Man, it is definitely not a fun time to be a straight white male these days. Nobody wants us anymore. There are too many of us enrolled at this school, too many of us teaching on the faculty, and too many of us oppressing the gay community. And that’s just according to this paper.

I guess people are tired of seeing the world through whitewashed eyes like mine, a point driven home yesterday in two columns talking about how ridiculous it to exclude the gay community from beneficial laws.

Now, nobody is going to come out and write a column saying, “What is this, Gay Week? I’m tired of them, why can’t they just go away?” But I assure you, there were plenty of people expressing thoughts along those lines yesterday.

WASPS like me have had to steadily relinquish our world to too many new groups. We used to have it all to ourselves, you see. Then along came the minorities, and then the women, and now the gay community wants in, too?

A lot of us aren’t going to have it. We just don’t get it. To people like me who don’t identify as gay, it is strange to try to understand why someone else would want to be seen that way. I wonder why anyone, gay or straight, would choose to build their identity around what goes on in the bedroom.

“It goes beyond the bedroom,” said Cortez Wright. “It’s a cultural thing. Your identity goes beyond who you’re having sex with. It affects your background, and your view of the world.”

Cortez was one of four members of the gay community who sat down to talk with me yesterday. They certainly changed my thinking in a lot of ways. Before that experience, I’ll admit I felt a sort of pity for them. “Who would want to be so confused about their feelings?” I thought, and “Why would a guy want to be attracted to another guy?”

I shouldn’t have pitied anybody – Connor Gillis said it’s not a handicap. “You may feel that way initially,” he said of people coming out, “But eventually you learn to accept [it as a part of] yourself. My identity is my identity, it’s how I am.”

Gillis said being in the closet is terrible, because it means pretending you’re someone you aren’t.

“It’s just always been me, it’s how I’m comfortable,” Crystal McAlpin added, “You can choose to express something, but you can’t choose how you feel.”

But can our society choose how it collectively treats these people? I think so. There’s a lot of talk about the political rights of the gay community, right down to who can get health insurance and fill out joint tax forms.

But none of that can even be discussed until we learn to accept people on a personal level. Not until we learn to appreciate living a colorful existence, one that adds flavor to our lives by presenting us with alternative points of view.

I’ll probably always do a double-take when I see two guys or girls holding hands, just as I would at a girl with a pair of eagle wings tattooed above her backside. While neither is inherently wrong, both are forms of expression foreign to me. But at the end of the day, they don’t threaten my way of living.

Talking to those four taught me a lot. And thinking about what I learned, I’m reminded of this summer in Atlanta, when I was attending an outdoor movie with my girlfriend. We saw a guy in front of us who looked like any other neighborhood dad, and he seemed to be impatiently waiting on someone.

Suddenly, his face lit up when he saw that someone, but it wasn’t a mom and two kids-it was another guy that looked just like him. When it came time to embrace, there was an awkward half-hug, and a hesitant pat on the back.

That night, those two looked at each other in the same way many couples did. Yet as they spent the rest of the movie on their blanket together, they left a foot of nervous space between them at all times.

They sat there and looked like two awkward kids at a sixth grade dance who knew they were being watched.

Sure, this straight southern white male would have done another double-take if I’d seen those two holding hands. Because even if they weren’t shoving it in my face, that kind of thing isn’t “normal” to me.

But two people who care for each other – and choose to tastefully show it in public?

That’s not just normal, that’s natural.

- Marc McAfee is the online editor of The Red & Black