If it is God’s work to make life miserable for children, if the Creator wants us to hound those who need our help the most until they crack, if the Lord wants to rip families apart, then the straight supremacists of the world can rest assured that tonight, they’ve done right by their deity.
Out in the Midwest somewhere tonight, there’s a teenaged boy, a relative of mine. I hope that right now, he’s asleep. In the next few days, he’s going to have to make a choice. Either stay with his family, his loving mother and stepfather and his brand new baby sister, and endure three years of solitude, torment, isolation and rage, or go live with relatives somewhere where being a gay teenager isn’t quite as deadly.
He didn’t want to come out. He did his best to hide it. He didn’t want his family to worry, because he knew they were moving to Nebraska soon, and they had the new baby and all. He didn’t know what it was like living in a small Midwestern town, when you’re already the new kid from the East Coast with the liberal ideas, and you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re someone everyone around you has been taught to hate. He’d been raised to be honest, and trusting, and kind; he has no idea how to live undercover, under scrutiny, for years.
For a while, his parents thought he could hide who he is. They thought he could deal with it. It took today’s incident to make them realize the depths of intolerance and despair that their kid will face if he stays there now. And now they’re committed, mortgaged, contracted, stuck. And all they want is what’s best for their kids.
He has options. He can try living with his biological father. Who’s a rabid straight supremacist, and has expressed his hatred for gay people to his son time and time again. He can live with his grandmother, who’s not particularly prepared to be a parent to a teenaged boy anymore, and leave his parents and sister behind. Or he can stay, and hear the word ‘faggot’ twenty, thirty times a day, and never in a good way; he can risk tauntings, shunnings, beatings, depression, suicide.
This is not a statistic, it’s not a story. It’s my nephew.
I’m so angry, I can’t sleep. There are people out there who I’m not angry at, and those I can list off easily. The Polycarps of the world, patiently working to overcome prejudice from within their religions. The people who’ve fought to make life as bearable as it currently is for gay people. The ones who’ve considered the humanity of gay people, and come to the conclusion that compassion trumps ancient writings hands down. The ones who treat us like equals, like people. You, I thank.
But the rest of you… if you think you haven’t had a part in this boy’s suffering, you’re deluding yourself. For every time you’ve let a derogatory slur against gay people go unchallenged, you’ve helped create this untenable situation. Every gay joke you’ve told, every sermon against gays you’ve sat through without protest, you’ve made this boy’s life incrementally worse. Every time you’ve condemned gay sex as being a sin, you’ve turned a heart against my sister’s son. Every candidate you’ve helped elect who ran on a thinly veiled ‘family values’ platform, when all they really stood for was divisive prejudice, has made sure this situation would come around for this kid.
We’re no threat to you. We’re no danger to the institution of marriage, or to your values, or to whatever nebulous construct you think we’re plotting against today. We’re just people. We want to be able to live our lives in peace, to marry who we choose, to raise families, to buy houses, to pay taxes, and to not have to worry about getting the shit beaten out of us for holding the wrong hand. And whatever delusions you employ to keep yourself feeling superior to us, to let yourself feel good about keeping us in our place, to somehow justify your treatment of gay people as an inferior class, I can only hope that someday, they’ll be pierced by actual compassion.
Because tonight, you’ve helped to tear a loving family apart.