Rainbow Bubble

I laced up my running shoes and participated in the 2008 Aramco Houston Half Marathon this past weekend. The route would take the runners from downtown Houston, through the Heights, into Montrose (the gayborhood), and back downtown. I sewed a rainbow flag onto my shirt to show my pride and to make it easier for my fellow gays to find me in the crowd.

During most of the race, people would clap for the runners, but they'd stop clapping when they saw me coming. Instead, they'd whisper to the person they were standing next to as they pointed at me. Some of the police officers who stood at the road closures would look at me and shake their head. Others just laughed as they consumed their kolaches and Shipley do-nuts.

I really hope that their apparent coldness toward me was because I run like duck with joint problems and not because I was wearing a gay flag on my chest.

My friend Joe had a similar experience during his recent trip to Jacksonville:

When [we] were in Jacksonville for Thanksgiving, we were staying at the Omni (the nicest hotel in Jacksonville). We went to have breakfast our last day there at the lobby restaurant. This lady ran from the kitchen and stopped the hostess from seating us with everyone else and had her seat us in an empty section of the restaurant by ourselves. It was really very insulting and I have to say I was pretty shocked, too.

I'd been living in Chicago so long that it was such a shock to see that my homosexuality isn't fully embraced in other places. I can hold hands with a boy, have gay patches on my man purse, and even visit straight bars here in Chicago without fear of being jeered at or made to feel less of a person. Some gays in Chicago don't realize how great it is here, and I have a feeling that I'll be explaining this type of thing to all of my boy servants when I'm in my eighties.

So kick up your heels and proudly kiss your boyfriend in public because people in other cities would love to do that without getting rocks thrown at them!