presented her biography of Thomas Alva Edison in drag - and came home happy about it. In Texas, no less.

My point is that the few, the narrow minded, the bigoted, do not represent the majority. They might claim to, through signatures, and insistence on ballots. But ballots are meaningless. Beyond the simple fact that our Constitution makes clear that the rights of a minority should not be decided by a majority vote, the only people who SIGN these forms are people solicited by people with an agenda. People who inspire fear of the "other". People who try to convince others that their own rights will be swept from them by other people demanding their OWN rights.

And that is a complete and utter lie.

We only want the rights we would have if all of us "played straight", as I did. The rights everyone should have to establish families, contribute to their communities, and receive the same validation we would have if we pretended we were heterosexual. We want to live honestly. In public. We want acceptance, because we cannot change what we are, many of us have tried, and suffered for it.

We are not hurting you. We pose no threat to your marriage, your children, or your faith. But bear in mind - some of your children WILL be gay. My parents were straight. Straight parents does not mean straight kids. None of us choose to be gay. Who in their right mind would? But if you care, if you give a good goddamn, then for the sake of your own family members, end this war you've created. I cannot imagine putting my child through it. And I cannot see how you could put yours through it. Not in good conscience.