It was not until recently that I was introduced to the song "Tony" by Patty Griffin. It is about a gay boy who kills himself because highschool was hell for him.
The most poignant line to me is "I guess you finally stopped believing/That hope would ever find you". Perhaps others would find this to be too personal, but for a long time in my life I was suicidal. I made some weak attempts that nobody ever found out about and would fantasize about dying most every day. I did not fantasize about what it would do to others, or about how everybody would be sad at my funeral. What I wanted was to get away from myself.
Isn't that what every one of these children who happen to be queer are doing? Society mocks them, says that the core of themselves are wrong. Something that is unchangeable and hard-wired into them is so wrong, something that does not hurt others. There is no harm in being queer. In fact, what if the situation were reversed? Think about it--if you are straight, why are you straight? Where might someone have gone wrong in raising you, what development went wrong to make you exactly as you are supposed to be? Straight people do not have to question themselves in these manners, they do not have scientists saying that there was some inefficiency in making them.
I have never actually been attacked for being who I am in my sexuality, but that may in part be because I have not had a sexual life. I can not imagine somebody coming up to me and saying that they hate me because I dare to love who I feel I need to love. To tell me that I am wrong for loving others as I am driven is like telling you that you are wrong for loving your cisgender S.O., or even your children. Who the fuck are you to tell me things like this?
Question the things people who have never questioned their teachings. The people who say this is so wrong are usually the people who will accept anything that they are told by someone in authority. So much of what went into the Bible or any text like that was so context-dependent that taking everything literally from it is an exercise in pointlessness. Ask yourself what you are asking of others, to change and deny so basic a part of themselves that they would commit suicide to escape themselves, and others. When you pass comment on someone, even online (or especially online, as things will not come off the same here), think about what you are saying. Why are you attacking them? Think about things logically, read stuff without judgment by those who write from experience. And for everybody's sake, quit trying to make someone be you.
