Your mother is so gay.........

that during the 2008 election, she vehemently opposed Proposition 8. Seeing as Prop 8 received the vast share of its funding from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, this marked the final schism between your mother and her devoutly Mormon family still living back in Utah. Having only returned for occasional visits after graduating Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr, her complete estrangement from her parents was largely a foregone conclusion already by the time she chose to be artificially inseminated and raise a child with her longterm companion, Terry, but the fact that her own parents, she was shocked to learn, had financially contributed to the passage of legislation that would rob her of a basical civil right cured her of any lingering hope that they might yet one day come to accept her lifestyle. By the time of the 2008 election, although not yet of voting age, you accompanied your mother and Terry to every rally and action throughout California; you held protest signs aloft and chanted in unison despite not being gay yourself. However, just by dint of your presence at so many rallies, people you’d seen once or twice and recognized by face began to draw conclusions about your own burgeoning sexuality. Once or twice at each event, other young men would approach you in a manner you felt was altogether too familiar, too forward. Naturally, wanting to be accepting of others and not wanting to offend anyone, you rebuffed them as politely as possible. After the fourth consecutive weekend, however, during which you were hit on while protesting with your mother and Terry, your patience began to wear thin. Finally, after an especially hirsute man approached you and asked indelicately if you’d like to meet him post-rally for a “blowjay party” in his van, you snapped. “Fuck off, homo!” you yelled, unkindly. You threw down your sign (“Stop the H8!”) and went to look for your mother. You found her and Terry engaged in a yelling match with a small group of Mormons and you told them you’d had enough, that you were leaving and would find your own way home from Sacramento. Your mother asked what had happened, and in your anger you responded, “Why the fuck does everyone have to be so fucking gay?!” and stormed off. This hurt your mother more than you knew at the time, and even though you apologized profusely later that day, in her heart your mother had moved you silently into that category she’d reserved for her family in Utah. Things would never be the same between you.