I am a member of the LGBT community. That B? That stands for me.

I’m not overly active. I haven’t had a girlfriend since… Hmm… Do internet romances count? If not, my last girlfriend was at least ten years ago. I didn’t march on Washington (though I wanted to), or visit City Hall with another woman to request a marriage license. I didn’t even make it to the LGBT film festival at the local antique theater that I so badly wanted to attend. M and I were too busy working.

I did write my congressman about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act. I’ll probably write him again. And again. Until I’m comfortable with the way the government views and treats LGBT people. But really, writing my congressman doesn’t change much. His views, and the views of the rest of his constituents, on the issues that mean the most to me are quite often in line with my own. So even if he were inclined to vote according to his opinion, or in the best interests of his political career, and not letters he receives, most of the time his vote would go my way. I’m lucky that way.

It’s messed up that I get more acceptance from an old rich white man sitting on Capitol Hill than I do my own community.

What do I mean?

I’m kind of an outcast in some circles. I mean not specifically. No one’s ever been like “You can’t be LGBT because…” But I’ve heard stories, and I don’t doubt for a moment that those things would happen to me should I find myself in the same situations the people who told them were in.

You see, I’m bisexual, but I’m married to a man. I haven’t been in many relationships with females since I met him, and the ones I have been in included him. I don’t really actively seek relationships, or even sex, with other women. I pretty much always knew I’d marry a man, and live happily ever after with him. I fully expected to have to stop looking for another woman, but it turns out, I don’t have to. I just sort of… have. And that means, to this gigantic group of people who are fighting so hard for equality and acceptance, that I’m not really bisexual. Or, at the very least, I’m not affected by the discriminatory laws still in place, so I don’t count.

That’s fine. I’m not bitter. I just smile, and nod, and laugh, later, at the hypocrisy of it. It’s a sad day when a group wanting so badly to be understood, but barring that at least accepted, turns away members of its community because they don’t understand them and/or refuse to accept them. Or because they’ve been burned by some of them. Or for whatever reason. That’s pretty much true across the board.

But the hypocrisy runs much deeper.

We claim to want to educate people. We’re in their faces with our sexual preferences because we think that’s the only way they’ll learn that we’re not monsters. We have a right to our sexuality, and a right to choose who we sleep with, and a right to share the same benefits as heterosexual people! But they can’t have their own beliefs. Especially if those beliefs go against our lifestyle! My god, the nerve of them.

Tuesday morning, the Sex Feed on Sex Is Magazine ran a story on an ex-gay app members of the LGBT community were trying to have Apple remove from its app store. I know because I wrote it.

Truth Wins Out, a gay rights activist group, put a petition on Change.org demanding Apple remove the app. They called Exodus International’s message “hateful and bigoted”. They accused Exodus International of targeting young people with this discriminatory message, which in a sense they are, but not in the way TWO obviously meant it. Basically, they’ve accused Exodus International of everything but helping LGBT teens commit suicide.

In short, they did exactly what they’ve accused Exodus International of doing. They pulled out every scare tactic in the book to bring people over to their side. If you’re not with us, you’re against us, and to be against us means you’re a hateful, bigoted monster. And as it usually does, it worked. Fear is an excellent motivator. The petition received over 150,000 signatures.

And why? Because a group of people who believe being gay is a sin reached out to other struggling people who are gay, and believe being gay is a sin. Because people exercising their religious freedom wanted to help other people who believe as they do.

I won’t front. I’m sure not everyone in Exodus International has pure intentions. But I know for a fact the Christian community is just as devastated by the teen suicides as we are. They may look at it differently. This particular group does. They believe that if those teens had found someone who knew how to help them find their way back to the lord, they would have been saved.

Are they right? You know, I couldn’t say. I’m just human, like the rest of you, and I don’t think humans are capable of knowing what’s behind the curtain of eternity. However, I don’t think any omniscient, loving, merciful god would be capable of hating a group of people he created. For any reason. I think that kind of god would be kind of like a parent should be. I think that kind of god would try to understand his children, accept them regardless of who they love, and let them find their own way.

They believe you must repent, and be cured. And who the hell are any of us, regardless of sexual persuasion, to tell them they can’t believe that? It’s part of their accepted religious doctrine, and by god, if nothing else, this country was built on religious freedom.

Yes, in some cases, it does more harm than good. But in others, it helps them! Especially in cases of people who’ve been so indoctrinated that they cannot accept the idea that the Christian god might not burn them in Hell for all eternity for loving someone of the same sex. Who are we to begrudge them that?

Truth Wins Out won. Apple removed the app. And I can’t help but think that the LGBT community has lost just as much as Apple with this interaction, and even more than Exodus International. At least Exodus International has their god to blame for their hateful and bigoted message. What’s the LGBT community’s excuse?