I love Joseph V. Jobes.
JVJ loves me.
And w have done for nearly 49 years.
This simple fact upset a lot of people when we established our relationship at the tender age of 16. It upsets a lot of people now.
Love.
We love each other.
We care for each other.
We support each other.
We still can make each other laugh.
We can still outrage each other.
We still hold each other, every night.
That's what the fight has been about. For us anyway. We wanted to live and love in freedom. We wanted to simply be allowed to get about the business of making a life together.
We were not trying to destroy the family.
We were not kicking at the struts of society.
We were not trying to normalize sin.
No, we wanted to be able to grocery shop together and talk about what we needed. Without harassment.
No, we wanted to go to a movie together and sit beside each other. Without harassment.
No, we wanted to live without lying about who we were to each other. Without harassment.
People hated us.
Really hated us.
Landlords wouldn't rent to us.
A house we wanted to buy was taken off the market.
Joe was hit by a rock thrown at an early Pride parade.
Just because we loved each other.
And shared toothpaste.
They hated us.
They called us queers, and faggots, and sissies, and fairies, and gearboxes, and suggested that we should be beaten to death.
WWJD? Hate us.
Pride?
Why Pride?
Why the Celebration?
Well, because I still love Joseph Victor Jobes.
And he still loves me.
And we celebrate surviving another year.
Of sharing toothpaste.
6 comments:
<3 congrats on 49 years of love. I hope that we continue to move to being a more sane, compassionate society going forward despite the horrible stuff happening in my country to your south.
Congratulations! Keep loving and keep living!
You are not the only gay couple I know or know of that's been together for as long or longer than I've been alive. That's a whole world of love, bravery and commitment that boggles my mind in the best way. Keep showing 'em LOVE!
Many, many happy returns of anniversaries of pride and love.
Congratulations to 49 years. You both are great people. Keep going strong. You both have a love story and that out ways the negativity of others
Much deserved continuing happiness - and we have to be vigilant, as a society (and are not doing very well in many places), because hating is easy, and wrong.
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