As much as I’d like to pretend it didn’t happen and want to be able to write my standard snarky post, I can’t let the events in Orlando go without commentary.

The amount of hate directed at the gay community never ceases to amaze me. Unless I’m in a relationship with you, your sexuality has nothing to do with me and makes no difference in my life. And the same holds true regarding my orientation. Yet somehow loving, or being attracted to, a person of the same gender, is enough to send a complete stranger into a murderous rage.  I’ve tried to put myself in the shoes of a person who is far more concerned with my sex life than I am, but I can’t do it. That some can have such hatred about something as inconsequential as whether or not people have matching genitalia, is beyond my scope of understanding.

Some people want to play the God card because there are a couple of Bible passages that mention same-sex shenanigans (maybe). Well guess what? Reading the book does not make you God and does not entitle you to stand in judgement others. If there is a God and it turns out that He/She really isn’t okay with this whole gay thing, then that’s between me and God. So, please take your Leviticus 20:13 and kindly fuck off.

The closest I can come to maybe understanding the feelings of someone who finds my sex life so vile and revolting, is the visceral reaction most people have to the reality of parent sex. While I’m glad it produced me and my brothers, it’s nothing I want to dwell on for any extended period of time. And as much as it gives me the willies, patricide doesn’t strike me as the best way to deal with those feelings.

I know the whole same-sex marriage thing has a lot of people pissed off. But people were also pissed off when women got the vote and schools were integrated. It wasn’t easy, but as a nation we managed to clear those hurdles (mostly). So I imagine it won’t be too long before we get over this little bump as well. You’ll know we’re over it when we just start calling it “marriage.”

I could understand some of the anger if we were asking for more, or better, than the average Joe is entitled to. If laws were passed saying gays driving solo can use the carpool lane, are allowed to go through the express line with more than 15 items or don’t have to bother with that pesky airport security business, those would be valid reasons to shake your fist and cry, “That’s not fair!”

But for the most part, gays and lesbians and everyone else included in our growing alphabet-soup acronym, just want the same rights and privileges as everyone else and then to be left alone.

If you don’t like us, ignore us. It doesn’t get much easier than that.