When I see the “alternative lifestyle”, my mind automatically does towards that of gays and lesbians.  Why?  Well, I have a lesbian daughter and daughter-in-law, for starters, as well as a few friends that have that lifestyle.  With the recent news  of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy being changed, I realized just how important that is to a lot of people.  My daughter even commented that even if they change it, things are still going to be rough the first couple years.  She had wanted to join the military but was afraid of what would happen when people found out she was gay.  She had heard many horror stories.  She is excited about the change and what it will mean.

I had to stop and think about all that she had gone through coming out and for a while she was quite verbal about her lifestyle.  She has since quieted down about it, but is proud of who she is.  A good friend, someone I consider like a sister, didn’t have that option until recently.  I had known her for quite a while and never knew she was gay.  She would talk about her sister being ill and all that they were going through with the treatments and the fact that there really was no help for her, yet her sister remained optomistic.  She wanted to keep trying.  She lost her battle.

It was after the passing of my friends “sister” that I learned the truth.  My friend is in her early 50’s, and it wasn’t the the thing to come out and let people know that you were gay for her generation.  She did finally tell me that she didn’t lose her sister,but her partner.  She was so worried about the reactions she would get when she returned to work.  She had told friends and co-workers for so long that this woman that she loved was her sister.  I told her that if they were truly her friends, it wouldn’t matter to them any more than it mattered to me what her lifestyle was.  She said she held her head up, walked into work and was treated no different than she had been before.  Her greatest fear had been what people would think of her knowing she led an “alternative lifestyle”, that she had never told anyone but family.

With the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about to change, hopefully, it brings out a lot of questions.  Are people becoming more accepting of the gay lifestyle?  Some people believe it can be “cured”, others think that you are a sin against nature.  What most people who believe these things don’t realize, gay men and lesbians, don’t ask to be this way, it is just who they are.  At what point and time will they, who are people just like the rest of us, have the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us?  When will they not be afraid to tell people that they are gay?  There are still people out there that are violent against them.  We are in the year 2010, not 1910.  We have accomplished so much over the last 100 years, why can’t we overcome this?  It is not a disease, it is a way of life for millions of people.  It isn’t going away, it is here to stay.