I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda"

[misterx]

As a person who has never really fit in, I have too many memories of people trying to push me around, particularly as a kid. I was too smart, too chubby, looked too different, was too quiet, too nice, whatever. I couldn't bring myself to accept that others had a right to push me around. I wasn't a big or particularly strong kid, and I didn't have a big gang of friends. Sometimes you can reduce a bully to tears if you are quick with your tongue, and I did that more than once. But that doesn't always work. To deal with the rest of the cases, I compensated by making myself dangerous. I used my mind to learn things I wasn't supposed to know, and I carried a weapon to school almost every day. I made sure that either by deterrent or revenge, people left me alone.

People find this distasteful. Hell, I find it distasteful that I should have to. And today, we have an entire society that if I was the same kid in these times, they would lock me up, thanks to Harrison and Klebold. But I didn't ask to be treated that way. I was getting straight A's, and I was nice to everybody. When you get picked on incessantly, if you have any pride in yourself, if you want to have any self-worth, you have to do something. You start reaching a point where you'd rather die than let people put you down anymore. When I started reaching that point, I fought back. It generally worked... the right people became afraid, and left me alone. Occasionally someone had to be reminded, but whatever. I'm glad nobody ever pushed the issue though, as I was prepared to give up my life rather than live like that. I guess I'm still like that in some ways, but luckily adulthood lets you choose your venues such that you can minimize contact with the idiots. Anyway... the point is, I'm strongly against intolerance, because I've experienced it.

Unfortunately, not everybody is a fighter, for whatever reason. So when I read the following letter, I found it incredibly sad. I identify with the bullying problems this kid was facing, and I have some idea what it must have been like. Thing is, he wasn't a fighter. When he reached the same point I did, he became suicidal. This letter is written by a mother, striking back at the bigotry of her fellow Vermonters against her homosexual son.

" As the mother of a gay son, I've seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.

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."

There's more... click to the read the whole thing:
http://www.vermontcivilunion.com/advice/0600.html

via cuntishness

Comments

[violatedjoy.livejournal.com]

NOD

[nyobserver.livejournal.com]

wow. it is just too sad.

While not for the same reasons, I grew up being picked on (especially in high school). I didn't fit with anyone. I was shy to begin with and then I became more withdrawn, convincing myself a life without friends was fine. thank goodness that when I went to college, I was at a school (even though it was local in NYC) there wasn't anyone there I knew. There was no picking on me because some idiot thought it was cool. Slowly, I began to realize that I could have friends and it helped me through excessive shyness.

My heart breaks for the mother who wrote that letter. Even more so for her son. I see the ignorance of people today. I look at parents of kids in school with mine and am amazed. I don't live in a rich town here in NJ, but it isn't poor. Parents seem mostly educated. Yet, the kids can be horribly cruel. Unfortunately, most of the parents seem to match the kids (gee....where could the kids be learning it from). Religious, economic, whatever....it amazes me how there has to be a label for everything with some of these people.

I try to teach my kids that individuality is one of the joys of life. That everyone is different and that is exactly how it should be and that no one has the right to tease or criticize someone for it.

I think this is more than I have ever written in a posting.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

I can relate to your experiences and to misterx's. Growing up shy in this country seems to be an invitation for some people to heap abuse on you. And many parents model horrible behavior, teaching hatred and intolerance and calling it righteousness or "just the way it is."

The mother's letter makes me feel very sad. And I can't help but doubt that it will change anything.

[rathgrith.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank God this kid had a loving family, and he actually TALKED to them before killing himself. I'm hoping he never went through with it - she speaks as if he is still alive.

I am sick of people making such a big deal about homosexuality. Two men or two women marrying each other will do NOTHING to my marriage - MY marriage would be undermined by my husband or I breaking our vows to each other, not by what other people do in their own lives.

I'll tell you this much, too. I happen to have a degree in Bible - I minored in it at the bible college I went to for my art degree - and nowhere, not once, does the bible say anything about gay people going to hell. The verses that Christians like to pull out to support their hatred of the homosexual community are flimsy at best. Homosexuality is mentioned in total about five times. However, living a life of love is THE biggest theme throughout. It pisses me off when people use the bible as their excuse to hate an entire group of people, and to press their white-bred cookie-cutter image of "right" on everyone else. Hypocrites.

Sorry to rant in your space. That letter made me very sad, yet very good at the same time. Good for that mother, to have raised a son who knew he could come to her when he felt he couldn't go on anymore, and good for her for striking back at the people who brought her son to that place. Good for her son, that he had a strong support system in his family, one he knew he could turn to in his despair, and good for him, that he DID turn to them. How many children have been lost because of this same situation - I'm glad to see one may have been saved.

[cuntishness.livejournal.com]

i love how leviticus is only sparsely quoted, as though the rest of that particular book of the bible just doesn't exist.

[rathgrith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's nice, isn't it? "You're eternally damned if you're gay, but we're not going to stone you if you're raped."

*I'd* really like to be able to pick and choose which laws and rules apply to me and others, and which ones I can just dismiss. Life doesn't work that way, though. If you're going to claim part of the old law, you gotta claim it all. And since most of it is regarded as archaic and replaced by the "new law" by most Christians these days, then all of it should be.

And really, a propaganda of hatred should be based on more than that. I mean, if you're going to go all the way and condemn an entire group of people whom you've never met to eternal damnation and suffering, you should really have a firm basis for it, don't you think?

[busychild424.livejournal.com]

Nicely put.