No children, just a lesbian rant

Every now and then, I seem to nix the nannying part of this blog. It happened when I posted the other day about finding car insurance, and before that when I talked about health insurance. I know I've referenced my engagement/wedding as well. But pardon me for a moment while I go big picture.

I was listening to NPR tonight, and they were talking about the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal. Obviously I'm thrilled at the repeal; it's about time. I'm sick and tired of segregation just based on attraction preferences. Are soldiers going to be suddenly terrified that they'll be flirted with by their fellow men? Most of the world is heterosexual, yes, and yet I don't think most people live their lives in terror of possibly being found attractive. It's like the crazy argument when someone comes out and people are terrified that person will "like" them. I'm not madly stalking all my male friends; why would I do the same to you?

What bothers me even more, though, is the promotion of a culture of secrecy. I'm not talking the big privacy issues that keep cropping up (Facebook, WikiLeaks). It's the idea that it's okay to make someone hide something that isn't harmful. Whether it's the military or a school that will remain unnamed, institutions that force suppression only hurt people. I know. V and I graduated from a school where the wrong word to the wrong person would have gotten us kicked out. I spent a year hiding the most important thing that ever happened to me. It's not just keeping the fact that I had a girlfriend secret; it was not being able to write a spiritual memoir for a class that really dealt with my current spiritual status, because the teacher could have sent it to the Dean of Students. It was coming up with an excuse for why V and I were seeing a counselor, when really it was just to have a dose of sanity and reassurance. It was staying two feet apart every time we were on campus, in case somebody thought the wrong thing. Were we over-vigilant? Of course. We were both graduating with fairly impressive academic records (if I say so myself), and didn't want to jeopardize that.

Have you heard any of the news out of Belmont University? They fired their winning soccer coach because she announced she was going to have a baby with her partner. Part of my brain is blown that a "Christian" school would even have accepted knowing that she was a lesbian, but that shows you what I'm used to. I'm just tired of it. This post is a long way to say it, but I'm tired of people having to fit in little boxes in order to feel like a legitimate human being in the world. And sometimes I just want to yell it, because I couldn't for more than a year:

I have a girlfriend. We're getting married. I'm going to spend my entire life with her. And just because she happens to have matching chromosomes to me doesn't mean we're plotting the downfall of your society, so please, remember that we're normal, and stop trying to pretend we're either the devil or nonexistent.