Paul.

pdcook.blogspot.com

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.