I saw the red signs on Facebook, and thought -- changing my Facebook ID doesn't really mean anything. I'm a person, not a cause -- nothing I do on Facebook would make a difference either way.

Then I remembered being a child going to public school. I was singled out by bullies who said: "You're a Christian Scientist. You must be retarded."

Then I went to a private school for Christian Scientists, where I was singled out by adults who said: "You're a teenager. That means you're a lazy, irresponsible liar who thinks he knows everything."

In college I became an atheist, and remained one for several years. I was singled out by people who said: "If you don't believe in God, you must be immoral."

After graduating I was singled out -- on two different occasions -- by young men on the bus. These individuals sat down next to me, notified me I was gay, and then explained in lurid detail how disgusting that was and how they intended to beat me to a pulp. I kept silent; it was clear that neither young man would have believed me had I tried to explain that I was a straight guy and my wedding was in a few months.

Last year I attended an event where one of the other guests sat down at my table, introduced himself, then cracked a racist "joke" using an offensive, derogatory term demeaning black people. My stomach was in knots for the rest of the evening. My best friend at work is black, and I couldn't stop thinking about how she would feel if someone told her in casual conversation that she wasn't really a human being because of her skin color.

Earlier this year my wife and I attended a parade. At one point, the woman sitting next to my wife turned to her and, out of the blue, called her an anti-Semitic slur. (My wife is a Christian, and doesn't have any Jewish ancestry that we know of.) Even though some of our best friends are Jewish, we didn't respond to the woman because we didn't want to make a scene.

I've lived in San Francisco for a number of years, and I was shocked to see the local paper run a column last February mocking and belittling Wiccans. Some of my closest friends are Wiccans.

The enemy is not gay people, straight people, young people, or old people. The enemy is not people of a different skin color or people of other religions. The enemy is bigotry. The enemy is prejudice. The enemy is the belief that it's okay to hate innocent people. The enemy is the belief that members of a minority don't deserve the same rights as everyone else.

I'm straight, not narrow.