Because for years I wasn’t proud of being gay.

I was ashamed.

And that shame ultimately became self-loathing because I believed that being gay made me a bad person and that I was going to hell.

I feared people finding out I was gay; certain I would lose their friendships.  I hid it from my family; afraid their reaction might be one of rejection.

So I lied; with false words and insincere actions so that people would think I was who I believed they thought I should be.

I became adept at secrecy and lived two lives; one in the light, out in the open and one in the shadows, behind a closed door.

I could not be proud of any aspect of who I was because my being gay negated anything good about me.

I assumed my life would be one of failure because I was undeserving of success or achievement; more deserving of punishment than accomplishments.

I lived with these thoughts for years; which led to a depressive state of mind that left no room for self-esteem.  I lived in a mental prison of self-inflicted judgment and condemnation created, in part, by the words of reproach and damnation I heard coming from my Christian community; saying they loved me but hated my sin.

And there was no room for disagreement.  No credence given to different interpretations of the scriptures they said supported their hatred . . .. . of my sin.

And I allowed myself to believe what they told me for a very long time.  Until the day I stopped allowing it and began to question what they had been telling me.  I interpreted their interpretations as wrong and somewhat self-serving and very self-righteous.

I challenged their judgments of how I was supposed to live my life.

And I became unafraid. I knew I was a good person and that my being gay did not negate that.  Nor did it define me.  My sexual orientation wasn’t something I decided on.  It was, and is, as innate a part of my DNA as are the color of my eyes (which I also wasn’t able to decide on).

Having lived in the shadows for so many years I finally said “No more.”

I chose to live in the light of an honest life fueled by the integrity of being open about being gay. There was to be no more hiding.  That closed door I had lived behind was pushed open so forcibly it flew off its hinges.

So that is why I need to say out loud that I am proud to be a gay man.

And by being proud of who I am I am saying to some of those in the Christian community “you’re not always right.”  And when some of them accuse gay people of having a gay agenda I am saying “Stop trying to force your religious, bigoted agenda on me.”

To those who will continue to judge me and call me names I say “I don’t care.”

Gay men and women have, for too long, been made fun of, spit on, trampled on by hateful words as well as physical acts of violence and murder.  We know what discrimination is and we know there are a frightening percentage of people in this world who wouldn’t think twice about us being put to death because we are gay.

There will always be those who protest against gay people.  And there will always be those who are misinformed or lack plain old common sense that say our being gay was a choice without even knowing us personally.

There will always be opponents who don’t believe gay people should be given the dignity of having the same civil, equal rights that they have.

And we will constantly come up against the stupidity of people who declare that by us marrying someone of the same gender we will, in some way, threaten their heterosexual marriage.

To put it bluntly, the gay community has to put up with a lot of senselessness.

So that’s why it’s important to have gay pride and gay parades and gay festivals and to even have the month of June set aside for our gay pride.

And when those people who have chosen to be heterosexual start being called names, and beat up and spit on and judged by others and denied their civil rights because of their sexual orientation they can freely proclaim their Straight Pride.

Artie Van Why