Gay Rights Always A Polar Topic

The Central Pennsylvania Gay Pride festival takes place in Harrisburg’s Riverfront Park on July 29 (see page 5), but the unenlightened attitude toward homosexuality is alive and well in our region.

MODE Weekly recently received two "Letters to the Editor" on the subject of homosexuality. One is printed in this issue in the Letters to the Editor column again on page 5. The second was from a member of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) — a copy of an article which appeared in the April 25 issue of The Valley News in White River Junction, Vermont. It provides such a resounding contrast to the first letter that I excerpt it here, below, happily yielding my soapbox momentarily to the author.

As the mother of a gay son, I’ve seen first hand 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 six years old.

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 with no 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.

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 …

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking humans.

Caught up by Ms. Underwoods’ passion? Contact the Pennsylvania Chapter of PFLAG in Harrisburg (728-8200) to see what you can add to the struggle against homophobia. So much can be done with just a little education.

Read on.

Lisa E. Paige-Stone, Ph.D.

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