When a friend invited me to go to one of many anti-prop 8 rallies to be held nation-wide I decided to take a step down from my preachy "it ain't fair" perch and actually be a part of action. It was very encouraging to see many: families, people from the religious community, organizations- not just the lgbtq community publicly showing support. Once again it has been another 80-degree weekend (2 weeks away from Thanksgiving? Questionable) so we stayed as long as we could then left to enjoy the rest of the day.

Later on we found ourselves at a local mall to get some fro-yo. Some 'hoodish' looking teenage types looked at my friends, overtly shared laughs and blurted indirect insults at them which we couldn't fully hear. I made a comment about them being stupid and apologized for their behavior.

To that my friend said: "It's okay Gi, we're in ____ (naming the city we were in), so it's expected. ___ Mall isn't a place where I always feel safe. It kind of sucks that I need to watch where I am in order to feel okay with my environment, but that's the way it is."

Fill in those blanks with any of the major cities/shopping malls nearby and this would probably also be the case. Unfortunate? Yes.

It makes me really sad that a person cannot feel fully secure in public with their significant other or even alone due to homophobia. They weren't even pda-ing or doing anything outlandish. They were just walking, those teenagers made some judgments based on the way my friends looked and BAM: then fell victim to ignorance.

Still grappling with what I want to say. Of course I hope that one day none of this will matter but I may be way too optimistic towards a society that has many learned forms of hate. Yes it would probably make our world an easier one to live in but no, our world is NOT black and white. The amount of courage it takes to know that your sexual orientation is not one dominantly supported on a public and even interpersonal level must be extremely difficult to live through. One day I hope that people who once chose to be ignorant about it come to understand.