AN OPEN LETTER TO STRAIGHTS
From blog regular Tommy (yes, that ill piece) via Craig's List. I don't know the author.
An Open Letter to Straights
Apparently all this time I’ve been shoving my sexuality in your face and forcing it on you. I misunderstood. I didn’t know. I am so sorry.
I mistakenly thought it was you who were shoving your lifestyle in my face when you called me faggot before I even knew what that word meant.
I thought you were forcing your sexuality on me when you and your friends cornered me in the locker room after gym class in junior high school, called me a goddamn homo and beat the shit out of me.
I thought the coach was forcing his lifestyle on me when he shouted down at my broken and bleeding body in the locker room that I asked for it because I was looking at the other guys “funny”.
I thought you were shoving your sexuality in my face when you spray painted my name and “is a fag” on the side of the High school building.
When you and your friends trashed my car and then afterwards ran me off the road as I was walking home from school, laughing and calling me a “Queer” I thought I was just walking home from school and not forcing my sexuality down your throat.
I was mistaken and apparently trying to force my deviant lifestyle on you in college that day when thought I might be just trying to find someone like me to talk to when you and your cop friends entrapped me, arrested me and beat me up and threw me in jail because I looked at you the wrong way and smiled at you.
Apparently I asked for it when you and your friends chased me down the street, pulled me into an alley and broke my nose with a booze bottle after I had the gall to come out a known gay bar one night in college.
When I was in the military, I thought one of my friends might be just trying to live a decent, honorable life with his partner of 10 years when you and your military police friends pulled him into an interrogation room and accused him of sodomy because he was living with a guy and not dating women. When you kicked him out of the service and dumped him 3500 miles from his home with no money and no job, I didn’t realize that he was forcing his lifestyle on you. I’m sure he’s sorry too.
I didn’t realize that you were offended by us when my best friend asked to be admitted to his partners’ hospital room while he was dying. You see, he’d lived with him for 20 years and they had shared their life together but had the misfortune of living in a state where people like him had no “legal status” and so his sweet love of 20 years died alone surrounded by people who thought that God had given him AIDS as punishment for the sin of homosexuality. He didn’t understand that your religious sensibilities were more important than his misguided need to be with his partner when he died.
All this time I thought you were forcing your sexuality on me, but now I know that I was forcing mine on you. I am so sorry that all my life, I’ve mistakenly thought that being left alone to live my life, to work and to have a home and family and to be allowed to love who I choose was just living my life - like you live yours.
Little did I know that all that time I was cramming my disgusting sexuality and lifestyle down your throat, forcing you to accept me and demanding “Special Rights”.
Now that I’m older and wiser, you’ll excuse the silly idealism of a dotty middle aged guy who had a vain hope that maybe I could marry the guy I’ve been living with for fifteen years and not have to worry if my religiously devout family will decide to ransack my home after my death because my family – the family who have largely cared less if I lived or died – have more legal rights than my partner, no matter what I say in my will.
You’ll excuse my mistaken notion that I should be allowed to have a good job and not be fired at will because my boss might find out that I live with a guy and am still “single”. You’ll pardon my liberal sensibilities when I think I should be able to rent an apartment from someone who might decide that two guys living together is “an abomination”, or be able to open a joint checking account with my partner, because now I know that it isn’t “normal” for two guys to set up a home together.
Hopefully, you’ll excuse my mistaken notion that my life and my love and my family are at least as important and significant as yours – yes, even when you beat the shit out of your wife the day after she caught you fucking the underaged babysitter, even when you tossed your 15 year old gay son out on the streets, even when I gladly pay very high taxes to send your kids to good schools and you cheat on yours.
I hope you will understand when I was momentarily struck speechless when you raised up your bible and told me that God thinks that I am an abomination and will go to hell. You’ll excuse me for my silly notion that God maybe has other more pressing matters than to care that much if I decide that I want to live with someone I love instead of being alone and celibate. You’ll pardon my weakness when I want a family and have to do it by shoving my homosexual lifestyle in your face.
Finally, please excuse the silly sentimentality of an old man who after nearly six decades of life sees a movie with two “normal” guys who are cowboys who fall in love together. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any people like me in the movies who aren’t silly and shallow or tragic and dying of something or another. It’s been years since I’ve seen someone like me love someone like my partner and not die because of it or end up some tragic stupid queen. So the movie made me happy and so I was momentarily blinded by the hope that it might be recognized as a watershed moment in tolerance. I now know it was a shameful use of one of your dearest symbols of American manliness to once again shove my disgusting lifestyle down your throat.
You’ll excuse me please.
All this time, all my life – I just thought you were trying to make me be something that I can never be. I just thought you were forcing me to conform to your idea of normality. I mistakenly thought you hated me.
I was mistaken. Obviously, all this time I was forcing my lifestyle on you. Please accept my apologies.
An Open Letter to Straights
Apparently all this time I’ve been shoving my sexuality in your face and forcing it on you. I misunderstood. I didn’t know. I am so sorry.
I mistakenly thought it was you who were shoving your lifestyle in my face when you called me faggot before I even knew what that word meant.
I thought you were forcing your sexuality on me when you and your friends cornered me in the locker room after gym class in junior high school, called me a goddamn homo and beat the shit out of me.
I thought the coach was forcing his lifestyle on me when he shouted down at my broken and bleeding body in the locker room that I asked for it because I was looking at the other guys “funny”.
I thought you were shoving your sexuality in my face when you spray painted my name and “is a fag” on the side of the High school building.
When you and your friends trashed my car and then afterwards ran me off the road as I was walking home from school, laughing and calling me a “Queer” I thought I was just walking home from school and not forcing my sexuality down your throat.
I was mistaken and apparently trying to force my deviant lifestyle on you in college that day when thought I might be just trying to find someone like me to talk to when you and your cop friends entrapped me, arrested me and beat me up and threw me in jail because I looked at you the wrong way and smiled at you.
Apparently I asked for it when you and your friends chased me down the street, pulled me into an alley and broke my nose with a booze bottle after I had the gall to come out a known gay bar one night in college.
When I was in the military, I thought one of my friends might be just trying to live a decent, honorable life with his partner of 10 years when you and your military police friends pulled him into an interrogation room and accused him of sodomy because he was living with a guy and not dating women. When you kicked him out of the service and dumped him 3500 miles from his home with no money and no job, I didn’t realize that he was forcing his lifestyle on you. I’m sure he’s sorry too.
I didn’t realize that you were offended by us when my best friend asked to be admitted to his partners’ hospital room while he was dying. You see, he’d lived with him for 20 years and they had shared their life together but had the misfortune of living in a state where people like him had no “legal status” and so his sweet love of 20 years died alone surrounded by people who thought that God had given him AIDS as punishment for the sin of homosexuality. He didn’t understand that your religious sensibilities were more important than his misguided need to be with his partner when he died.
All this time I thought you were forcing your sexuality on me, but now I know that I was forcing mine on you. I am so sorry that all my life, I’ve mistakenly thought that being left alone to live my life, to work and to have a home and family and to be allowed to love who I choose was just living my life - like you live yours.
Little did I know that all that time I was cramming my disgusting sexuality and lifestyle down your throat, forcing you to accept me and demanding “Special Rights”.
Now that I’m older and wiser, you’ll excuse the silly idealism of a dotty middle aged guy who had a vain hope that maybe I could marry the guy I’ve been living with for fifteen years and not have to worry if my religiously devout family will decide to ransack my home after my death because my family – the family who have largely cared less if I lived or died – have more legal rights than my partner, no matter what I say in my will.
You’ll excuse my mistaken notion that I should be allowed to have a good job and not be fired at will because my boss might find out that I live with a guy and am still “single”. You’ll pardon my liberal sensibilities when I think I should be able to rent an apartment from someone who might decide that two guys living together is “an abomination”, or be able to open a joint checking account with my partner, because now I know that it isn’t “normal” for two guys to set up a home together.
Hopefully, you’ll excuse my mistaken notion that my life and my love and my family are at least as important and significant as yours – yes, even when you beat the shit out of your wife the day after she caught you fucking the underaged babysitter, even when you tossed your 15 year old gay son out on the streets, even when I gladly pay very high taxes to send your kids to good schools and you cheat on yours.
I hope you will understand when I was momentarily struck speechless when you raised up your bible and told me that God thinks that I am an abomination and will go to hell. You’ll excuse me for my silly notion that God maybe has other more pressing matters than to care that much if I decide that I want to live with someone I love instead of being alone and celibate. You’ll pardon my weakness when I want a family and have to do it by shoving my homosexual lifestyle in your face.
Finally, please excuse the silly sentimentality of an old man who after nearly six decades of life sees a movie with two “normal” guys who are cowboys who fall in love together. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any people like me in the movies who aren’t silly and shallow or tragic and dying of something or another. It’s been years since I’ve seen someone like me love someone like my partner and not die because of it or end up some tragic stupid queen. So the movie made me happy and so I was momentarily blinded by the hope that it might be recognized as a watershed moment in tolerance. I now know it was a shameful use of one of your dearest symbols of American manliness to once again shove my disgusting lifestyle down your throat.
You’ll excuse me please.
All this time, all my life – I just thought you were trying to make me be something that I can never be. I just thought you were forcing me to conform to your idea of normality. I mistakenly thought you hated me.
I was mistaken. Obviously, all this time I was forcing my lifestyle on you. Please accept my apologies.
posted by Lady Bunny at Sunday, April 02, 2006
21 Comments:
That's such a great letter. It really shows a little of life from our perspective, something many Right-Wing Hillbillies are to stupid to see.
Thanks for sharing that Bunny!
Kisses.
-Tim
Makes me appreciate how lucky I have been. No bleeding nose, no vandalism and no shit kickings. Touch wood.
Sorry, but is Brokeback Mountain really the culmination of everything we ever wanted? Gimme a break.
Why isn't gay marriage legal/recognized in New York State?! What can we do to make that happen now?!
DORIS THA FINKASAURUS
That was a wonderful letter. Thanks for sharing.
Wow. All I can say right friggan on man. Your open letter was awesome. Just thought you'd like to know.
-Joe
The saddest part about your letter is that the only people who will find that it has value are not those whose minds could be changed by it, but those who already understand the outrageous injustice tolerated every single day in our society. Ignorance, unfortunately, is an incurable plague.
-Jeremy
I just wanted to applaud and commend you for your post. Being a straight married woman aside, I felt your pain and frustration and wanted you to know, not all of us feel like that. Not all of us are ignorant and hateful like that. My 13 yr old daughter herself says it's "stupid" that people in love can't be married just because they are the same sex. It's both good and bad that a child can see come to this reasoning, yet many adults can't.
I hope writing that made you feel at least a little better, and hopefully, you'll have touched others the way you've touched me, and opened up as many eyes as possible to the ignorance around us.
May grace guide your way....
Beth
Hello. I just had to comment on your post. I know the opinion of a straight, 24 year old female from the Western burbs of Chicago probably doesn't mean much to you, but I just had to say this...that was the most powerful collection of thoughts I think I have ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on. I'm aware that I have never had to encounter all of the ridiculous bs that comes along with being gay...but at the same time, having been an overweight individual, I know a thing or two about being shunned by society. Your words were truly amazing, and for my gay friends, I thank you for putting that out there.
I am a straight male, I want to be a minister (a chaplain in a
hospital specifically) and I couldn't agree more with what you
said. I think it's horrible how "helping the poor" which is
unambigously stated hundreds of times throughout the Old and
New Testaments is downplayed because it is difficult, while
picketing the funerals of AIDS victims is somehow what "Jesus
would have really wanted".
I don't think your going to hell. I don't think homosexuality
is an abomination. I think "love is tender, it knows no
gender". I would like to congratulate you on your long
relationship. I have never responded to a craigslist thing
before, but I thought it was important to say that God isn't
against you (as far as I know, "God loves all his children",
right?), but that doesn't mean a bunch of asshole claiming to
work in his name aren't. If you want Biblical arguments to
use with family/douchebags, I can provide you with some, but I
doubt it would help. I have never lived with what you've gone
through so I will never know just how hard it was, so I am not
going to pull some shit where I claim to know your pain; I
don't know what its like to be persecuted for bullshit, and I
just hope that 100% of people (not just the breeding 90%) will
be able to say the same thing in the future.
Jared
Great post, my friend. I know that it will touch some hearts and perhaps be the beginning of change in some minds.
This was excellent. Thanks. You should submit this for publication to newspapers as an op ed piece.
Rob
Hi --- MAn what a powerful piece. I am a 69 year old Senior Citizen who is gay. I thank you for this and am going to forward to everyone on my list.
You certainly hit the nail onthe head.
Fred - Chicago
You know you are going to hell dont you?!!!!
To "Anonymous said... You know you are going to hell dont you?!!!!
3:26 PM"---If this offends you so much, why are you reading and commenting?
About the letter itself, all I can do is second what Jared, Beth, and Jeremy already stated.
I know a 22 year old female from a small town doesn't have a lot of "Big" city things like that happen to her, but I can at least say I know a little bit about what you are saying. I think it is ridiculous that 2 people who love each other can't get married, it pushes my buttons that someone who is "different" gets beat up while people in authority look the other way. But I guess that is life in America home of the "free". The only good thing is that yes you have had some terrible experiances but from the sounds of it they have made you a stronger person. The saddest thing in your whole letter is about your friend noone should have to die alone, and noone should be turned away from the bedside of the person they love who is sick and dying. For that I truly am sorry that's just not fair. But who said life is fair right? Hopefully someday the human race will wake up and see that no matter what race, creed, religious background, or sexuality you are love is a beutiful thing and everyone is entitled to it. I do mean EVERYONE. Who has the right to say that this love is wrong or that love is wrong. NOONE!! So anyone who has a problem with it, think about if you were turned away at the hospital room of your wife/husband who lay dying b/c gay people ruled the world and straight love was considered wrong, doesn't seem like such a great idea anymore huh? Sorry for writing so much but you really touched a nerve. This really was a powerful piece and THANK YOU!!! so much for writing it. Keep up the amazing work telling it like it is.
Well done!
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Bah. Go be gay, no one in my area bashes gays. I grew up in & still live in the deep south & the one openly gay male who attended the same schools I did was never beaten up. I think there is a little too much drama queen in you....let's not forget the "two sides to every story" rule either; you probably left out your true actions & reactions to those around you to encourage sympathy for your own cause in the same way most other writers do.
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