{"id":5823,"date":"2013-10-11T04:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T08:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=5823"},"modified":"2013-10-11T06:37:16","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T10:37:16","slug":"defriended-because-i-am-gay-and-married-a-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=5823","title":{"rendered":"Defriended Because I Am Gay and Married a Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.)<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>I contacted this guy to ask if the defriending was a mistake, and his reply was&#8230;<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>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&#8217;t be your friend.  I will pray for you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Wow&#8230; I live in a &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=3480\" target=\"_blank\">Homosexual Lifestyle<\/a>?&#8221; Marrying the man I love is unacceptable?  Really?  &#8230; well, good riddance.  I don&#8217;t need people with such narrow minds and bigotry in my life.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8220;married.&#8221;  But no one did. I got lots of lovin&#8217; instead.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Marriage03-202x300.jpg?resize=202%2C300\" alt=\"Marriage03\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4527\" \/>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.<\/p>\n<p>I began to relax.  Some of my posts on that network mentioned my spouse and things we were doing.  Just the usual stuff, nothing &#8220;gay&#8221; or political or religious, for that matter.  <\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>An hour later, I noticed that this former friend defriended me.<\/p>\n<p>Ordinarily, I wouldn&#8217;t think much about it.  People come and go into and out of each other&#8217;s lives.  I haven&#8217;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&#8217;t occur to me that his defriending was deliberate because I am gay and married to a man.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Handsrings01-230x300.jpg?resize=230%2C300\" alt=\"Handsrings01\" width=\"230\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Handsrings01.jpg?resize=230%2C300&amp;ssl=1 230w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Handsrings01.jpg?resize=300%2C391&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Handsrings01.jpg?resize=115%2C150&amp;ssl=1 115w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Handsrings01.jpg?w=478&amp;ssl=1 478w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 230px) 100vw, 230px\" \/>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 &#8212; &#8220;Married, April 4, 2013.&#8221;  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&#8217; a ring on my ring finger, holding the hand of a man who also is wearing a ring.<\/p>\n<p>Oh well, as I said, it was bound to happen. I was surprised that it didn&#8217;t happen sooner, especially among a few of my cousins with whom I am <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=5639\" target=\"_blank\">fundamentally worlds apart<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There is nothing that I can do or say to change that guy&#8217;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 &#8212; love him enough to marry him and dedicate myself to him for the rest of my life &#8212; then it&#8217;s his loss, not mine.  His God loves me regardless.  I&#8217;ll pray for him, too.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=5823\">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":[20,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay-issues","category-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5823","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=5823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}