So look away, craphead. That’s what I do when I see couples kissing (of any type).

I’m sick of these types being given the benefit of the moral framing, as if their position is a moral conviction or abstract philosophical point deserving of respect. Fuck that, their position predicated on wrecking people’s lives based on who they love – it’s flat-out immoral and deserves nothing but contempt.

Presumably what I told my niece(ish) when we were at the Mall looking at the Cherry Blossoms a few weeks ago.

She said full of indignation “Auntie there are two women kissing!”

And I smiled and said, “Yes they are.”

“But why are they kissing?”

“I suppose because they love each other.” [ed. note. Okay, so this is a highly simplistic explanation, but she's only 5.]

“But girls are supposed to kiss booooooyyyyyss! Am I supposed to kiss a girl?”

“Only if you want to. When you’re older [she interjected here with that big 5 year old sigh of annoyance that seems to be a full body spasm], you may fall in love with girls or boys [in retrospect and/or would have been better]. And if you want to kiss them you should.” [Again, I know love/lust is bad to lump, but that's all I felt comfortable saying, particularly since she isn't my kid.]

That’s not that hard is it?

I’ve been with my girlfriend for about 3 years, and out for 2 – I’m at the point now where I’m pretty much comfortable with PDA. I sort of want to put it out there as a challenge to the sleepy, self-righteous consciousness of what’s been traditionally considered socially acceptable. She, however, is way less comfortable with it, although she’s been out for about eight years. We have yet to encounter someone actually telling us to stop, but we do get the stares.

As someone who was in a heterosexual marriage for nearly ten years, I find it frustrating to be in this position – at the movies, walking through the mall, at the grocery store, it’s difficult to do what hetero couples do. Just the simple act of touching her back and saying, “Honey, what about this yogurt?” has attracted stares. But I’ll keep doing what we do, because I do believe we can reach a point where same-sex public displays of affection are acceptable. And I think one of the ways we can make that happen is by acting as though we, the gay people, believe there’s nothing wrong with it.

Rachel

This particular bigot is even worse, since she didn’t even have any specific kids in mind, just hypothetical ones whose parents might have to answer questions she hoped they would find awkward.

And good catch calling out the cowardice of them.

The only problem I see here is that there’s obviously not enough garlic in the garlic fries.

When I was 17, my girlfriend and I encountered a lot of this. She wasn’t out to her parents, so we could only meet in public places. We’d share kisses at the skating rink, the pool hall, and of course, the back row of the movie theatre. People would often approach us and tell us to stop, either in a cruel way or just “you’re making me uncomfortable, you need to quit it.” I never thought the latter was that bad – frankly, I was scared as fuck to be kissing her in public because we lived in the South and a gay male friend of mine had been recently beaten nearly to death at school. I figured a polite request, even with the disgust behind it, was okay. I felt that I was doing something wrong, and bound to get in trouble. The same thing would happen at the movies – heterosexual couples who were also making out would tap our shoulders and tell us to stop because it was ruining their experience, or just snort and make rude noises until we gave up.

So yeah, I think it’s great that people are taking notice! It’s scary as all hell to kiss another woman in public, even now, as an adult in a relatively gay friendly area (Iowa City). I’d love to feel “normal” in this regard, one day.