Exactly How Far Over the Rainbow?

There are very few issues I have officially stands on and even fewer that I passionately make efforts to show my support for; I prefer to graze the center line and listen and appreciate both sides; however, the exception is gay rights. I would believe that love is undefinable and has no boundaries of race, religion, gender, ect anyway, but the main reason I feel so strongly in favor of gay rights has to do with a story of my first best friend and how I lost her friendship. I've mentioned it briefly in an earlier post, but let me explain a bit deeper.

Danielle and I met when we were three years old. Our older brothers were best friends, so it was only natural our paths would cross. We became inseparable instantly and stayed that way until that day in fourth grade.

It was lovely weather outside, and after lunch the two of us happily skipped out towards the playground, holding hands. Halfway through the hallway we were stopped by a large fifth grade boy we'd never talked to before. He pointed at our hands and laughed, yelling to his friends, "Hey look at these girls, they are totally gay."

I tilted my head questioningly. What was gay? I'd never heard that word before. I glanced at Danielle to see her eyes as big as saucer pans. She jumped and threw my hand away from hers as if it had burned her. My best friend ran away, leaving me standing there, clueless as to what had just occurred. The boys laughed and walked off. She did not say a word to me for the next six years.

I suppressed the memory of it and blamed everything on her new best friend, saying she had stolen my best friend from me. Then in high school, I befriended the most accepting group in the school. Among them were straights, bisexuals, gays and lesbians.

They are the type of people who talk with touch. For a while when they would try to touch me, my shoulder, my knee, my elbow, my head, didn't matter, I would flinch away. I never understood why until one day when I was emotionally upset, I remembered how Danielle and I truly broke apart.

I was scared of my friends touching me. What if people would think or say something? Would they leave me like Danielle had? Was it wrong for me to hug someone who I did not wish to have sexual relations with? That's when they told me that they HAD been told such things, thought of as what they weren't, but they did not give a damn what anyone thought. We know the truth and that's all that matters.

There you have it. I lost my best friend at the age of nine because someone suggested we were gay. I'm straight, but I've felt the sting of discrimination based on sexual preference. I believe that love transcends the boundary of gender.

Who is the government (or anyone else for that matter) to say who anyone can or cannot love? Or can or cannot be a couple? "Oh fine, you can get bonded, but we wouldn't recognize you or give you the same treatment as a heterosexual couple." Sorry, not good enough! Two people in love should have the right to get married and be treated like they are a couple by the government and our society as a whole.