I knew it would have to happen sometime. Yesterday, I was checking a certain popular social network and noticed a message that someone defriended me. I clicked on a link and found that his page was still active, so the dropped connection was not due to his account becoming inactive (which happens more often than one would think.)

I used to work closely with this guy for years, and I thought we had built a solid friendship. But I changed jobs and he moved away. We relied on that social network to keep us connected.

I contacted this guy to ask if the defriending was a mistake, and his reply was…

I believe your homosexual lifestyle is morally reprehensible. I am Catholic and believe that marriage is a holy sacrament and is the union between one man and one woman. What you have done is unacceptable and I can’t be your friend. I will pray for you.

Wow… I live in a “Homosexual Lifestyle?” Marrying the man I love is unacceptable? Really? … well, good riddance. I don’t need people with such narrow minds and bigotry in my life.

Actually, I thought that some people would defriend me on April 4, 2013, when my spouse and I married, I changed my relationship status on that social network to “married.” But no one did. I got lots of lovin’ instead.

Then I thought that I would lose some friends when I posted a photo, shown here, of my spouse and me at our county courthouse on the day we married. I posted that photo a few days after changing my marital status on that social network. Again, all we got was more kudos and congratulations.

I began to relax. Some of my posts on that network mentioned my spouse and things we were doing. Just the usual stuff, nothing “gay” or political or religious, for that matter.

Yesterday morning, I posted about winning health insurance appeals for a friend who has the same disease that my spouse had. This was quite a victory for the little guy, and I was happy about it.

An hour later, I noticed that this former friend defriended me.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t think much about it. People come and go into and out of each other’s lives. I haven’t worked with or even seen this friend in over 9 years. I thought that perhaps he was refining his friends list to keep in touch only with those he really knew and were more current. So it didn’t occur to me that his defriending was deliberate because I am gay and married to a man.

I guess when he saw my post about winning the health insurance appeals for a friend, he began looking at my past posts and status, and figured it out. It is right there — “Married, April 4, 2013.” It does not say to whom (because my spouse does not have an account on any social network), but it is not hard to figure out when I am standing at the courthouse sportin’ a ring on my ring finger, holding the hand of a man who also is wearing a ring.

Oh well, as I said, it was bound to happen. I was surprised that it didn’t happen sooner, especially among a few of my cousins with whom I am fundamentally worlds apart.

There is nothing that I can do or say to change that guy’s mind. That is not my objective anyway. But if he cannot accept that I am the same guy that I always was, and that I live a respectable life and contribute to society positively, yet I love one man — love him enough to marry him and dedicate myself to him for the rest of my life — then it’s his loss, not mine. His God loves me regardless. I’ll pray for him, too.

Life is short: forgiveness is a virtue we must continue to practice, even if this former friend behaves contrary to what his Catholic teachings say about that.