LETTER- Phobia hard to understand

I am responding to a letter in the September 28 edition of the Hook, written by Michael Ellston. While I did not read the Tony Perrino essay of August 31: "Bible beating: Let's lay homophobia to rest," to which Mr. Ellston was referring, I can understand his wanting to respond to something that he disagrees with.

Mr. Ellston writes: "...our culture's expanding embrace of homosexuality as a healthy and natural lifestyle does affect non-homosexuals." I encourage Mr. Ellston to inspect what it is about those "lifestyles" that affects him and his children.

That is the part that we who do embrace it as natural don't get– and that leads us to suspect that these people do experience fear. Why does it make you uncomfortable? How can it affect you if your neighbor, or child's teacher, or auto mechanic, is gay?

Mr. Ellston surely must realize that homosexuals, by the mere fact of biology, must work much harder than heterosexuals to even become parents. Many same-sex couples I know are some of the most loving and committed couples. Those raising children are doing so against odds that our society (and many other societies, but not all) has, and continues to, set. These couples' desire and drive to create their families can result in a stronger commitment to loving, nurturing, protecting, and educating their children than those of couples who did not have to work at all to have children.

I personally am so grateful for the presence in my, my husband's, and our children's lives of the many same-sex couple-led families we know. I pray for Mr. Ellston, and those like him, that their hearts and minds may open to the simple and pure love that propels us as members of the human family.

Mo Nichols
Charlottesville

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