I have never understood why gay people are treated so badly by society. They are simply in love, why should they get punished for that? Maybe someday they will get treated as equals. It will be a hard fight. I know which side I will be on; what about you?

My family has always been a little weird. My parents separated when I was four and a half. The cause: my father way gay, the result : joint custody. At first my mother thought that she could hold onto their relationship, but that was easier said than done. Fortunately, they stayed good friends.

Until I turned ten, I saw my father a lot. Then we moved, my mother and I. We went to her hometown in Arizona. Here I found perfect little families. I was jealous out of my mind. The kids here acted so differently from the kids in San Francisco. My friends back home would describe them a geeks and queers. They were non-athletic and nerdy. Not my type of crowd.

In middle school, I still felt out of place. Everyone wore tight jeans and cowboy boots. I wore trench coats and vintage clothing. I was used to the San Francisco style. The messages about homosexuality that I picked up in that small town conflicted with the love I felt for my father. My grades dropped and I knew it would get worse if I stayed in that place.

So I went back to live with my father. I realized that I really wanted to get to know him better. At first I was a snobbish little brat. I wasn't sure how to handle things. My dad understood I was feeling a little uncomfortable. However, he didn't repress who he was. He always told me just to be myself.

It was the greatest feeling when I didn't have to watch what I said about my family, which happened when I was around my friends and my father's friends, who were also gay. They would tell me how cool he was, and they were right! He became my best friend.

We even went on a trip to Canada. It was the best! But I started to notice a difference in him. He was losing so much weight in a short time. He also had such a bad cold that we returned to the States early. He went to doctor after doctor. My father told me what I had been avoiding thinking. My dad was diagnosed with AIDS.

For the next few weeks I went through Hell. The hospital became my second home. The doctors and nursed looked at my family with such sadness in their eyes. The only sound I heard was his "breathing machine." I was so scared to lose him.

After a long hard struggle, my father left me. It seems as though we had just found each other. Now he is gone forever.

The story of my father's life shows how a homosexual can be a husband, a father and a best friend. This is why I believe that gay people should be treated as equals in society. n