2007
An open letter to those against homosexuality
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I’ve always wondered what I would say in a room full of people who “hated” me for who I love. It’s sad to constantly watch the extreme left and right battle over this issue. To me it has never been about convincing someone their opinion is wrong, it’s only ever been about getting them to see that theirs isn’t the only opinion out there. It is not the people with extreme liberal views that will save this country from continued racism and will legalize gay marriage. Nor is it the extreme right that will gain prayer in every public school and make abortions illegal. It is those of us in the middle that need to stand up to truly make things happen. It is those of us who are able to listen and understand one anothers views that need to finally express our own. I know that I cannot convince a sane person that the sky is orange, but being a sane person I am able to see that sometimes even our beautiful blue sky turns gray.
I am 29 years old. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, attended public schools, and my parents didn’t divorce. I have 1 sibling, a younger brother who is now married and has an adorable 1 year old baby girl. I went to community college for a few years and found that I didn’t have the attention span to make the commitment. I’ve worked for a worldwide IT company as a project environment manager for 7 years. I love music, all kinds. I don’t drink, I feel the happiest when I am near the ocean, and am currently attempting to piece my life back together since my fathers death this past January.
I had my first crush on a girl when I was 5. Before that time I was not abused mentally or physically. I did not grow up with an authoritative mother. I didn’t find a lesbian porno in my father’s closet, nor was I predisposed to anything that would make me think I would not want to fall in love with a girl. I was simply in love by kindergarten standards. Which meant a lot of picking on the girl and whispering some secrets into her ear. In the 5th grade I would fall in love again. Whenever I saw her I got butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to be in her presence all the time and we ended up becoming best friends. By then though, I knew that for most of the people around me, being in love meant that one person was a boy and the other a girl. I don’t remember that epiphany confusing me. I don’t remember it deterring me or making me feel ashamed. I just remember that I kept on loving her, and would until I started my first “real” relationship with a girl the summer before 8th grade.
My life would continue. There would be other girls, and I would also find THE GIRL and then lose her. My point is that I may be just like you. I try my best not to judge people, and because of that I will never understand why strangers will hate me for who I love. There are a lot of people like me out there. Gay men and women who are going on with their lives. You may even know one of us and not know who we love. If you found out, would you remain by our side? Some of you will say it’s a religious thing. The Bible says it’s wrong. I truly do respect your beliefs, but cannot bring myself to respect a God that will condemn me for who my heart feels for. This doesn’t mean I’m against religion, it simply means that I am able to see the view at all angles and then decide on my own.
There are a lot of things I wanted to say when I started this letter. Now that my mind is running in circles I fear it is too much, so I will keep it simple in the end. The differences between who we all are make us beautiful as humans. In free countries we are given the right to chose our religion, how we live, and many times how we die. In my heart I do not believe I am given a choice as to who I love. My heart does that for me, many times when I least expect it. I don’t fall in love to offend, hurt, or laugh in the face of someone else’s opinion. There really isn’t an explanation as to why any of us fall in love with who we do, but that’s part of what makes love so amazing. It has stood strong and has become one of the last unexplained magics of our world. No matter how much you disagree with me I plead with you to try for just a moment to accept me. Perhaps we could talk over coffee. We may not agree, but in the end we can both say we listened to each other out of the respect of love.
Post note: This is only one opinion and not at all the general consensus of all GLBT individuals. I encourage you to leave your opinion as a comment below.
Kelly, very interesting choice of venue to post such a letter. I think this should be re-posted in places where people of various sexual orientations can see it, in addition to having it here–not to say non-lesbians don’t visit this site.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your overall message, although I never quite care for people trying to appeal to others with the argument that we’re all really similar in the end because we all do very basic things such as laugh, love, cry, hurt, etc. I think you’re also saying that we all are different and that people should accept that–which is great and I agree, but I’m not optimistic. I learned first as a black person that you can’t make everyone accept you. As people who are “different” in any way, we are never going to be completely accepted, and it’s not important enough to me what other people think to want to sit down with them and “explain myself” to them.
I’m also not sure that because some people “disagree” with homosexuality that some of them don’t accept a homosexual individual. Of course, many of these people accept you with qualifications, i.e. you don’t talk about it, you don’t “look” like it, you don’t *flaunt* it. Others of these people love the homosexual with all their hearts, i.e. parents, siblings, very good heterosexual friends, etc, but just don’t understand homosexuality.
Finally, nitpicky stuff that completely jumped out at me. I don’t feel like having the “race” argument, but I don’t think fighting racism and fighting for gay marriage are the same sorts of battles. One is more uphill than the other, to me, even though I completely know and understand that some people are just as pessimistic about ever seeing gay marriage as I am about ever seeing real racial acceptance. I also don’t think fighting for any of those things mean having extreme liberal views. I plan to make a career out of fighting all kinds of discrimination against various minority groups, and yet my views on those issues and related issues are probably the most–if not only–liberal views I have, though I don’t vote Republican. I know card-carrying Republicans who do support gay rights. The bottom line for me is you just…shouldn’t…treat…people like they are worthless for reasons they have nothing to do with.
Second, you seem to concede that God has a problem with homosexuality. I am not religious and don’t really even believe in God myself, but I know there are many religious GLBTQ individuals who would argue with people who say God and the Bible condemn homosexuality and have good arguments. I feel as if religion has more to do with what regular people think than what any actual God does–my take on the Bible is it’s pretty much all stuff some long-dead white men wrote, not necessarily the word of God–so I wouldn’t be so quick to let people who use religion to back them up win.