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A very strong letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont

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BR_Parkway Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:01 AM
Original message
A very strong letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont
the boyfriend of the guy thrown out of the college in KY for being gay had this posted on his website, I don't know where he got it from, but I thought it was a good letter to share


Everyone should read this...

The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont...
----------------------------------------------------------

"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?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you believe that homosexuals deserve the same rights as everyone else, repost this, and pray and thank God that there are people like this mother, cause without them, where would we be?

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=34947081&blogID=103970247&Mytoken=132B0ACA-12EF-1549-E65870C9095C56C315814073
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otohara Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:11 AM
Response to Original message
1. Wow, Thanks for Posting
nothing like moms to bring it home
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adigal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:11 AM
Response to Original message
2. Powerful letter - this woman sounds more kind
than any of those she is criticizing. I hope her son finds peace in adulthood.
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Kurovski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:13 AM
Response to Original message
3. Thanks for bringing this letter to DU.
"...but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse."
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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:13 AM
Response to Original message
4. Powerful letter.
Kick.
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The Witch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:14 AM
Response to Original message
5. fantastic! this is what they call RIGHTEOUS RAGE. K&R. n/t
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:15 AM
Response to Original message
6. I remember a suicidally depressed kid coming out to me in
high school. I guess he came out to me because I was a misfit who said she didn't particularly want to fit in with the ruling class of a redneck high school. I told him it was them, not him, and he only had another couple of years to do time, just like me, and that we'd both be sprung into a better world.

That was true in my case. I have to hope it was true in his. I did see him a few years down the line, happy and sassy and in love.

It was them. It wasn't us.
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ayeshahaqqiqa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:20 AM
Response to Original message
7. K& R
This lady has explained things very well. I only hope that minds and hearts will be opened by her words.
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yellerpup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:21 AM
Response to Original message
8. To the great power of love.
K&R
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The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:25 AM
Response to Original message
9. Powerful letter.
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Scriptor Ignotus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 11:35 AM
Response to Original message
10. so well put
nt
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BR_Parkway Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 01:02 PM
Response to Reply #10
15. Welcome to DU Scriptor
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Shredr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 12:15 PM
Response to Original message
11. Such a beautiful letter.
Thank you for sharing.
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4_TN_TITANS Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 12:20 PM
Response to Original message
12. Thank-you for posting.
that might very well be my youngest daughter, tortured for not being 'girly' enough...
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glitch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 12:46 PM
Response to Original message
13. Where would we be? Living in caves, murdering our neighbors for whatever
Edited on Wed Apr-12-06 12:49 PM by glitch
they had that we wanted. Or, even further back than that. Hard to say.

edit: K & R and thanks for posting.
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Puglover Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 12:49 PM
Response to Original message
14. She speaks from her heart
with perfect clarity. Beautiful.
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theHOMOagenda Donating Member (78 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 01:16 PM
Response to Original message
16. Wonderful.. Thanks!
:patriot:

Real Americans don't abuse their children. If only more of us could have families like this!

(btw: is it just me... I never feel *old* until I visit myspace!)
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tblue37 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 01:35 PM
Response to Original message
17. Wow. Just wow. (eom)
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_ed_ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
18. Inspiring
Recommended for Greatest.

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_ed_ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
19. Inspiring
Recommended for Greatest.

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REACTIVATED IN CT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 04:44 PM
Response to Original message
20. Excellent letter -common sense right
from a mother's heart.
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Turn CO Blue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 04:48 PM
Response to Original message
21. K,R & B. Moving and so well-written!
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Janice325 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 08:37 PM
Response to Original message
22. Thank you so much for posting this.
That young man is so lucky to have a mother like that.
k&r
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AlecBGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 09:24 PM
Response to Original message
23. thanks for posting this
She is absolutely right
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ruggerson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-12-06 09:27 PM
Response to Original message
24. This woman wrote this
during the height of the civil unions debate in Vermont while Dr. Dean was still Governor, so I believe it dates from about 2001 or 2002.

Powerful then and powerful now. Someone should read it in its entirety to Bush at one of his town hall "meetings".
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JeffR Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 01:53 AM
Response to Original message
25. This is magnificent
Saw it this morning when it was first posted. You should really consider cross-posting this in GD.
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TheBaldyMan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 06:24 AM
Response to Original message
26. A very touching and heartrending letter, I hope that the 'phobes
in Vermont take the time to think over what that mother said and gain enough wisdom to react with a little more humaneness in future.
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meegbear Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 06:53 AM
Response to Original message
27. I am speechless ...
I felt her feelings with every word.
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terrya Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 07:20 AM
Response to Original message
28. This is one of the most powerful, moving letters I've ever read. Thank you
Thank you for posting this magnificent, heartfelt letter. I wish I could contact this woman and thank her myself.
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racaulk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 09:27 AM
Response to Original message
29. What an amazing letter!
This woman is so right in everything she says. Reading this letter definitely brightened up my morning. Thank you for posting this! :)
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willing dwarf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 09:31 AM
Response to Original message
30. Truth has such a clear sharp voice
I recognize this woman's voice. It's just like mine and a million others of us out there who get a piece of the truth and will express it with honest passion. What a terrific letter, such a great expression of what tolerance looks like.

Her descriptions of the pain her son has endured are so powerful and so sad. It's everywhere in America, the fear and hatred of being "different." I look at my own son who is 11 and is developing in his own unique way. I have had to work so hard, pay so much for school fees to let him be somewhere where he's free to become whoever he is going to be. I want him to just know that he is free and in a safe place to become himself, not forced to endure the ridicule and taunts of so many. Is he going to be gay? Who knows? It's not an issue. But the issue of how he is treated by society, and how he treats other whatever his or there orientation...this is the essential issue.

Kids are taught by their elders how to hate.

I want to frame this letter and put it on a wall. I want to show it to my kids and and say whatever your orientation you need to know that I stand with you and beside you and love you because of who you are. End of story.

I hope this woman knows what a great service she has done for us all in articulating these points. Wish it could wake up some of the complacent types, and wish it could help brush the fear from the many who are so afraid.
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BR_Parkway Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 11:56 AM
Response to Reply #30
32. For your son's sake, I'm glad to have found it then - it always amazes
me that all these kids "know" who's gay at 5 and 6 - but the fundies clain that somehow it's a 'choice' we make later in life and that we can simply choose to turn it around whenever we decide to stop living our lifestyle.
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Strathos Donating Member (713 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-13-06 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
31. AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING
I wish I could afford to have this put in the front of every newspaper in the country.

It NEEDS to be read by the population of the WORLD!
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