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griffen)
Letter to the Editor
by Sharon Underwood, Sunday, April 30, 2000
from the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH)
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.
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 straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.
He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.
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 17-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 and that he couldn't face a life without 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 despair. 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 all 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 an absolute certainty that it is inborn.
If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?
A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda "could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.
He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.
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? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence 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 April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving...to be better human beings than we are?"
Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?
The letter resonates strongly with me. I'm not a parent, and likely never will be. But I have some idea of what her son went thru. I got teased for doing things like a girl when I started first grade. Due to undiagnosed asthma, I couldn't keep up with the other boys, and I had little experience with the various games. I couldn't fight worth a damn either (and I got in trouble both at school and at home when I tried to defend myself).
So while the details are different, much of the abuse was the same. I too considered suicide. But I never got to the point of writing a note. Partly because one of the reasons I was considering it was that I didn't think anyone gave a damn about me. So who would I leave it *for*?
This unthinking abuse of people for being different is one of the major flaws of our culture. And that we allow it in children, nay, that we *encourage* it... words fail.
And since school shootings drew attention that teen suicide rates had failed to, to find that a common (if not the *most* common) response was to blame the kids who were different for attracting the abuse!!!
Let's just say that there have been times *I* wanted to go on a shooting spree, starting with school administrators who think that way and then spreading out to others who cannot *allow* others to be different.
I know, that wouldn't solve things, and would only confirm others in their beliefs that being different is *inherently* wrong.
I wish we could enshrine a few basic principles in law...
Personal behavior that causes no physical harm to others *without their consent* is legal. Exceptions *may* be allowed for behavior that poses a large risk to others, such as manufacturing or using dangerous chemicals in residential areas, speeding, etc.[1]
Personal behavior that causes emotional harm needs to be dealt with, but I'm open to suggestions, given that a common argument of some of the folks we need protection from is that our actions "harm" them emotionally or "spiritually". (see the arguments against gay marriage).
First problem is stuff like bullying and "picking on" people. That definitely causes emotional harm. We can probably cover it as being targeted, and *intended* to cause negative emotional effects.
Hate crimes/hate speech probably fall under this, though we'd have to watch out to avoid "targeting" becoming so loose that it could be abused.
Stuff that is targeted and isn't "intended" to cause the negative effects is more problematic. A lot of emotional abuse of children and adults works that way. In some cases the abuser is even *trying* to do something positive, it's just that their approach, combined with the personality of the target creates effects not intended.
Then we get to the stuff that shouldn't be forbidden. Stuff like the arguments that gay marriage damages straight marriages.
[1] I'm quite aware that this would (to take an extreme example) allow things like human sacrifice, if you could find a person who would consent to being sacrificed. Other than finding a way to make sure that the person is capable of consenting, what's the problem?
griffen)Letter to the Editor
by Sharon Underwood, Sunday, April 30, 2000
from the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH)
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.
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 straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.
He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.
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 17-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 and that he couldn't face a life without 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 despair. 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 all 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 an absolute certainty that it is inborn.
If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?
A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda "could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.
He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.
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? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence 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 April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving...to be better human beings than we are?"
Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?
The letter resonates strongly with me. I'm not a parent, and likely never will be. But I have some idea of what her son went thru. I got teased for doing things like a girl when I started first grade. Due to undiagnosed asthma, I couldn't keep up with the other boys, and I had little experience with the various games. I couldn't fight worth a damn either (and I got in trouble both at school and at home when I tried to defend myself).
So while the details are different, much of the abuse was the same. I too considered suicide. But I never got to the point of writing a note. Partly because one of the reasons I was considering it was that I didn't think anyone gave a damn about me. So who would I leave it *for*?
This unthinking abuse of people for being different is one of the major flaws of our culture. And that we allow it in children, nay, that we *encourage* it... words fail.
And since school shootings drew attention that teen suicide rates had failed to, to find that a common (if not the *most* common) response was to blame the kids who were different for attracting the abuse!!!
Let's just say that there have been times *I* wanted to go on a shooting spree, starting with school administrators who think that way and then spreading out to others who cannot *allow* others to be different.
I know, that wouldn't solve things, and would only confirm others in their beliefs that being different is *inherently* wrong.
I wish we could enshrine a few basic principles in law...
Personal behavior that causes no physical harm to others *without their consent* is legal. Exceptions *may* be allowed for behavior that poses a large risk to others, such as manufacturing or using dangerous chemicals in residential areas, speeding, etc.[1]
Personal behavior that causes emotional harm needs to be dealt with, but I'm open to suggestions, given that a common argument of some of the folks we need protection from is that our actions "harm" them emotionally or "spiritually". (see the arguments against gay marriage).
First problem is stuff like bullying and "picking on" people. That definitely causes emotional harm. We can probably cover it as being targeted, and *intended* to cause negative emotional effects.
Hate crimes/hate speech probably fall under this, though we'd have to watch out to avoid "targeting" becoming so loose that it could be abused.
Stuff that is targeted and isn't "intended" to cause the negative effects is more problematic. A lot of emotional abuse of children and adults works that way. In some cases the abuser is even *trying* to do something positive, it's just that their approach, combined with the personality of the target creates effects not intended.
Then we get to the stuff that shouldn't be forbidden. Stuff like the arguments that gay marriage damages straight marriages.
[1] I'm quite aware that this would (to take an extreme example) allow things like human sacrifice, if you could find a person who would consent to being sacrificed. Other than finding a way to make sure that the person is capable of consenting, what's the problem?
