the river between us

I think it should be noted that I've been mentally composing this post since early Friday but, due to the kids and my Pilates walloping/certification course I've been in all weekend, haven't had time to sit down and write until now. I debated whether I would actually write it up after the, well, discussion erupted among friends. But I feel to post it anyway. So, just so you know, this is not a response to said discussion though it is somewhat related.

One of my old friends got married on Friday. I was invited to the reception and was looking forward to attending. Until I came across something on her Facebook profile. (I guess social networking can have its drawbacks.) You see, she supports Proposition 8.

Now, I have many bigoted friends. Actually, truth be told, all my friends are bigots. I'm a bigot. When it comes down to it, everyone is a bigot in some regard or another. It's just that, generally, we choose to associate with people who share our particular style of bigotry or who at least can set it to the side for social niceties. And some of us do our best not to politically bludgeon others with our bigotry.

So come Friday morning, I found myself rather irritated about my friend's party for her nuptials and the fact that I would be going to it even though she believes I shouldn't get the same thing. I had thought to perhaps go but refuse to take a gift because, well, why should I give her loot that she'll just use against me? By mid-morning I had nearly decided not to go. I let Dec know that I was leaning in that direction, which he was fine with seeing as how he didn't want to go in the first place since he doesn't even know her. Although he did throw out the thought that we could go as a big gay happy family and let our presence rub it in their noses that gay families exist. Oh, so tempting. Because I'm childish that way. But our mere presence wouldn't leave any impression unless we made some kind of monster scene, and I didn't feel like doing that. So, by the time I had finished my Pilates course for the day, I had decided we wouldn't be going. (Although my resolve was challenged when I got home to discover that the present Coworker had dropped off for me to deliver should I ultimately decide to go was packaged in a Victoria's Secret bag. Oh. So. Tempting.) We took the kidlings bowling instead.

Come Saturday evening, I was glad that I had decided not to go. You see, on Saturday, we went to another friend's birthday dinner at Pizza Factory. And everyone was grand and sweet and loved the kidlings. More important, to me at least, was something the Birthday Girl said toward the end of dinner. She noted that the family in the booth behind our table kept looking at Dec and I and glaring and muttering at us. Because how dare the fags come out in public. With children, nonetheless. And all she wanted, more than anything, was to tell them to crawl back into their cave from whence they came. But she couldn't figure out how to go about telling them that. At least not without making a monster scene. So instead she just glared at them with evil crusties.

And that was when I knew I'd make the right decision. Because when all is said and done, I think that what we all really want is to know which friends have our backs and which friends are putting knives in them.