Have you ever donated money to any Gay Or Lesbian charities or organizations ?

Several, actually. My sister is a lesbian, my husband's cousin was gay and died of AIDS, and two of our best friends whom we've known since college (30 years ago) are a gay couple who have been together for as long as we've known them. I'm heterosexually married, but I feel very strongly that animosity against gays and lesbians must stop. Too many parents disown or ignore their homosexual children, which causes the suicide rate for homosexual teens to be much higher than the average. Like any minority, gays and lesbians encounter discrimination every day of their lives, and gays with AIDS are still treated like lepers. And I strongly feel that committed homosexual relationships should have every right and benefit of marriage - and I think the only way to do that is to allow actual marriage, because, as we as a society know from history, separate rights are never equal rights.

Want to know why I feel strongly enough to contribute? Because my husband's cousin, Marc, had a partner, Gregg, with whom he'd been living for 8 years - and Gregg wasn't allowed to visit or even call Marc in the hospital and hospice during the last seven months of Marc's life (even though he was footing the bill for Marc's medical care) because he wasn't considered "family". Marc's mother, who hadn't really bothered much with him since he moved to CA (she lives in MA) "rushed to his side" when she found out that he was dying of AIDS, and because of her ignorance and intolerant religious beliefs, she accused Gregg of seducing and "killing" her son by giving him AIDS (which wasn't the case at all - Marc had AIDS before he even met Gregg - and Gregg certainly didn't "seduce" Marc, who was 24 when they met) and she told Gregg that he was going to Hell, and that he was responsible for damning Marc's soul. She also accused him of keeping her away from her son and hiding his medical condition from her - which he didn't; Marc hadn't wanted his mother to know about it at all, but Gregg thought that wasn't fair to her, and talked Marc into telling her. If that wasn't mean enough, the vindictive bitch somehow got herself declared Power of Attorney for Marc (who by that time was too sick to really understand what was going on) and she forbade the hospice people to let Gregg visit or even call and ask about his condition - and there was nothing Gregg could do, because he wasn't "family". A couple times Gregg was able to sneak in, but after Marc's mother made a big fuss, even the sympathetic ones were afraid to let him in. Worst of all - and living in NJ as we do, we didn't know this until after Marc died - his mother lied to Marc and told him that Gregg wasn't visiting anymore because he'd found someone new. Thank God one of the nurses told him the truth, but we'll never know if he was able to hear or understand anything by that time. What Marc's mother did was just so WRONG, and yet the law was on her side. And that's why I contribute and one of the reasons I feel so strongly about gays and lesbians being allowed to marry.