thelesbianlifestyle.com

I’d like to write an open letter to Sally Kern, the Oklahoma Representative who spouted off about the horrors of the “gay agenda” at a meeting where she did not realize she was being taped, but RSG has already done it so well. Still, I might have to try. Sometimes, I think the ability to hate so much must be genetic. I mean, I have had some not so great stuff happen to me in my life, but I don’t hate the people who did it, not even my 1st husband, who was seriously not a nice man. I never want to be around those people ever again, either, but I honestly DON’T hate them, and I don’t want to put my energy into hating them. Why give them ANY power over me?

I do feel sorry for them, though, and I feel sorry for Sally Kern, even if that seems too charitable. How horrible to allow your life to be run by “teachings” that cause you so think that because a woman loves a woman or a man loves a man that they are actually a DANGER to your way of life. How is that even possible? How? How does my loving my wife, and living with her, buying a house, paying our taxes, loving our children and grandchildren, working, growing our gardens, HOW is that dangerous to anyone? Please, help me understand where you’re coming from. Or, no, DON’T help me, because if there IS anything in any of the above actions that is dangerous to anyone’s way of life, I don’t want to know. I live with and love a woman, so that makes me more dangerous than a TERRORIST? Wow, I thought I was just a rather less-than-fascinating grandmother. There’s not one, single assault weapon or smidge of C-4 anywhere around me. We don’t even own a handgun! Oh, wait–maybe it’s the garden fertilizer. I’m sure that does contain ammonium nitrate!
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But seriously, “gay agenda”. What the heck IS that? What does it mean? Just as with any other group of people, if you get 100 gay people together, you are going to have 100 different “gay lifestyles” and 100 different “agendas” for their lives. The only “agenda” I can see that gay people have all together in common is to live their lives without getting killed for being who they are. But, I guess to some people like Sally Kern, that IS dangerous.
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She says she has the right to free speech, and indeed she does. She is perfectly free to have these thoughts, and even to say the things she said. That IS what free speech is all about. However, in her position, it seems impossible that given her admitted hatred of and prejudice against “the gay lifestyle” that she could be fair and impartial when proposing, discussing, and working to pass legislation that pertains to equality. I can just see her working her conservative little heart out on some bill that’s supposed to protect or ensure rights, and in her little reptilian brain, the thought going, “Oh, but what about the GAYS? The GAYS can’t have this right!” No, no, no! So, she starts a big push to have the bill amended to somehow exclude the terms “sexual orientation” from it. Or WHATEVER. The point is, when you have that kind of hate in your heart, you CANNOT be objective. If you are a car mechanic or a bank teller or a fast food worker, the most you might do is offend a customer by refusing to serve them. But when you are a STATE LEGISLATOR, you have the ability to adversely affect the lives of thousands of people, to cause them to lose jobs, benefits, health, well-being, and yes, even life itself. Ms. Kern speaks about how “dangerous” the “gay lifestyle” is. She speaks about depression, etc. Well, how depressed would YOU be, Ms. Kern, if you thought you could be KILLED for kissing your husband on the cheek in a public place? How depressed would YOU be if your work and livelihood were dependent on never acknowledging that you even HAD a significant, loving, deep, and true relationship with someone you loved more than you had ever loved in your entire life? And those are just two examples.
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We are sending huge numbers of our country’s finest young men and women to fight in a war that no one wanted so that we can bring “democracy” to people who have never had it. “Bringing democracy” has such a fine ring to it, but how are you going to enforce democracy HERE when your heart is so full of prejudice against so many of your fellow citizens?
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This is not a spiritual or religious question. This is a question of rights UNDER THE LAW. Just as you, a straight woman, have the right so say such awful things about a subject you are clearly ignorant on, and I, as a lesbian, have the right to rebut them. That IS free speech. That IS the law. And the law cannot be made to treat any “group” differently, otherwise, it becomes a meaningless fiction, and all the fine words about “truth” and “justice” become lies.
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Hmm. Maybe I just did write that open letter after all.
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GG