I read this in toonguykc's journal, Inner and Outer Demons, and decided to reproduce it here. I don't think I've ever seen it said so well. Pass it on.
The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of
a gay boy in Vermont...
"Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual
menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from
you good people. I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual
agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing
as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been
robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.
My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from
your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was
physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school
because he was perceived to be gay.
He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but
he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He
was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.
In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be
doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure
his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the
heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living
any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without
dignity.
You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the
homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children
to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him,
and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you
brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen
to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to
join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you
won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a
critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute
certainty that it is inborn.
If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more
substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to
you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own
heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part.
It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those
of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad
habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are
you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you
have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why
would you suggest that someone else can?
A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders.
Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul
a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true
Vermonters."
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for
this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual
agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father
fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded
the Purple Heart.
He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he
fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered
no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the
end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the
man.
You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell
that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure
of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that
companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax
laws governing inheritance.
How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence
of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate
your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious
people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and
God knows my son has committed no sin.
The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about
homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits
of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be
better human beings than we are?"
Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that? "
~~Silk
Links in this entry:
http://journals.aol.com/toonguykc/InnerOuterDemons/entries/1905
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