{"id":3480,"date":"2012-12-12T04:00:23","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=3480"},"modified":"2025-06-19T11:36:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T15:36:24","slug":"to-my-straight-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=3480","title":{"rendered":"Lifestyle of Integrity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?attachment_id=3481\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3481\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/NOMshit-300x223.jpg?resize=300%2C223\" alt=\"\" title=\"NOMslatestlies\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3481\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/NOMshit.jpg?resize=300%2C223&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/NOMshit.jpg?resize=150%2C112&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/NOMshit.jpg?w=403&amp;ssl=1 403w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I am deeply saddened to see some people I thought were well-educated to fall for the National Organization for Marriage&#8217;s (NOM&#8217;s) latest fallacy, which is shown here.  This image is being passed around on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>It says, in part, &#8220;if you disagree with someone&#8217;s lifestyle&#8230;,&#8221; referring to those of us who are gay. It doesn&#8217;t say that directly, but if you know or have heard anything about NOM, you know what they are referring to. They despise gay men and women, and have been on a crusade to foist their misguided opinions on the world.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThe fallacy here is that being gay is NOT a &#8220;lifestyle.&#8221;  I was born gay. I did not choose to &#8220;be&#8221; gay, &#8220;live&#8221; gay, or adopt a &#8220;gay lifestyle&#8221; (whatever that is.)<\/p>\n<p>For those who think that being gay is a &#8220;lifestyle,&#8221; let me share the dictionary definition of what a &#8220;lifestyle&#8221; is:<\/p>\n<p><i>the habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, economic level, etc., that together constitute the mode of living of an individual or group.<\/i>  <\/p>\n<p>My habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, and economic level are pretty much middle-class American.  My ethics, integrity, and moral standards reflect how I was raised: to be a good person, do good unto others, be honest, kind, gentle, helpful, and financially responsible.  My husband&#8217;s lifestyle is the same. I figure most of my readers would consider themselves to be decent, law-abiding, honest, kind and helpful people too. Most of my readers are not gay, and neither are my friends. <\/p>\n<p>We share common bonds in believing that doing the right thing, living honestly, caring for others, paying our bills, looking after our neighbor &#8212; as defined, our &#8220;lifestyle&#8221; &#8212; has NOTHING to do with being gay.<\/p>\n<p>Damn, I wish those NOM-nuts would get over their hypocrisy.  They say, &#8220;love one another,&#8221; but their documented record of actions extends downright hatred toward men who love men, or women who love women.  Interestingly, most of their funding is organized religions or their membership.<\/p>\n<p>When they say that &#8220;our culture has accepted two lies&#8221; &#8212; one is about &#8220;accepting a lifestyle&#8221; that one disagrees with.  Being gay is NOT a lifestyle, Q.E.D. above.<\/p>\n<p>Second, they say that the &#8220;second lie&#8221; is that &#8220;to love someone means you agree with everything they say or do.&#8221;  I love all of my cousins, but some of them are so wrapped around what they were taught by their church that they espouse hatred toward the mere fact that I am gay &#8212; and refuse to recognize that some of their sons are gay, too.  I do not agree with some of my cousins&#8217; points of view, but I still love them. Family ties and blood run deep, regardless of their misguided and wrongful beliefs (my opinion.)<\/p>\n<p>I cannot believe that some of my friends fell for NOM&#8217;s latest marketing maneuver.  I wish they would read the documented history of NOM&#8217;s classification as a hate group. Perhaps then they will understand why their actions to pass on NOM&#8217;s filthy lies makes me angry.  As I said to one of my friends who shared that image on Facebook &#8212; am I any different than the guy you knew since we were six years old?&#8221;  To that, they had no reply.<\/p>\n<p>Life is short:  know the motivations behind certain organizations and think before you act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am deeply saddened to see some people I thought were well-educated to fall for the National Organization for Marriage&#8217;s (NOM&#8217;s) latest fallacy, which is shown here. This image is being passed around on Facebook. It says, in part, &#8220;if &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=3480\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay-issues"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}