You don't have to be Gay to support the LGBT Community.

[MANative]

21. So very true!

I was lucky to be raised in a very accepting family, and my early life and work exposures brought me into close partnership with at least as many gay people as straight ones (working in theater and fashion, which both tend to be very accepting of people of all stripes)! When you choose to just know people as individuals, rather than as the label that society places on them, it's really, at least for me, impossible to not form close, life-long bonds. I'm as straight as an arrow, have been in a monogamous, heterosexual marriage for thirty years (as of April!) and I've drawn considerably more gay friends into my life than straight ones. The longest standing friendship with a person I knew to be gay began when we were both nine years old, and he's my very best bud, apart from my hubby, my brother and my sister. He was a huge influence in me learning that being gay was no different from being anything else, and I'm so grateful that at the young age of eleven, he was honest with me about who he was. What a grand, and long-lasting gift he shared!