I must confess, I can never understand how people take relationships so for granted. To pick up a date, have fun, have sex and a few days later they’ll have someone else like the other never happened has always befuddled me. How can they do this? How dare they make it look so easy, love’m and leave’m and go on to the next. I’m not a bad looking brother yet I can’t even get a date, let alone trash a relationship. I don’t know if being gay has anything to do with it. OK, I confess, I am gay. It’s no secret and I am not in the closet; I just don’t advertise myself to the world. In my years of observing human interactions, I have noticed that gay men have the same problems as straight women; all the available men are gay fems, married men cheating on their wives or in prison. I’m a good catch, I’m not unemployed, not an ex-felon, got myself together but just like a woman I seem to get the no good men that ain’t got shit. Maybe gay nature favors the bad boys in life because of the unpredictability and thrill of an unstable man. Or we just prefer relationships that are doomed from the start that way no real emotion needs to be invested.

If gay men seem to be attracted company that is doomed to fail, one possible reason is that it’s better to have the illusion of love, intimacy and commitment without the pit falls of love, intimacy and commitment, disposable emotions for a disposable relationship. Is it hopeless to search for a real relationship in the black gay community? Maybe it is because of the gay self-hatred that is overtly preached in black culture. How can good healthy relationships develop if you must always sneak around making what you do dirty and be always spiritually condemned from the pulpit for being yourself. Depression is an underlying current that runs thought the black gay community, the pressure of being “the man” we suppose to be leads to failed marriages, on going bad marriages, alcoholism and suicides. Sneaking around only deepens the guilt of hypocrisy and cheating creates an even deeper sense of separation from God, and God is central to the African-American psyche.

Gay relationships in the black community are like ice bergs. What you see is only the tip, the majority is submerged, unseen and cold. Most black gay men are not “out”; they have girl friends, wives, families and some even Pastor churches. These are the men that are on the Down Low (DL) and no one would ever suspect them of being “that way.” They re-enforce that image through sports, body building, womanizing and even gay bashing. But as much as they follow the program of being a “real man” the innate attraction to the same sex remains. They find themselves confused and sometimes on their third marriage. With all the sex and marrying they can’t find happiness or satisfaction with a woman. They soon find themselves at adult bookstores looking for chance meetings with other men for fast quick sex, finding temporary satisfaction for what is missing in their lives. I can’t say that these men are living a lie, I choose to say they are living the best way they know how. Social and cultural pressures are too strong for them, especially in the African-American community. I can say the life they are living is sad. How sad it is to be married and lonely.

Does being gay automatically predispose one to being lonely? I think not. Being homosexual is as natural as being heterosexual. If a heterosexual chose to be heterosexual then it’s fair to say that he or she could just as easily chosen to be homosexual if sexually is a choice. If Heterosexuals are born heterosexual and being attracted to the opposite sex is part of their innate nature then why can’t the same be true for homosexuals? If the religious profess that God does not make mistakes then the verity that exist in nature also can be applied to human nature.

Hell and damnation, the word of God and the down fall of societies, how can a gay man reconcile himself with this universally spiritual taboo? The answer is simply he can’t, not under the spiritual interpretation of homophobic teachings that has gone out though the centuries. The Bible gives a good cross section of all human types and with in these types we have examples of human behavior. The story of Sodom and Gomorra is the principal source from where religious communities form their idea of homosexual behavior. If gay people acted in the way the population did in Sodom: lawless, consumed with lust, rapists of angels, and a collective rape gang, yes, I would agree that such behavior is evil and worth condemning. Yet, when I look out over world history and American society itself, I find homosexuals to be an important part of the dynamic of building societies. Gay people are leaders in education, philosophy, arts and sciences, literature, mathematics, entertainment and religion (see the Blacklist at: http://www.blackstripe.com/blacklist/). I have not seen or heard of any gay community organizing rape gangs, nor seeking to sodomite angels, though we are guilty of organizing gay pride parades.

And as for gay marriage, I believe the TERM marriage means a man and a woman, but I do support Civil Unions. This is a none sectarian TERM and has all the legal rights as marriage. Despite the TERMS, “A rose called by any other name till smiles just as sweet” Shakespeare. The downfall of society is the deeds of anyone that is guilty of lawlessness, lust, and rape, not for the ones we love. But the principal downfall of a nation is when injustice remains unchecked, when the guilty buy their freedom and the poor receive unfair sentences. This is a topic for another essay in the near future.