When I came-out to my parents over 30 years ago, one of the first things my father asked me was if I could actually “love” another man. I was startled at first, but I understood his question. He was a devout man raised in a tradition that saw love as a "gift" bestowed on individuals by a loving God. This gift was given to a man and a woman to insure propagation of the faith. My father was asking me if I could ever experience that God-given romantic love and ecstasy in my primary relationship. He was concerned that if I did not share my love with a woman, I might not achieve that first hand experience of Divinity, of ecstasy, that happens when one shares love with another human. He could understand that sexual activity and physical attraction could take place between people of the same sex, but was not sure that actual love, romantic love, could exist between two women or two men. In his worldview, two people of the same sex could share affection and friendship, but that romantic love was reserved for opposite sex couples. He believed that romantic love had a magical quality. It was something over which one had virtually no control because its origin was outside human experience. It came to us directly from God. It came from a source that, he believed, was other than human.

These are the notions on which most of us were raised. They support our social system by assuming that God stirs magic between a selected man and woman, which gives them the desire to create a nuclear family. It is the "proof" that God wants us to live in nuclear families. God lights a spark between a man and a woman and that sets the family making in motion. It is used as the evidence that our social structure is what God intended for humankind. The central principle in these beliefs is that love is bestowed on us by God. Love is not seen as organic or chemical, or even as natural, but as ethereal, metaphysical and celestial. It is the means by which God approves or disapproves of one's relationships. It is through this belief that religious leaders assert that the institution of marriage was created by God, and that God intended humans to be in heterosexual couplings. God approves sexual activity by the bestowal of love on those God wants to be together. It is further sanctioned by granting them children. It is in this context that all lovemaking is approved. It's a neat and tidy system.

So, if God did not approve of homosexuality, God would not allow homosexuals to actually love one another. Homosexual people would only be able to experience the physical sensations of sex, but not know the rich life-giving experience of shared ecstasy. We would not know that sensation of being lost in ecstasy with another human being. The idea that same-sex love creates ecstasy and direct experiences of the Divine is frightening to people who want (or need) these cultural myths about heterosexual-only romantic love to be true. They do not want to face the idea that God may not care who makes love with whom. From their perspective it's OK if what queer people experience is furtive and hollow, but they dare not assume that we can actually experience real ecstasy. That would mean that God approves of our love because God is involved in it. Perhaps that is why the idea of same-sex marriage is so threatening. It shakes many ideas of love and sex to the core.

As long as same-sex couples can be seen as people who do not, or cannot, love in the same way as heterosexual people, we can be discriminated against. If our experiences of love are incomplete we do not need to be treated as fully human. If our relationships were accepted as loving and life affirming, the entire tenor of the debate over same-sex marriage, and queer civil rights in general, would have to change. If the layer of sentimentalism about heterosexual-only romantic love were lifted, it would blow the "God Hates Fags" arguments right out of the water.

The idea that heterosexual-only romantic love comes from God is a key factor in the mind-set of the religious right and those who oppose our right to live our lives freely and openly. This idea makes it possible to objectify us, demonize us and discount our loving relationships. Our love is thought to be of less value because it is thought to be for only furtive pleasure. Opponents of queer rights and same-sex marriage ignore us when we say that our relationships are life-affirming because it is important for them to believe that the Divine is not involved in our relationships. They are wrong about this.

This "love" factor is, I believe, one of the biggest obstacles to equal treatment for sexual minorities. Some heterosexuals, it seems, subconsciously believe that a same-sex love experience is not equal to theirs. They may believe that queer people have a right to have their experience, but do not think that what we experience could be as fulfilling or as wholesome as what they may experience. This heterosexism has not been fully acknowledged in the queer movement for the power it has. Queer people often accept these notions themselves and internalize them. These ideas are, of course, unfounded and are becoming outmoded, but their residue haunts our movement toward full recognition and equal citizenship. Like anyone else we have a right to equal treatment under the law. We have that privilege because we are human, because in some ways we are the same as everyone else. We have the right to have our relationships supported by society, and we have the right to the financial benefits the government offers to people in heterosexual relationships.