A great letter about same sex marriage (from the civil union debate)

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This appears on pages 252 to 254 of Civil Wars by David Moats, the Pulitzer Prize winning editoralist for the Rutland Hearld. This was submitted to him but he didn't print it at the time as he felt it would be inciteful. Here it is.

Many letters have been sent to the Forum concerning the homosexual menace in our state. I am the mother of a gay son, and I have taken enough from you good people.

I am 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 you are ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joy of motherhood 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 through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He had never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was six.

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 seventeen 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 adn that he couldn't face a life with no 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 depair. 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 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 absolute certainty taht it is inborn . . .

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 . . . these outrageous requests woudl threaten the very existance 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 Forum on April 12 who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religous upbringing" asks. "Whatever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed sir, whatever happened to that?

This is from a book so I hope that the number of paragraphs quoted isn't overboard.

I just couldn't belive this letter. It really, really spoke to me. I didn't get this from first grade but certainly by 5th. I hope the kid in this his happy and in love. He sure deserves it.

[Maat]

1. Powerful.

I've decided if my beautiful daughter, center of my life, decides she is gay -- I will move to the most supportive environment I can find. Our home, of course, will THE most supportive environment. Now, what you guys will have to help me with is if ... she registers as a Republican. She likes to tease me and say that she's gonna' do it (the Repuke thing).

[Mrs. Venation]

4. Your Daughter Will Not Decide She Is Gay

She will acknowledge it. One's sexual orientation is not a decision; it's a trait that I am fully convinced one is born with.

This might sound nit-picky, but too many people base their hatred of gay and lesbian people on the lie that sexual orientation is a choice that can be reversed.

No one ever tried harder than I did not to be attracted to the same sex; my choice was to be heterosexual, but I am not wired that way and I could not function as a full human being when I denied my own true nature.

I am glad you will be supportive of your daughter if she has a same-sex orientation. Unconditional love is a wonderful thing.

[mike1963]

10. It took years, but I've run into former classmates who finally admitted

they had always been essentially gay. And I'm talking about high school grads from 1959. Purely by accident, I've run across these 2 men who I hadn't kept in touch with for decades. Both of them had married and had children and lived as "normal" family men for all that time before finding the courage to admit what they had known but hidden all that time. And then the icing on that cake, about 6 months ago, my sister, with 2 (now grown kids) called me up to tell me her husband of 30 years has done the same thing - he even 'flipped' (if I may use such a rather crass term) and abruptly left home, moved in with a transgendered friend. It makes me think this sort of thing is way more common than we imagine.

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11. It was very common

My dad has two gay siblings. His brother was openly gay in the 1950's which took its toll as he died in the 1960's. His sister married a man, divorced in the 1980's, and has been with a woman ever since.

[ezee]

2. A GREAT LETTER

I sent this to my mother . It may help her

[Catfight]

3. Compelling, this should be sent to Musgrave

This is how I feel, I cannot believe that these "christians" want to tear apart families, leave children of same sex couples exposed to ridicule at school and endorse intolerance. I refuse to believe in a God that breeds the kind of hate that these followers perpetuate. I will never forgive our ignorant illegitimate president for stealing an election, endorsing discrimination and being a divider. It's still the darkest day of my lifetime, beyond 911, beyond the shuttle blowing up, beyond the stolen election, the worst day was the day the leader of the free world pointed an ugly finger at an innocent group of people, stood on their backs and told the world they are not equal.

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5. awesomely said

Short, too the point, and beautiful.

[gator_in_Ontario]

6. Great letter! Thanks for the post. n/t

[noiretextatique]

7. she really nails the issue, and quite eloquently

"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."

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8. Astonishly well written

I wish I had a millionth of her talent. She is terrific.

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9. kick

[Bertha Venation]

12. kick

:kick: