When I was a kid and adults were trying to scare me out of my nasty homosexual hobby, they used to tell me stuff designed to scare it out of you. They said all you could ever hope to be is a bartender or a prostitute. Homosexuals always end up in prison. Homosexuals are useless, can't have families and other delightful things.

Of course that was all a product of the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) society that I was immersed in. Some of it was self fulfilling.

Many young gay men in the South were denied any way to make a living. They were pushed toward crime and the law was always right over their shoulder. No one knows how many young gay men were disposed of in the prison system or forced into the underground economy- that part of commerce that goes untaxed, unregulated and all of the right people don't get paid.

That's our past and it's ugly. There's a reason that our federal goverenment doesn't want to pass any non-discrimination legislation. There are people alive that could sue for billions if that were the case. Every level of our goverenment from federal down to district dog catcher would be liable to some extent. They know this. We know this.

There are other things they don't tell us. We have to figure this out on our own: We have gifts. I've never met any gay people who didn't have something going for them. I've seen them beat down and despondent but their gifts are always there: their intelligence, their talent and their drive.

Just look at history. Say a great name and, there's a good chance that they were gay or bisexual.

Alexander, Caesar, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato- any of these guys sound familiar? They practically invented Western Civilization.

I won't try to list all the gay people that made their mark. The list is entirely too long. If you are curious, you can find it here :>> GLBT in history.

As 2 or 5 percent of the population, we have had a much larger impact on history than our mere numbers would suggest. A FAR larger impact. Like we lead the parade out of the stone age, the classical period, the dark ages, the Renaissance, the age of Enlightenment and the age of Revolutions and the Great Democracies.

Look at every field: science, the arts, the military, politics. We have been there and our contributions have been dominate.

We know this. They know this. It begs a very interesting question: are they scared of us? I think they are.

We have nothing to be ashamed of. Let us use our gifts in peace for the benefit of mankind.

Those that curse us will be shown for what they are: losers choking on sour grapes.