Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

By Mikel Pernisco

While members of the gay community have been riduculed, teased, and even physically assaulted, for their lifestyle, it must bring up the question to many, on what it means to be gay.

Being gay isn't a choice. It's not a decision that we've made. It's a challenge. A challenge to be different, to love and to be loved, and a challenge to be ourselves and to be proud.

Gay is primarily about love.

Love comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. No matter what love looks like, it's still love. And love is the reason people are here. To experience a life without true love, is to never have experienced a life at all.

To be gay is accept the things in life that make a difference. It's to accept difference in your life, and the difference in others. It's to accept, and to love. Everything on this Earth is made to be different. Indulge it.

To be gay is to take a stand for who you are. It's to show pride in the person you are, and to be no other. It's about conquering that never-ending war we all face inside ourselves, and smile for victory.

To be gay is to know loneliness, yet long for something more. It's to be brave and to find love in whichever form it may come.

To be gay is to know pleasure. Not only the sexual pleasure we strive for, but to know the pleasure of the heart. So few people get to experience this pleasure, but those who have, have shed their tears, and built their strength.

To be gay is to fight. To fight for the truth. Those who fight for all things norm, must take a look around and define exactly what is normal. The limits of normality are constantly expanding, like the universe, to include all who live.

To be gay is to be hated. To be hated by so many, but to carry on with the satisfaction of hope. Hope for love, and hope for those who hate.

So point at me and laugh. Call me names. Hurt me with all you have, for in the end, I am still me. I am still gay. I am still beautiful.