I am a very tolerant person. Although in general I dislike "people" as a whole, I still care and sympathize/empathize with those who face persecution just for being who they are.
When we were at Busch Gardens on Saturday Jason and I went to see the Monster Stomp Revamped show (which was fabulous) and there was a row of people sitting across from us who were special guests of someone. Either to the park in general or to someone who worked for the park and they had a row reserved.
The people sitting behind us who sounded like they would have been perfectly cast into Deliverance made a snide comment about one of the men sitting in the row because of the way he wore his pants. Sounds ridiculous right? I mean I have pretty good gay-dar and I could tell some of the people in that row were fabulous but I've been surrounded by gays, transgenders, and whatever else they'd like to be labeled as (or remained unlabeled) for years now and don't think twice about it.
There's nothing wrong with them, they are human beings and responding to what feels right, in fact I don't even like calling the gay community a "them" because in my eyes they shouldn't be segregated or partitioned off from the non-gays.
We're all human, plain and simple.
I wish some people could remember that!
It took all my strength not to turn around and say something to the couple behind us. I don't even think Jason knew how angry it made me to hear the blatant ignorance. I knew it existed but I had never experienced it first hand and I mean why would I experience it? I'm on the "right" side of the line aren't I? I'm a heterosexual woman engaged to a heterosexual man and that's okay with everyone! Why would anyone persecute me?
Well go ahead and do it, persecute me. Just leave my friends alone. Let my gay boyfriends live their lives. Let my lesbian girlfriends get married if they want. Let my transgender friends be whoever they want to be.
And to support them all, please wear purple tomorrow.
On october 20th we will wear purple to bring awareness to, and put an end to intolerance in honor of the 6 boys who commited suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse at home and in schools. Purple represents spirit on the Lgbtq flag and that's exactly what we would like all of you to have with you: spirit. Please know that times will get better and that you will meet people who will love you and respect you for who you are, no matter your sexuality. Please wear purple on October 20th. Tell your parents, friends, co-workers, neighbors and schools.
RIP
Tyler Clementi
Seth Walsh
Justin Aaberg
Raymond Chase
Asher Brown
Billy Lucas
Zach Harrington
and all other victims of homophobia
0 comments:
Post a Comment