Issue Number 1013 | Ready to Make Nice | Advocate.com Ready to Make Nice  |  | Advocate.com

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Ready to Make Nice
How to get along with your right-wing relatives.
From The Advocate  August 26, 2008
Ready to Make Nice

Are you already sick of hearing about gay marriage in California? All those smug jerks parading around their newly legal love? Well, too bad, because I went and did it myself. I know, go me. Well, actually, go us -- because my partner was doing it too. But I’ll spare you the details.

I’m about to visit my home state of Texas, where most of my family lives. My mom can’t wait to see the YouTube video of the wedding. But my brother and sister-in-law, being conservative evangelical Christians, won’t want to hear much about it. I plan to spend approximately 15 seconds telling them, “Yep. It’s legal there now. We did it. Now I can make medical decisions for him when he’s 85 and suffering from dementia and needs, you know, a colostomy bag or whatever.”

And this should satisfy their somewhat nervous curiosity about my life and my unwillingness to pretend I don’t have one. They’re not the kind of folks who worship the jerkface version of Jesus we hear too much about lately. They’re good people. And besides, we settled our big gayness dilemma years ago. Briefly: It was a big fight about me and God and them and hellfire that ended with us not talking for six months until an older family member, who’s also a conservative evangelical Christian but oddly down for at least this gay and this gay’s main squeeze, piped up and said, “Y’all aren’t acting much like Jesus right now.” That more or less settled it. The compromise was that I got to keep being gay and they promised not to harsh on me anymore. So now their kids occasionally call my partner “Uncle Alonso” and no one freaks out too much.

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Keywords:  Dave White 

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

  • Name: Jessica Reidies
    Date posted: 2008-08-04 11:34 PM
    Hometown: La Salle, IL

    Comment:

    Believe it or not, gay evangelicals exist and we can be just as catty and shallow as the straights, but we can also be loving and compassionate like Jesus calls us to do. I wish this article had at least bothered to hint at the fact that homosexuality and Christianity are not mutually exclusive.


  • Name: Byron Black#
    Date posted: 2008-07-30 11:57 PM
    Hometown: Jakarta, Indonesia

    Comment:

    Coming from Austin as well (UT, Class of 1962) I can empathize with you. One of the funniest things I heard was from a North Texas escapee who (from her perch in NYC) said 'The best thing I ever learned in Abilene was that sex is the dirtiest, nastiest and most sinful thing in the whole world, and that you should save it for the one you love the most in the world.' Byron Black 'Texas Student League for Responsible Sexual Freedom', UT 1964 [big flak]


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