Kim, I'm so sorry you were driven to tears. Sanctimonious refusal to acknowledge your dignity can be frightfully hurtful. I think it helps to picture the "antis" in long papal robes holding quill pens at a big wooden tables as they would have 600 years ago. They are from a different subculture with a completely different set of values. Even though they do have an unfortunate influence on public policy, there is a sense in which their views should not be taken at all personally (kind of like cultures that sacrifice animals to the gods). There is no getting through to them, but their views are rapidly being overshadowed by those of people who are open to change. Just as the Catholic church is infuriating but increasingly irrelevant (or at least its strictest teachings are), so are the views of the most stalwart fundamentalists on that board. Here's what I just posted over there, FWIW:
Many on this thread have argued that no one in his or her right mind would choose to be gay. While I would never have chosen it as a young person, I now experience it as a great gift, and would not make a change if I had the choice. Living as an outsider teaches you compassion toward others who are disenfranchised, causes you to be open-minded and question conventionality and authority (including religious authority), makes you aware of everyone's right to live authentically, heightens your attunement to justice, teaches you to use your anger productively (lest it consume you), forces you to live as an anthropologist who recognizes that different subcultures always have and always will espouse different values, and provides enormous fellowship in the company of like-minded freethinkers and sexual libertarians, many of whom are the most creative, funny, radically accepting and brilliant (because they have allowed themselves to think outside the box) people you could ever hope to meet.
Despite the continued persecution of those who dare to embrace their homosexuality, I suspect most people would rather be trapped on a desert island with five randomly selected, "out" gay men than five randomly selected straight people who are certain homosexuality is a sin. But that's an untested proposition.
I believe that most objections to homosexual relationships are rooted in religious conviction and/or conventional mores that we have all been exposed to (and that many are now educating themselves out of), but that in some intransigent cases the objections signify a failure of self-acceptance and a fear of both authority and the consequences of daring authenticity. I also believe that aversion to homosexuality (male and female) is deeply rooted in misogyny.
