I want to start this reply with saying I don't mean this offensively in the slightest. You're going through a hard time and I'm deeply, deeply sorry to hear that. My family has been through multiple divorces -- multiple on my mother's side, multiple on my father's side, and it's incredibly painful and incredible fraught with betrayal regardless of how it came about.
But, as a gay person, reading comments like this when I'm reading a post on my friendslist -- yes, it hurts. Being told that what I do with my girlfriend is "subhuman" (how can it be subhuman when it's between two humans?) hurts. And yes, even if you address it generally, to the air, as "to many", it is addressed to me; I'm a homosexual. I engage in homosexual acts. By that definition, to the people demiurgent refers to, I'm subhuman. By your comment, what I do is subhuman.
Here is our "gay lifestyle".
I work at a game design company as a designer. She works at Starbucks and is also a student (poltical science) at the local university. At 7:30 am my alarm goes off. Although she gets to sleep in later than me, she usually gets up until I leave the house (8 am) in a show of solidarity -- eats breakfast with me, chats a little about the day, then she goes back to bed when I leave. I work from 8:30 until 5:30; occasionally we chat on gchat throughout the day. The conversations usually involve things like "Oh, I forgot to take out the garbage before I left -- can you get it?" and "Do you mind picking up milk on the way home" and "Omg the cat is being so cute today" and occasionally about creative endeavours. It is liberally sprinkled with "love yous". She usually works afternoons or closings when she works; let's assume it's a day she's off work when I get home. We talk about our day. We check our emails and play video games and watch tv together; we talk to our online friends, and update our livejournals, and live together. We usually stay up too late because we're having fun, hit bed around midnight, sometimes later, and talk until we fall asleep. We've been living together three years now and we haven't run out of things to talk about. Sometimes, yes, we have sex too (shocking, I know). But our lifestyle isn't sex. Our lifestyle is that life: living together, experiencing daily life together. So when I hear people demoting us as subhuman, or demoting "the homosexual act" as subhuman, I feel pretty gross, because we're being a) demoted to sex; we are nothing but sex objects when "the homosexual act" is the only thing that defines us and b) even if we look at the sex, just the sex, and ignore everything else -- it's loving sex between two loving people who can laugh and get elbows in the side accidentally or put an arm on someone's hair or fall off the bed or anything else that's normal and goofy and not highly eroticised, dirty sexuality. It's normal sexuality. It's just between two women.
Your father cheated on your mother. He did it with a man. But isn't the cheating the problem here? Would it be less offensive if he cheated with a woman? If so, why? I don't think it would be okay then, ever. In either situation, cheating isn't okay. That it's made about the homosexuality -- yeah, it's troubling. And again, I feel for your situation; a lot, a lot. But please try to keep that in mind wihle you sort through it. Because not all homosexuals are cheaters -- I would never, ever cheat on my spouse. "He's gay / he cheated = therefore I have problems with gays" is a little -- I know you didn't say it, but taht's how it reads, so you might want to be careful with that sort of thing. I'm not offended or anything, but ... it's a tricky situation and if you don't feel that way about it, it'd be bad to express it that way.
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But, as a gay person, reading comments like this when I'm reading a post on my friendslist -- yes, it hurts. Being told that what I do with my girlfriend is "subhuman" (how can it be subhuman when it's between two humans?) hurts. And yes, even if you address it generally, to the air, as "to many", it is addressed to me; I'm a homosexual. I engage in homosexual acts. By that definition, to the people demiurgent refers to, I'm subhuman. By your comment, what I do is subhuman.
Here is our "gay lifestyle".
I work at a game design company as a designer. She works at Starbucks and is also a student (poltical science) at the local university. At 7:30 am my alarm goes off. Although she gets to sleep in later than me, she usually gets up until I leave the house (8 am) in a show of solidarity -- eats breakfast with me, chats a little about the day, then she goes back to bed when I leave. I work from 8:30 until 5:30; occasionally we chat on gchat throughout the day. The conversations usually involve things like "Oh, I forgot to take out the garbage before I left -- can you get it?" and "Do you mind picking up milk on the way home" and "Omg the cat is being so cute today" and occasionally about creative endeavours. It is liberally sprinkled with "love yous". She usually works afternoons or closings when she works; let's assume it's a day she's off work when I get home. We talk about our day. We check our emails and play video games and watch tv together; we talk to our online friends, and update our livejournals, and live together. We usually stay up too late because we're having fun, hit bed around midnight, sometimes later, and talk until we fall asleep. We've been living together three years now and we haven't run out of things to talk about. Sometimes, yes, we have sex too (shocking, I know). But our lifestyle isn't sex. Our lifestyle is that life: living together, experiencing daily life together. So when I hear people demoting us as subhuman, or demoting "the homosexual act" as subhuman, I feel pretty gross, because we're being a) demoted to sex; we are nothing but sex objects when "the homosexual act" is the only thing that defines us and b) even if we look at the sex, just the sex, and ignore everything else -- it's loving sex between two loving people who can laugh and get elbows in the side accidentally or put an arm on someone's hair or fall off the bed or anything else that's normal and goofy and not highly eroticised, dirty sexuality. It's normal sexuality. It's just between two women.
Your father cheated on your mother. He did it with a man. But isn't the cheating the problem here? Would it be less offensive if he cheated with a woman? If so, why? I don't think it would be okay then, ever. In either situation, cheating isn't okay. That it's made about the homosexuality -- yeah, it's troubling. And again, I feel for your situation; a lot, a lot. But please try to keep that in mind wihle you sort through it. Because not all homosexuals are cheaters -- I would never, ever cheat on my spouse. "He's gay / he cheated = therefore I have problems with gays" is a little -- I know you didn't say it, but taht's how it reads, so you might want to be careful with that sort of thing. I'm not offended or anything, but ... it's a tricky situation and if you don't feel that way about it, it'd be bad to express it that way.
Sorry for the long comment.