Love is Love.

Dear Daphne,

I rolled out of bed on a chilly October morning in 1995 and planted my cold feet on the industrial dorm room carpet of my little corner of the Mudge B Basement, lamenting having let my mother talk me into taking The History of Psychoactive Drug Use in America.

(A tip for the future, Daffodil: Take interesting classes. Just not the ones that start at 8:30 a.m.)

My eyes, goopy with sleep, blinked sluggishly at the pile of clothes on the floor of my barely-closeable closet. I pulled on my favorite hoodie (green plaid with a bright red Elmo embroidered on the front—I didn’t come by any fashion sense until a few years later), squeezed into my button-fly Levis, and sank onto my desk chair to pull on a pair of fluffy wool socks.

I was just about to grab my sneakers when I happened to glance at the wrinkled flyer sitting next to my keyboard. My stomach sank. I consulted the clock. Ten after eight. I was going to be late for class, but I had to change clothes. I simply could not leave the dorm like this. The idea of walking across campus, passing other students, risking them thinking—no. It was unacceptable.

I changed in record time and practically sprinted across The Cut, my backpack bouncing off my pea coat, my brown corduroys whisk-whisking with every step.

And so went my first Gay Jeans Day.

The only explanation I can offer for my actions that day is that I was a freshman living north of the Mason Dixon line for the first time in my conscious memory. Growing up in Texas, I didn’t know anything about homosexuality. My only experience with A Gay was one time, sophomore year, when a kid named Jim in my Creative Writing class passed me a note detailing a dirty dream he’d had the night before about my boyfriend and me. I’d been so disgusted, I ratted him out to my boyfriend, who wanted to sic the football team on him, then ratted him out to my mother, who marched me into the principal’s office, after which Jim was expelled for three days. Jim was our grade’s token open bisexual, and while he probably shouldn’t have written that note, looking back, he certainly didn’t need the shit storm that came his way after I went whining to the administration.

At college, there were gay people everywhere. They walked across campus holding hands. They kissed in public. They didn’t even seem to mind if people knew they were gay. And, they tricked straight kids into wearing jeans, so they’d look gay too! What kind of crazy place had I landed myself?!?

Gay Jeans Day was pretty brilliant. It made straight people think about how others would react to their choice of clothing in relation to their perceived sexual orientation, and it allowed them to experience having to change their normal behavior in order to avoid being perceived as gay. More importantly, it made people like me deliberately wear another piece of clothing, effectively forcing me to do something to actively engage in homophobia. And believe me when I tell you that I thought all day long about the choice I’d made that morning.

Sitting in class, I looked around at my peers. That guy I had a crush on? The one with the really hot girlfriend? Jeans. The three sorority girls who sat behind me every day, boobs popping out of tight v-neck Kappa Alpha Theta t-shirts? Jeans. Except for a couple of fashionable girls in short skirts and knee-high boots, and a geeky guy wearing hunter green Wal-Mart chinos and white sneakers, all of my classmates were wearing jeans. Were they gay? Straight? Was I the only one who cared?

By the end of the semester, I’d made the first gay friends I’d ever had, and when Gay Jeans Day rolled around each successive semester, I didn’t think twice about donning my favorite pair in support of my friends. But I always wondered about the people who didn’t wear jeans. Had they done it on purpose? Were they homophobes? Did they have the good grace to be embarrassed?

It is November of 2009 as I type this letter. Last month, President Obama signed into law what, for the last ten years or so, has been casually known as the Matthew Shepard Act, making it a federal offense to do violence against another human being because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender or political affiliation. I can’t believe it has taken so long.

Sometime after midnight on October 7, 1998, a 21-year-old kid named Matthew Shepard met two guys in a bar. They offered him a ride in their car, then robbed him, beat him, tortured him, and tied him to a fence where they left him to die. He was discovered there eighteen hours later, alive but comatose, by a man who, at first, thought he was a scarecrow. Matthew had fractures in the back of his skull, and in front of his right ear. His brain stem was damaged, so his body could not regulate his heart rate or temperature. Doctors could not operate to save his life, because his injuries were too severe, and on October 12, he was pronounced dead. All because a couple of dipshit rednecks found his attraction to other men repulsive.

This morning, I woke to the news that the people of Maine voted to reject a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to get married. This breaks my heart. Can you imagine how sad you would feel if someone told you that you couldn’t marry the person you love, because your love doesn’t count the same as other people’s? In all of the United States, only five states allow gay couples the right to marry: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont perform and recognize gay marriages today, and New Hampshire will join civilized people in rejecting bigotry starting in January 2010. I very much hope that one day soon, the people of the state of Pennsylvania, and the rest of the United States of America will follow suit, choosing to embrace love instead of turning it away when it’s “different”.

A few months ago, I asked some of my gay friends to tell me about their love lives, so that I could use their experiences to teach my daughter about love in all its forms. I want you to understand that it doesn’t matter who you love, only that you love. I am saving their responses for you to read, but I thought I would share some of their thoughts here.

From Amy, a gorgeous, smart, creative defender of justice in Ohio:

“I’m gay because, just like everyone else, I want to make a home full of love, and I have love.”

“I believe that the best way to instill, and secure, a foundation of pure love for our fellow sisters and brothers is found in the way we carry ourselves. Preaching is not the answer. Our highest moments of intellectual persuasion do not, and should not, apply in this context. There is no room for argument. There is only room for unadulterated love, and in its most rudimentary manifestation.”

“Getting people to stop hating, and to start loving, is an art form. It is manipulation. Arguments do not win arguments; the refusal to argue, however, and to remain steadfast in your presentation of self, is what you want to remember when you wake up in the morning. This is the art, the manipulation to create Good.”

“Love begets love.”

From Mike, one of your father’s fraternity brothers who has a fearless determination to be exactly who he is:

“I can’t really explain to you why I’m a man and I love another man and want to spend the rest of my life with him, the way your Mom and Dad love each other and live together as a family with you. All kinds of doctors and scientists have been trying to figure out why sometimes men love men and women love women and they haven’t done a very good job of answering the question, so I don’t feel too bad about not being able to answer the question either. You see, it doesn’t really matter why it happens. All that matters is that you remember that everyone has a right to be happy in this world, to love who they want to love, sing what they want to sing, wear what they want to wear.”

“Don’t force anyone to think or act like you, and don’t let anyone else change what you think is the right way. If, when you’re a bit older, you think you want to marry a boy, you go right ahead. If you think you want to marry a girl, then that’s the path you should follow. Just follow your heart, because I can tell you that it always seems to know the right way to go.”

“When you can look inside people, you will know that we are all much more alike than different.”

As I know I’ve mentioned before, one of my greatest hopes for you is that you have love in your life. That love can come in so many different ways, and I wish with all I’ve got that you know how to recognize it in all its forms, and that you don’t turn it away out of fear or apprehension. Take love when it comes to you, and encourage others to do the same. Do not judge, or attempt to measure the worth of the love in your life or the lives of other people. Just be happy it’s there at all.

I look forward to witnessing all the love I know you’ll have in your heart.

Love,
Mom