An interesting read.

Amz

I had posted this in my journal here, but most people missed it.

I found this letter in a friends journal and found it an interesting read....

Its sad that things like this have to be constantly repeated.

Letter to the Editor by Sharon Underwood, Sunday, April 30, 2000 from the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH)

As the mother of a gay son, I've seen firsthand 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 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?

ixoy

Thanks for the post. That's both an interesting and upsetting read, makes me said and my blood boil. It reinforces my beliefs that the sexual segragation and ideologies proposed by the current so-called leader of the Free World are just reinforcing negative associations, making life harder for so many people. I again wish the damned Churches would speak out against such actions, try and stop this sort of harassment because I'm hesistant to always religion itself (it's more the practicioneers). I hate the idea that somewhere, in this country, there's a similiar story.

Amz

The sad thing is though that this is what many of the organised religions in the world believe!

I mean just recently the Vatican published a report on women within the Catholic church. They're blaming feminism for many of the problems in society today (and I'm sure a lot of people out there agree with them) but some of the claims made in ther "report" are so infuriatingly absurd yet nobody will highlight this fact to anyone let alone the Catholic church.

There are definite equality issues but noone is brave enough to speak out against them.

Boston

ixoy wrote:

Thanks for the post. That's both an interesting and upsetting read, makes me said and my blood boil. It reinforces my beliefs that the sexual segragation and ideologies proposed by the current so-called leader of the Free World are just reinforcing negative associations, making life harder for so many people. I again wish the damned Churches would speak out against such actions, try and stop this sort of harassment because I'm hesistant to always religion itself (it's more the practicioneers). I hate the idea that somewhere, in this country, there's a similiar story.

Forget somewhere, how about anywhere. As for the letter, I found it very touching when I read it in your Blogs. I notice it doesn't specifically say he was gay. Just that others precieved him to be gay and as a result made his life a living hell. I've seen that in the past, often they turn out to be straight.

Amz: as for not having the bottle to takeo n the church, maybe everyone just realises what a redundent thing it is.

Amz

Yes Boston that could be the case, but it saddens me to see so many women (Who really are the backbone of any church that I've seen anyway) so totally indoctrinated that they do not see the injustice such reports are doing them. They seem only too happy to be regarded as second class citizens within the Catholic establishment.

damien

Jesus Christ ! Stop arguing about fucking semantics and clue yourselves into the real goddamned issues this mother has brought up.

He did not kill himself and he is gay. But who the fck cares if the previous statement is incorrect. This is a letter by a mother who is standing up to bigots and telling them they have no right to to do what they are doing. One of the finest come-backs I've ever read and heartfelt too.

If you want to know more about this google for it and you'll get details such as this:

http://www.tscnow.com/Sharon_Underwood.php

ixoy

Gotta agree with Damien M. - Boston, it seems you're reading a different version of the letter than us. There's no mention of suicide there and let's not drag the thread onto that area. It's just going to destroy the spirit of the thread and the point of the letter.

What we do have, is an excellently written, emotional, piece, someone trying to fathom the attitude of bigotry that still exists in the world. I would love for the people she's addressing to read, to really read the letter and try and question why she had to write the letter in the first place. Bigotry often comes from a refusal to question your own belief system, to refuse to think outside a box that was either self-imposed or imposed by others. I think she sums it up best with the line:

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings.

That encapsulates the whole thing brilliantly, doesn't it?

fozzle

It's horrible but true that this is the atitude of people all over our country too, not just the states. So much of the time it's just sheer blindness and fear on people's parts. I still haven't "come out" to my parents, not because they're homophobic, they know quite a few gay people and they don't have a problem with it, but my dad had a few bad experiences as a teenager on the continent. Homosexuality wasn't something he'd come across in Ireland of the 60's but because he was hitching round Europe he met a few dodgy characters who tried to presurise him and it scared him. This is something that women have had to deal with for a long time but as a man he never expected to and it's coloured his views so he does seem to believe homosexuality is a choice. This idea that people can be forced to become gay, this "homosexual agenda" is one that needs to be faced in primary schools so that the next generation don't grow up with it.

Good news, I feel, is that a lot of schools (all but one in Waterford afaik) have stopped the "no same-sex couples" rule for debs balls. This is a great development in my opinion, and it's happening in the catholic schools as well as the state run ones (except my old convent, unfortuneatly). I'd like to hope this means there's finally a swing in our schools, and about time.

I'm afraid I'm rambling a bit, apologies!

sceptre

That was an excellent piece. As a wishy-washy liberal (I prefer the term "person with a small bit of copon, who gives a crap and isn't a complete twat" although it's not as catchy) I'm sick and tired of people claiming to speak for the silent majority or, worse, "right-thinking folk everywhere". Leaving aside the fact that the letter is about her son's sexuality, it could be applied to some extent to anyone who's ever felt a little "different" for whatever small reason.

Boston

fozzle wrote:

Good news, I feel, is that a lot of schools (all but one in Waterford afaik) have stopped the "no same-sex couples" rule for debs balls. This is a great development in my opinion, and it's happening in the catholic schools as well as the state run ones (except my old convent, unfortuneatly). I'd like to hope this means there's finally a swing in our schools, and about time.

I'm afraid I'm rambling a bit, apologies!

Maybe a Topic in itself but what do you mean ban on same sex couples at debs. Debs are nothing to do with a school and often take place months after the students have finished, I myself was in college by the time mine came around, So what right does a school have to say who can do what. Mostly teachers are there as guests of the students.

Also How would one define same sex couples? We and a mate of mine where planing to go together to ours, more to do with the not wanting to pay the full price and not wanting to baby sit some chicks we didn't know well all night. What would happen then. At the debs itself people where so drunk everyone was dancing with everyone else, guys, girls, whatever. This whole ban ban sounds fairly stupid and o so verry irish in it's backwardness.

fozzle

Boston wrote:

Maybe a Topic in itself but what do you mean ban on same sex couples at debs. Debs are nothing to do with a school and often take place months after the students have finished, I myself was in college by the time mine came around, So what right does a school have to say who can do what. Mostly teachers are there as guests of the students.

Also How would one define same sex couples? We and a mate of mine where planing to go together to ours, more to do with the not wanting to pay the full price and not wanting to baby sit some chicks we didn't know well all night. What would happen then. At the debs itself people where so drunk everyone was dancing with everyone else, guys, girls, whatever. This whole ban ban sounds fairly stupid and o so verry irish in it's backwardness.

Perhaps your debs wasn't arranged by your school, but all the ones in Waterford are, afaik, and I know in some schools around the country (where my friends went) the debs is in fact before the LC.
In my old school your relationship with who you asked wasn't an issue, you were just warned that any girls present that weren't students of the school would be asked to leave.
My sister just had her debs at the same school, and a gang of them spent more time in the hotel bar than in the function room, as her friend's girlfriend wasn't allowed in.

Boston

Typical, one last oppression from the people that brought you teen suicide and binge drinking.