gay vampires are serious business

I wonder how many out there can understand just how much this day has meant to me.

There was no struggle with what I was, not in the beginning. It was just another thing, something that set me apart but wouldn't stop me. Maybe at the time there just wasn't any time to think about it. It wasn't as if I were going to stop running and settle down with a man. Not in the wartorn land I rode across. The time would come where I'd confront it. But it seemed so distant.

It was only after I moved that it began to sink in just how big of a deal it was. It didn't take long to learn that my existence was a crime. A dirty word on the lips of conspirators and politicians. It brought suspicion at best, direct and violent persecution at worst. To them, I was a predator that would bring down society around the populace's ears. I existed to lure in children into degeneracy.

That maybe I was only a human trying to find his place in the world never seemed to occur to them.

Oh, certainly, there were many of us, huddled together in the basements of nightclubs, gathering in holes in the walls. We drank, we partied, we fucked. It was all good fun, for sure. But what time was there for lasting love when anything different would bring down the wrath of the ever-oppressive norm on our heads? How many did I know disappear from the groups to languish in loveless marriages? More than I care to count.

The raids came. They'd been raining down for years and I remember the night we decided to fight back. I'm glad the name exists in the history books. It shows that it wasn't wasted. We were finally heard.

I left New York behind shortly afterwards. I had my reasons. But back to the relevant part. For a while, things were quiet. Nasty words and accusations still existed, but things were getting better. Slowly, too slowly. But something was happening.

And then they found a new reason to hate us.

How many mortal friends did I lose to that plague? Too many. Too many, and while they wasted away, while they died and we buried them we were blamed. Why bother stepping in when we had it coming, they said. The old views had come back. It was so hard, so hard not to be cynical. Maybe they hoped it would have burned us out and they wouldn't have to live in such horrid fear over the gays lurking in the dark, ready to snap up their children and corrupt their precious society. Or maybe they just liked to see us fall, for the fun of it.

Fuck you, I thought. You can't take me. You lost your chance. I am still here. I always will be.

And here I stand today, watching as we can walk in the open. We don't have to lie. When we speak, we are heard. Things aren't perfect, not yet. Maybe they never will be.

But that I can live in a world that goes from not even allowing me to exist to letting me stand here to marry someone I love. It's something to be happy about.