Expanding the Paper (Blog Post #3)

The whole issue on gay rights has affected me personally. I elaborate on this in my paper, stating that as a gay male I am legally barred from marring the person I love. I have been around same sex couples ever since I was young. My uncle had a life partner named Bob. We called him uncle Bob and we never questioned it.

I remember when they would visit us from San Francisco. My uncle Tony would bring his own apron for cooking. He’d cook “exotic” things like shepard’s pie. He was very domestic in that way. Baking and teaching my cousins and I lessons we’d never forget. For me personally he would teach me about acting. Once we did a scene in the living room. We pretended that I was looking for a secret document and he caught me. That was my first acting lessons. Uncle Bob would sit with us kids and play Power Rangers with my cousins and I. Together my uncles would incite “the tickle machine” in which they would mercilessly tickle us until we begged for them to stop. It’s memories like that, that stay with me.

They were never able to get married. Maybe they never wanted to. Nither of them were alive long enough for me to discuss something of that nature with them. Even though they weren’t married officially, to me, they were. Not with the title but isn’t that what marriage is? Being someone’s life partner. Now there are titles thrown in and politics and money. I personally believe that we don’t need titles to define our love however it’s not about titles now. It’s about rights and what the American family is. That definition has changed within the last 10 years.

To me, the American Family can be any mix of people. It isn’t the standard mom, dad, son, and daughter anymore. I don’t know what my very own American Family is yet. I’d like it to be me and a spouse but maybe it won’t be. Maybe it might be just me and a kid or just me and spouse. But for me that’s not the point. The fact we as gay people are ignored by laws that “protect” us is just wrong.

My uncles lived a normal life and it was normal to us kids and still is now they we’re older. What if all the kids in the United States were taught like that. Would they be accepting then? Would we not have these problems if they were.