Apparently all this time I've been shoving my sexuality in your face and forcing it on you. I misunderstood. I didn't know. I am so sorry.

I thought you were forcing your sexuality on me when you and your friends cornered me in the locker room after gym class in junior high school, called me a goddamn homo and beat the shit out of me.

When you and your friends trashed my car and then afterwards ran me off the road as I was walking home from school, laughing and calling me a "Queer" I thought I was just walking home from school and not forcing my sexuality down your throat.

When I was in the military, I thought one of my friends might be just trying to live a decent, honorable life with his partner of 10 years when you and your military police friends pulled him into an interrogation room and accused him of sodomy because he was living with a guy and not dating women. When you kicked him out of the service and dumped him 3500 miles from his home with no money and no job, I didn't realize that he was forcing his lifestyle on you. I'm sure he's sorry too.

I didn't realize that you were offended by us when my best friend asked to be admitted to his partners' hospital room while he was dying. You see, he'd lived with him for 20 years and they had shared their life together but had the misfortune of living in a state where people like him had no "legal status" and so his sweet love of 20 years died alone surrounded by people who thought that God had given him AIDS as punishment for the sin of homosexuality. He didn't understand that your religious sensibilities were more important than his misguided need to be with his partner when he died.

You'll excuse me please.

All this time, all my life - I just thought you were trying to make me be something that I can never be. I just thought you were forcing me to conform to your idea of normality. I mistakenly thought you hated me.

I was mistaken. Obviously, all this time I was forcing my lifestyle on you. Please accept my apologies.