Gay Person? or a Person that is Gay?

With all the talk recently on gay rights and gay marriage, it is a prime time to be gay and let everyone know about it. My question is the following: If you had to answer the following question, "Who are you?", what would your answer be? What defines you as a person? Is it just being gay, or being straight? No straight person would ever respond to the "Who are you?" question with the answer "Straight", nor would they ever think to define themselves that way. When we search to define ourselves, we all tend to want to let others know what sets us apart. Myself, a straight guy, I would never think to define myself as heterosexual because most people are, but the things that do come to mind are "skinny, sports fanatic, Bostonian (living in Utah), and competitive". The things that define me are the things that set me apart.

Is that the way it should be? What would you say to the "Who are you" question? At a fundamental level, we are all children of God as the Bible says, so why don't we all define ourselves that way? Would the world be a better place if we truly knew how to define ourselves. We all feel a need to define ourselves so that we are different, so that we set ourselves apart from the average Joe, but is that helping our society, or is that hurting us and impeding unity and oneness of attitude and goal. Are we not all Americans? Are we not all human beings? My point is that we should seek to look at the similarities that we hold with others instead of laying out all the differences. Until we do, the barriers to resolution will be getting bigger instead of smaller. What heterosexual white male will ever want to take the side of a homosexual black female just for the sake of it. But if the two were to discover that they are both American, they both live in the same state, they both went to the same school, they both believe in the same God, they both had parents die from cancer--then, maybe then there would be some resolution in this world.

Declaring differences defers a destiny of unity, while sharing similarities spurs a sense of oneness in society. So don't tell me what you are that makes you different. I don't want to know right of the bat that you are gay, that you do drugs, that you hate the Boston Red Sox, that you like toe jam, that you sleep with your eyes open, that you prefer communism, that you like old milk. Tell me something that I want to hear...like how you voted for David Archuleta, and how ice cream is a necessity in your home, and how you love my kids. Tell me some things that I want to hear and that I can relate to, and then I 'll get your back. Was it Abraham Lincoln who said roughly, "If you want to win a man to your cause, first become his friend".