Hurt or Pissed?

     So… today I sit and I cry. This Easter Sunday, the time of rebirth, the time of rising, I sit and I cry. I remember… I remember my Jim who lost his battle with AIDS. I remember the time… I remember…
     Because…
     Today I was so upset, so angry, so… just so persecuted. I feel so hurt and betrayed. I feel marginalized by a lesbian, a person that I fought for, a person who I was arrested for. This person told me to sit down and to shut up; a person who told me that my opinion didn’t matter and who hurt me to my very core. Me. I let this happen. It is my fault that I let this person into my inner sanctum.
     I am better than this! I am stronger than this… or so I thought. It is harder to fight the fight when it comes from within I guess. I fought for all our rights, gay, lesbian and bi. I stood, I protested, I yelled and I screamed. I passed out pamphlets; I gave out condoms, I… I was there. I… thought… I felt… my voice mattered.
     And now, I’m told that within the M/M genre to sit down and shut up? I’m told that my history, my feelings, my… existence does not matter. My contribution, the love that I had for another man, my Jim, our romance, our love that lasted for seventeen years is… is immaterial… is what? Not worthy of your acceptance? That you write about gay men and make money off our lives and you have the unmitigated gall to tell me to sit down and shut up?
     My start…
     I began writing gay fiction to supplement my income that was forced upon me because of a disability. I needed this money. I wrote because I needed to do something. Anything. I did not start writing gay romance as romance. I wrote what I know. I wrote stories that I wanted told. I wrote from my heart and the things that I’d experienced. I wrote… I wrote to keep me alive. I wrote because I needed a new purpose. I wrote because it was fun and exciting. I wrote because it gave me life. I wrote for me. I wrote my life.
     And now…
     I write for what? To be spit on from some cis heterosexual who has no clue what I’ve been through as a gay man? I write for some lesbian who I was arrested for so that she and her wife could have equal rights under the law? What cause did I give so much time to, to be treated as a lower class person, in a genre that I know so much about?
     Note: Gordon Merrick – The Lord Won’t Mind – sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 1970. A gay romance, the first of a three part series. The M/M genre started by who? You have a degree? In what… fantasy?
     I turned my computer off. I turned my phone off. I turned… off…
     I watched ‘Milk’ with Sean Penn. I cried. I remembered all that suffering. I felt again everything that I experienced over thirty years ago. I knew what I was fighting for and this was all pre-AIDS. And then AIDS destroyed my life and ended so many lives.
     I am sorry that you, Ms. Megan Derr had such a bad experience. I’m sorry that a gay men made you feel… less than… whatever. However, how dare you tell ME to sit down and shut up? How dare you tell me and countless others to be silent when it was we, those of us who gave our time, our lives, so that you could marry a person of the same sex? How dare you put men down in your obvious hatred of anyone with a penis? How dare you lump every gay man or is it men in general, into your realm of hatred?
     In the end…
     I feel pity. I feel sorry for this poor unfortunate soul who knows so little of gay history. I feel sorry for anyone who buys into this shame, this abomination, because that is what is it. This self-gratification of sexual titillation of gay men’s lives is nothing more than voyeurism if the reader has no respect for others personal lives, the struggles, the battle that was and is still being fought just to be able to love who we love.
     Execution is still the penalty for homosexuality in numerous countries. Today, in Chechnya, they are rounding up gay men and torturing them to give up the names of other gay men, meanwhile stating that there are NO gays in that country.
     Meanwhile, the Kindle Alexander’s are quite okay with gays being rounded up and dumped into the Outback of Australia and let them kill each other off while THEY make money off very intimate details of their/our lives, not very realistically if I may add.
     I will say this…
     Tragically, it only goes to show how much we have lagged behind. We, the gay male community and those who support us have to go to truly gain equal rights. Not gay rights, but equal and human rights to be who we are. To be able to love those who want to be able to love and not be ashamed by the simple gesture of holding hands, to sneak the quick kiss, to exchange those special glances without being bashed in the head, or in this case, the gut-wrenching forums of social media by those WE have supported, by those who we thought were standing with us. NOT standing behind us, ready to push us in front of the proverbial bus.
     In closing…
     I weep because I see how far we as a human race have come and how far we have regressed. Lives matter, no matter the race, the gender or the… ____ YOU fill in the blank. Correct me if I’m wrong: ‘Love Thy Neighbor’. We are everywhere, no matter the gender, no matter the race.

NOTE: I wanted to really rant and give y’all a good what-for’ but… 
That’s all I’ve got… for now. I am going to be taking some time off since I have house guests coming this week and quite frankly, I just need to step back.