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Razten

Jun 28, 06 - 9:24 PM

A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

This was sent to me by a friend of mine who is gay. He sent it to me to boost my passion to fight for gay rights. In the U.S.A gay people are still not allowed to share bank accounts or do joint tax. However I'm blabbing, read the letter and I'll let you make up your own mind.

This is an acctual letter that a mother in vermont sent to the religious leaders ow w/e down their about homosexuallity and her son...Please read this!

"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?"

Jena

Aug 27th, 2006 - 1:47 AM

Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

Well said!

Although I have to note, in my own experience (as someone who considers myself both bi-sexual and Christian) I haven't found Christians to be necessarily more prejudiced against gay people than non-christians (I'd say it's about 50/50) And again there's that distinction between people who call themselves Christian and those who actually are. Anyone who judges others and makes their life a misery obviously hasn't read their bible very well...
People use their religion to justify all sorts of horrible attitudes and crimes - this happens in all religions as far as I'm aware, but it's never the true followers who are involved.

Lance4999

Oct 3rd, 2006 - 11:25 AM

Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

There is no such thing as a homosexual Christian or a bisexual Christian. If you are one or both of these then you are outside Christ! If that sounds harsh, here is the good news. Give up your filthy practices and repent of them and God will admit you to the fold. There is nothing more vehemently spoken against in the scriptures. God even destroyed the entire cities on Sodom and Gomorrah because of it. (Genesis 19)

jesusfollower

Oct 4th, 2006 - 3:28 PM

Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

I agree homosexuality is a sin and if you are a chirstian in time you will no longer be gay purley because you love God and have recieved his loving forgiveness

but this does not mean i dont care for homosexuals God loves them therefore so do i .i will not encourage their practices but i will talk to them and treat them as a normal human being and show them the love of God

bambie

Oct 20th, 2006 - 5:59 PM

Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

good day to you all. homosexuality is a subject i have struggled and restled with for a while now and i'm sure i will for a bit longer still, but here are my thoughts. in the Church where i am working there are a small number of homosexuals that come on a sunday morning, they are lovely guys, really caring and genuine. it is my belief, and this has been proved by science, that some people are inclined inwardly towards members of the same sex in a sexual manner, this isn't neccessarily their fault or choice, it's just in their make up. The Bible isn't specifically clear about the exact nature of the sin in sodm and gomora (in reply to the previous assertion) but it is believed that sexual sin did play a role in it, the sins of the city were various. and it was destroyed, past redemption.
the huge difference between personal inclination and active practice is the most important thing to understand here i think. God dearly dearly loves gay and lesbian people, it is our job to love them too. some people categorise homosexuality alongside alcohol and drug abuse, that is to say that its something that you can struggle with whilst still being a christian, perhaps they may change gradually, maybe they will find all the fulfillment they need in God and no longer feel that they want to find affection through being gay. some guys dont like girls and some girls dont like guys thats a fact. i have recently done some reading into the subject, but alas i have not remembered as much as i would like, i shall go back over some of the things i've read and get back to youz all. hope this has been marginally thought provoking!

SoulSurvivor

Dec 8th, 2006 - 1:46 PM

Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

A slight correction to an earlier post, Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed because of homosexual practise, that was merely a symptom of the society they lived in. Homosexuality, alongside many other social and personal choices, is a symptom of a society where there is no faith; because of this, various 'rights' are demanded, such as freedom of religious practise, freedom of speech, which extends to 'slagging off', for lack of a better word, religions, persons, and the various choices and factors that affect how a person is percieved.

I do not think homosexuality is natural. I will not discriminate or be predjudiced; I have gay friends, bisexual friends, lesbian friends, but I treat them the same. I hug my gay friends like I hug my heterosexual friends. It is true that the Bible condemns homosexual activity, but if a person truly does not want to then God can free him or her from their sinful desires caused by an upbringing in a corrupt, diseased society. (Diseased in the old sense, dis-ease = sin of the heart & mind)

I always have a running argument between myself and a friend who proclaims himself to be gay. Whether he is or not is not my business, but we joke about it occasionally, I tell outrageous anti-gay jokes that he knows I don't mean, and he tells a number of Christian and hetero~ jokes of the same.

Whilst I agree with the mother's sentiment, I must admit that I think her naming the government's drone families as 'moral' a little too far... They aren't. Wishfully moral, maybe. And maybe somebody should point out that the "little thugs" aren't brought up to be anti-homo~, nor is it taught by the government.

I also disagree that people cannot live without dignity if they are homosexual, I do a similar thing every day in a hevaily non-Christian environment. I wrote my first suicide note at 12. It wasn't because of an effect caused because I was gay, but because of what I had grown up being. The principle is the same.
Maybe said 17-year-old should try actually doing something about his misguided desires? Try the best cure on the market, something called faith. It helped me, without it I would be dead.

If I offend anyone, breathe fire all you like. This is my viewpoint, this is a forum, and homosexuality and similar choices are a direct consequence of a misguided society with the wrong agenda, intent on climbing the ladder rung by rung, only to find (which they haven't yet) that the ladder is against the wrong building.

Shortstuff

Jan 1st, 2007 - 6:43 PM

Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

The practise of homosexuality is a sin, it says so in several seperate areas of the Bible, however, the state of being homosexual is not.

Some christians try to make out that homosexuality is such a huge sin and anyone who is gay cannot possibly be accepted by God. this is not the case, it is no bigger than any other sin in the sight of God, that means that it is on the same par as lying but also as murder because all sin is evil in God's sight. It says in the bible that the mere thought of anger is the same as murder.

However, the death and resurrection of Jesus is enough to cover all our sins whether in our eyes it is as small as lying or as big as murder. People can be both homosexual and christian, howver if they are practising their desires, that is when it turns into a sin. If a person continues to practise homosexuality then they cannot be a christian because it is an unrepentent sin and therefore they are not clean in the sight of God.

I'm not homophobic, i have friends who are gay but i believe that the same principle applies to them as to my non christian friends - they are all sinners in the sight of God as we were until we repented of our sin!

SoulSurvivor

Jan 4th, 2007 - 1:30 PM

Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality.

Its also a sin to practise extramarital sex, so that's just a sbad a sin as homosexual practice. I don't think I'm better than my homosexual friends, I think we both have areas of life we can improve in, as neither of us are perfect.

In an unrelated topic, the "little thugs" mentioned by the mother can't have been all that moral then can they. And wow, look at me, I'm a Christian (or religious as some people *mistakenly* say) and hey, I'm not a homophobe! I don't call people fags, and one of my best friends is gay. Conclusion: Don't make assumptions based on a stereotype. I might be stereotypical in some cases, e.g. Americans (sorry) but then I've never met enough/any Americans who were sane, so my opinion is tainted. Suggest looking at the big picture before casting harsh words, and that's advice I need to take myself.

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Razten Jun 28, 06 - 9:24 PM	A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. This was sent to me by a friend of mine who is gay. He sent it to me to boost my passion to fight for gay rights. In the U.S.A gay people are still not allowed to share bank accounts or do joint tax. However I'm blabbing, read the letter and I'll let you make up your own mind. This is an acctual letter that a mother in vermont sent to the religious leaders ow w/e down their about homosexuallity and her son...Please read this! "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?"
Jena Aug 27th, 2006 - 1:47 AM	Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. Well said! Although I have to note, in my own experience (as someone who considers myself both bi-sexual and Christian) I haven't found Christians to be necessarily more prejudiced against gay people than non-christians (I'd say it's about 50/50) And again there's that distinction between people who call themselves Christian and those who actually are. Anyone who judges others and makes their life a misery obviously hasn't read their bible very well... People use their religion to justify all sorts of horrible attitudes and crimes - this happens in all religions as far as I'm aware, but it's never the true followers who are involved.
Lance4999 Oct 3rd, 2006 - 11:25 AM	Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. There is no such thing as a homosexual Christian or a bisexual Christian. If you are one or both of these then you are outside Christ! If that sounds harsh, here is the good news. Give up your filthy practices and repent of them and God will admit you to the fold. There is nothing more vehemently spoken against in the scriptures. God even destroyed the entire cities on Sodom and Gomorrah because of it. (Genesis 19)
jesusfollower Oct 4th, 2006 - 3:28 PM	Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. I agree homosexuality is a sin and if you are a chirstian in time you will no longer be gay purley because you love God and have recieved his loving forgiveness but this does not mean i dont care for homosexuals God loves them therefore so do i .i will not encourage their practices but i will talk to them and treat them as a normal human being and show them the love of God
bambie Oct 20th, 2006 - 5:59 PM	Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. good day to you all. homosexuality is a subject i have struggled and restled with for a while now and i'm sure i will for a bit longer still, but here are my thoughts. in the Church where i am working there are a small number of homosexuals that come on a sunday morning, they are lovely guys, really caring and genuine. it is my belief, and this has been proved by science, that some people are inclined inwardly towards members of the same sex in a sexual manner, this isn't neccessarily their fault or choice, it's just in their make up. The Bible isn't specifically clear about the exact nature of the sin in sodm and gomora (in reply to the previous assertion) but it is believed that sexual sin did play a role in it, the sins of the city were various. and it was destroyed, past redemption. the huge difference between personal inclination and active practice is the most important thing to understand here i think. God dearly dearly loves gay and lesbian people, it is our job to love them too. some people categorise homosexuality alongside alcohol and drug abuse, that is to say that its something that you can struggle with whilst still being a christian, perhaps they may change gradually, maybe they will find all the fulfillment they need in God and no longer feel that they want to find affection through being gay. some guys dont like girls and some girls dont like guys thats a fact. i have recently done some reading into the subject, but alas i have not remembered as much as i would like, i shall go back over some of the things i've read and get back to youz all. hope this has been marginally thought provoking!
SoulSurvivor Dec 8th, 2006 - 1:46 PM	Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. A slight correction to an earlier post, Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed because of homosexual practise, that was merely a symptom of the society they lived in. Homosexuality, alongside many other social and personal choices, is a symptom of a society where there is no faith; because of this, various 'rights' are demanded, such as freedom of religious practise, freedom of speech, which extends to 'slagging off', for lack of a better word, religions, persons, and the various choices and factors that affect how a person is percieved. I do not think homosexuality is natural. I will not discriminate or be predjudiced; I have gay friends, bisexual friends, lesbian friends, but I treat them the same. I hug my gay friends like I hug my heterosexual friends. It is true that the Bible condemns homosexual activity, but if a person truly does not want to then God can free him or her from their sinful desires caused by an upbringing in a corrupt, diseased society. (Diseased in the old sense, dis-ease = sin of the heart & mind) I always have a running argument between myself and a friend who proclaims himself to be gay. Whether he is or not is not my business, but we joke about it occasionally, I tell outrageous anti-gay jokes that he knows I don't mean, and he tells a number of Christian and hetero~ jokes of the same. Whilst I agree with the mother's sentiment, I must admit that I think her naming the government's drone families as 'moral' a little too far... They aren't. Wishfully moral, maybe. And maybe somebody should point out that the "little thugs" aren't brought up to be anti-homo~, nor is it taught by the government. I also disagree that people cannot live without dignity if they are homosexual, I do a similar thing every day in a hevaily non-Christian environment. I wrote my first suicide note at 12. It wasn't because of an effect caused because I was gay, but because of what I had grown up being. The principle is the same. Maybe said 17-year-old should try actually doing something about his misguided desires? Try the best cure on the market, something called faith. It helped me, without it I would be dead. If I offend anyone, breathe fire all you like. This is my viewpoint, this is a forum, and homosexuality and similar choices are a direct consequence of a misguided society with the wrong agenda, intent on climbing the ladder rung by rung, only to find (which they haven't yet) that the ladder is against the wrong building.
Shortstuff Jan 1st, 2007 - 6:43 PM	Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. The practise of homosexuality is a sin, it says so in several seperate areas of the Bible, however, the state of being homosexual is not. Some christians try to make out that homosexuality is such a huge sin and anyone who is gay cannot possibly be accepted by God. this is not the case, it is no bigger than any other sin in the sight of God, that means that it is on the same par as lying but also as murder because all sin is evil in God's sight. It says in the bible that the mere thought of anger is the same as murder. However, the death and resurrection of Jesus is enough to cover all our sins whether in our eyes it is as small as lying or as big as murder. People can be both homosexual and christian, howver if they are practising their desires, that is when it turns into a sin. If a person continues to practise homosexuality then they cannot be a christian because it is an unrepentent sin and therefore they are not clean in the sight of God. I'm not homophobic, i have friends who are gay but i believe that the same principle applies to them as to my non christian friends - they are all sinners in the sight of God as we were until we repented of our sin!
SoulSurvivor Jan 4th, 2007 - 1:30 PM	Re: A Very Important Letter About Homosexuality. Its also a sin to practise extramarital sex, so that's just a sbad a sin as homosexual practice. I don't think I'm better than my homosexual friends, I think we both have areas of life we can improve in, as neither of us are perfect. In an unrelated topic, the "little thugs" mentioned by the mother can't have been all that moral then can they. And wow, look at me, I'm a Christian (or religious as some people mistakenly say) and hey, I'm not a homophobe! I don't call people fags, and one of my best friends is gay. Conclusion: Don't make assumptions based on a stereotype. I might be stereotypical in some cases, e.g. Americans (sorry) but then I've never met enough/any Americans who were sane, so my opinion is tainted. Suggest looking at the big picture before casting harsh words, and that's advice I need to take myself.