you go, mom.

[sisyphusshrugged]

This is why I think more voices need to be heard right now. The mother of a gay son tells the readers of her local paper where exactly they get off, and it's beautiful. The whole letter is on atrios.

...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...

Who we are is infinitely more powerful than any focus-tested construct of who it might be seen as acceptable for us to be.

Comments

[myasma.livejournal.com]

Thanks for putting this up--a very powerful messsage.

[kceriksen.livejournal.com]

What I have never ever understood in the course of this conflict, is how so many people can look at gay marriages and see them as a "stepping stone" to polygamy and/or bestiality. Homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with either of those issues, which were banned for reasons exclusive to the inherent problems of each. It also drives me crazy that so many conservatives argue for states rights but then turn around an call for a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. Additionally, I see it as an issue of freedom of religion, as many people argue that it goes against the teachings of the Church to allow same sex marriage. But for those of us who don't follow the teachings of Christianity, that argument has absolutely no import. As such, is this constitutional amendment an establishment of religion and an infringement of constitutional rights? I think it is.
Scientifically, sexuality is controlled by something like 40 different genes thereby creating a very large spectrum of possibilities. I'm sure that most of the people who claim to be heterosexual are not genetically as straight as they think they are. Neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality are disease, nor can the be treated. I wish people had more tolerance.

[platosearwax.livejournal.com]

I read that on Arthur Silber's blog over the weekend (if you didn't know he is a gay Ayn Randian objectivist, but the coolest and most reasonable objectivist I have ever come across). It's the best letter to the editor ever.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know who he is - I I sent folks over from here to his blog to donate when he had some trouble last year - but frankly, I don't think there is any such thing as a cool objectivist, and it seems to me to be a questionable "belief system" to cherry pick from.

[indraladybug.livejournal.com]

Amen. Bravo, Mom. Could you email me a link to the whole letter (or a copy of it)? There's someone I would like to share it with. :o)

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

just follow the bouncing link back to atrios - no-one's gotten hold of an original, they don't keep their letters to the editor archives online.