LETTER- Don't call me homoph0bic
Tony Perrino's essay [August 31: "Bible beating: Let's lay homophobia to rest"] made me think what a terrible word and idea "homophobia" is.
Think about it. It's thrown around today as if anyone who doesn't embrace and support homosexuality as a natural and normal lifestyle is terrified and hateful of it. How ridiculous and contradictory to the whole point of his essay.
Like the vast majority of the human population, I am heterosexual. I do not agree with or support homosexuality. I think it is unnatural and morally wrong. However, I am not afraid of homosexuals. I do not hate them, treat them with disrespect, or discriminate against them. But already I can hear people reading this letter calling me a homophobe.
Homosexuals are a very small minority of the population. However, they have a very loud voice. Heterosexuals are the overwhelming majority, but yet most of us have very muted voices when it comes to our disapproval of homosexuality for fear of being judged a homophobe, a discriminator, a hater... a bad person.
Contrary to Mr. Perrino's forced assumption in the essay, our culture's expanding embrace of homosexuality as a healthy and natural lifestyle does affect non-homosexuals. When my daughter sees a gay couple, do I explain to her that sometimes boys marry boys and it's okay? That if she ever feels like kissing girls, I will support her? That children don't need a mother as well as a father?
Go to any public high school, and you will see how our youth are becoming confused by the example our society sets for them. Kids are experimenting with homosexuality because it's cool or edgy. That just doesn't sit well with me.
Our children are growing up in a culture where the basic principles of family life, morality, and ethical behavior are vanishing. Call me what you will, but don't call me a homophobe.
Michael Ellston
Crozet
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1 comment
Mr. Ellston, you say, "When my daughter sees a gay couple, do I explain to her that sometimes boys marry boys and it's okay?"
Why not? What's not "okay" about it except your bias (not to say homophobia, of course)? If a boy loves another boy and enters a committed, loyal, nurturing relationship with him-- not unlike, say, the one you have with Mrs. Ellston-- why shouldn't your daughter wish them well? And what's keeping your from saying it's okay? What's it to you? How about "live and let live" as a philosophy instead of such judgmental "morally wrong" pronouncements about two people who love each other?
"That if she ever feels like kissing girls, I will support her?" Let's hope you would support her, Michael. She's your daughter. Why do you care who she kisses? You should be overjoyed she's found someone she loves and wants to demonstrate that love for. Would you support her if she went to fight in Iraq? If she decided to move to Sri Lanka with the UPS man? She's still your daughter. Seems to me you either love her and support her or you don't. You can tell her how you feel, but it's hard to imagine a parent not supporting something a beloved child had considered carefully and decided to do.
"That children don't need a mother as well as a father?" You're obviously interested in the names of things. We can't call you a "homophobe" and you think people who raise children mmust be "mothers" and "fathers." How about "loving parents," even if two mothers or two fathers? Isn't the important thing the way two people relate to and nurture a child, not what those two people are called or what their gender is?
The "basic principles of family life, morality, and ethical behavior" can be taught in any contexet and in any configuration of parents and partners, Michael. Try to concentrate on the song, not the singers.