Justice Boner

Warning: wall of text ahead. TL;DR: My first, complicated, experience with outward homophobia.OK backstory, I was asked by a good friend to be a part of his wedding as a groomsman. This friend and his fiancé are very caring, smart, fun people who I immediately clicked with. We have so much fun together. One of the main reasons why I like spending time with these two idiots (I say that affectionately) are the stupid but innocent shenanigans and adventures that we just seem to fall into. Throughout my life, the people I have shared these types of experiences with have turned out to be my best friends. To further strengthen our friendship, they were also around while I was working through becoming more comfortable with my sexuality (an ever ongoing struggle but I can say now that I am much more comfortable and open about it now). They not only accept that I myself am also a silly idiot but the sexuality piece is a non-issue, totally normal (never was even a question). Nonetheless, when I was asked to be a part of their wedding it was a bit of a shock because they have many close friends and I had only known them for a couple years but of course it a honor and I accepted. I am really looking forward to the wedding day.The next key piece to this particular story is that the groom was in a fraternity. In fact, of the groomsmen, myself and the bride’s brother are the only ones that were not a part of the fraternity. Quite a few of the people attending the wedding on his side are old ties from this time in his life. Unfortunately I had only heard old stories because I had only met a couple of them over the years. Probably a combination of geographic location and it being a generally very busy time in life for that age group (They are all mid-30s, I myself am 27). But they sounded like a really fun group and I figured my friend is a super cool guy and these are his friends so they’re probably more of the same.This past weekend I had the opportunity to get to meet these people from his past at the bachelor party. The location for the party was incredible. It was held at a historic century old cabin in the woods on a pristine lake. I’m and outdoors person and kind of a history buff, especially for things that give insight on regional everyday life and needless to say this place checked both boxes spectacularly. To add to its allure, it was in a secluded place that allowed us to cause as much of a ruckus as we wanted. As circumstance would have it, due to conflicts, of all of the people who were not a part of the fraternity but were invited for the weekend, I was the only one who was able to make it. The groom wanted me to be a part of it though. So, it was myself and 12 fraternity brothers who made up the party. I knew this going in and was fine with being an outsider at essentially what was a reunion party. I just wanted my friend to have a great weekend with his friends and wanted to be a part of it for him.On the drive up, I could tell he was a bit nervous about what might be said and what might offend me because of my sexuality. I’m thick skinned and I assured him that I would be fine and that I understood that that’s just how they interact. At least I thought that I understood the group dynamics and knew how to shrug off the off-color comments.I have way too much experience in the art of not taking offense to these things as my knowledge of the hyper-masculine college “brotherhood” type of group is very intimate. Mine is not specifically in the framing of a fraternity but the very similar 4 years of college football I played. Because of that time in my life, I feel that I have been fairly well conditioned to terribly hurtful things being thrown around casually as shock humor. But at the end of the day they are things said between people who know each other well enough to understand that the things said aren’t malicious but just a form of harassing a buddy. I get it. I don’t like it but if I’m being honest some of it is pretty clever and I do find humor in the banter. I took the position back when I was a part of that type group of - I know how these people actually feel, if they thought saying these things would hurt anyone in a deeper sense that they wouldn’t until they knew it wouldn’t, and they feel that they know their audience well enough because of the bonds shared that they are confident that comments thrown around are not hurting anyone else – and I was poised and did take that position this weekend.I think that I am a very unassuming gay guy. I’m masculine, I really don’t have any of the stereotypic gay “traits”, like sports/hunting/handyman stuff; people are usually shocked when they learn my sexual preference. I’m also kind of shy about it with new people. I won’t dance around the topic but usually don’t bring it up unless it fits into conversation or prompted. I really didn’t worry too much about it for this party.We get up there on Friday and there were people already there. Within 15 minutes, there was a gay joke. I didn’t take offense because it was exactly like what I explained above, friends playfully harassing each other and I still think that. Looking back, I should have said something right then so that everyone knew where I stood but I didn’t want to be confronting with people I had just met. Plus I didn’t want to make things awkward for my friend at his bachelor party, so I just let it roll off of me.I didn’t say anything all weekend about my own sexuality. I met some very interesting, good people. Had great conversation with many of the guys there and everyone was having fun, including myself. I wasn’t going to let a few “jokes”, though obviously wrong, ruin my time. I’m trying to justify my own actions (or inaction) but my thought was to just let these guys have their reunion. I didn’t want to upset the dynamic by them censoring the way they communicate to one and other just because of my presence. I burdened it before and I would do it again.The weekend was great up until Sunday morning. A cell phone was misplaced so there was a search party formed to scour the cabin. We knew the phone was there due to fancy I-Watch technology but couldn’t find it. After turning the cabin upside down in search for the phone there was some down time from the search. While we were just sitting and bull shitting came a truly shocking comment, although I guess not all that surprising coming from who said it. It came from the worst offender of “off-color comments” from the weekend. He would just pepper hateful (racist/homophobic) things into conversation liberally (he would hate having liberal being used in a sentence describing him) but it was always in a passive joking manner. The way he said stuff left a touch of doubt to if he really meant it or not. But this comment was the most sincere thing I heard him say all weekend, it was just a statement of fact to him. I’m not sure how the subject got brought up, I’m actually pretty sure it was out of the blue and he just had to get this off of his chest, but he confidently started a small rant with the statement, “Gay people are disgusting”. It felt pointed and deliberate. I could just see the couple of people there who knew about me squirming.I couldn’t bite my tongue and as compassionately as I could, said that I thought that was sad and asked him of why he thought that. Cue a very fast pivot from his blanket statement to a very specific situation of hypothetically having to explain to his kids about other kids that are transgender; all while belittling and undercutting this “decision” by using hurtful language to get his point across. In my mind just digging his own grave by trying to justify his incredibly wrong position. Then something great happened, one of the guys who had found religion since leaving college and this groups “prime” jumped in and calmly, respectfully, and logically explained the same sentiment of not wanting to have to explain these hard topics to his kids either. Then another guy jumped in and started talking about compassion and how these moments were essential for parents to shape their kids perspective on the world in a healthy way. That it might be a difficult situation to describe but that it will continue to persist with or without acceptance for it, so how are you going to deal with it.It turned into a very civil exchange of feelings and ideas. The best part was the more we talked about ideas and not just visceral gut reactions, the quieter the asshole that sparked the discussion got. Eventually he left the room quietly while the discussion was still going. There was common ground reached on the topic, in spite of his exclusive contribution of hate to the discussion. It definitely helped me understand and open my eyes to some of the reasoning behind internalized homophobia. It doesn’t make them right, but it does help me empathize with the situation that harbors such wrong beliefs. I never did reveal that I myself was gay to the majority of the group, and I’m ok with that.As everyone was saying good bye, the guy who first started this came up and shook my hand. He said something along the lines of that we wouldn’t agree on the topic but not to judge him. I told him that judgement is toxic and that trying to understand people’s beliefs in a civil discussion, especially those I explicitly disagree with, is not only interesting to me but also necessary for myself to be able to empathize with people that hold those positions. We parted ways on friendly terms and the groom, obviously embarrassed, and I drove home.I’ve been stewing on this exchange for a day now. This is the first egregious display of homophobia I have witnessed firsthand. At first I was angry at myself for not standing up and being proud of my sexuality and verbally whipping him up and down the street in the manner that they communicated in. But as I’m writing this, I think how it happened was better. It exposed that people are different and it is good to learn about all sides to be fully informed of those held beliefs. Also, know your fucking audience asshole.I do really want one more piece of selfish satisfaction out of the whole thing though. I’m going to do my best to find the hottest, most badass, interesting, cool-and-collected guy to be my date to this wedding. I want to be able to go up to this guy and introduce him to my awesome date without even hinting at his statements. Just compassionate, nice, and friendly. I want to see the point in which he realizes that his words have impacts on others and then not hold it over him in the slightest. He’s seen me without his preconceived bias of sexuality and I have been nothing but friendly and nice to him and will continue to be that way. Without knowing, he said things that specifically attacked my lifestyle but my hope is that this might help him reevaluates his stance. I'm sure that comes across as petty, it might be, but I want the closure.Side note, I was also invited to the bachelorette party and I am so excited for it. Its going to be fun and I know all the girls that are going to be there already. It’s my first one and I’m ready for an epic story to come out of it. The only dancing around things I'll have to do at this party is the dance floor.This was more for me than for anyone else. If you’ve made it this far, WHY!?! But I thank you for listening.