I always find it interesting when a heterosexual thinks they have the ability to understand what makes someone gay. Texas governor Rick Perry compared being gay to being an alcoholic.
Speaking in San Francisco Wednesday night, Gov. Perry said, "Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that. I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way."
I sure wish it was that simple, then, years ago, I could have simply done a twelve-step program and enjoyed a nice, unfettered heterosexual life, without all the persecution and the status of a second-class citizen, by not enjoying the same rights as straight people. I mean rights as far as enjoying a relationship with someone I love or at least care about, without fear of being arrested or harassed for doing so. I could also then marry, if I so chose to do so and not be restricted to a life of so much loneliness.
Then, in my own state of Oklahoma, a Republican Tea Party candidate, Scott Esk, who is running for the state's House of Representatives, thinks it would be okay to stone gay people to death.
In a Facebook post Esk said, “I think we would be totally in the right to do it." Then he added to that post, "That [stoning gay people to death] goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss."
Then when he was asked to clarify, he said, "I never said I would author legislation to put homosexuals to death, but I didn’t have a problem with it."
Of course, he gets this from the Old Testament of the Bible, from the book of Leviticus. I wonder if he also feels it is all right to stone adulterers, since that same book says that is what should happen to them too.
Republicans, especially male Republicans, believe they have some special insight into the will of God. They not only believe they should have the right to decide what is right for gay people, but also women, African-Americans, Hispanics, poor people in general and everyone and anyone who is different from they are. Somehow, they feel they have been put in charge of us all and they should be ruling the world.
Governor Rick Perry is not gay as far as I know but perhaps he is an alcoholic; I do not know for I do not know his personal life. I have known quite a few alcoholics in my lifetime and even though it is a tough thing to break, it came from a choice in their lives either to drink for the fun of it, or to relieve the stresses in their lives. Alcohol finally killed someone I love very much, my aunt Genene who died of cirrhosis of the liver, which was caused by her drinking every day from morning until she finally went to bed. She tried to quit a few times but she never managed to do so. Still, she would be the first to tell you it was a life's choice made at a young age. She was 33 years-old when she died.
On a personal note, I have been gay all my life, since at least 11 years-old, when I remember having my first desire. For the last several years, I have lived a life of celibacy, not so much from choice but because the right person just has not come along for whom I would wanted to have any kind of intimate relationship with, let alone a sexual one.
Still, even though I have not had sex for many years, I am still gay, and that is because it is part of who I am. Nothing I can do can change that, no more than a black person can become white or a zebra can lose its stripes. Not all the twelve step programs in the world will cure me because there is nothing to cure; it is who I am, at least in part. It is not a lifestyle, nor is it a phase I am going through, which is the answer my mother had for it when I first told her I was gay at 18 years-old. She realized when I was in my fifties and still gay, that it was indeed not a phase.
As far as stoning me to death, certainly, I can be stoned and that may stop me from living but as sure as I die, there will be another gay person born into the world somewhere and into some family. It does not matter if that family is conservative or if they are liberal, because we gays pop up everywhere and in every country in the world, under every religion and into almost every family. Our numbers will always be limited because being gay is not something one is recruited into being and unlike a person's race; we cannot go out and produce more of us. It is just something that happens, randomly and without reason.
Most of the gay people I have known over the years, who have been fortunate to have children somehow, never wish upon their children to grow up gay. That is because - at least from the past - we all know how difficult it has been to be gay ourselves, and the persecution and the hatred shown toward us and we do not want that for our children. We all hope that will change and all gay children will eventually grow up in a happy environment and one that will be accepting of who they are.
Rick Perry and Scott Esk have both decided in their minds of who we are and how we should be treated; to be scorned and punished unto death, or to be cured like some diseased creatures. They know nothing about us in the least, no more than they know about why women have abortions or why African-Americans and Hispanics are without jobs. They lack empathy and compassion because of their ignorance. Perhaps voters should also judge them for the words that have come out of their mouths, which clearly show that neither should be leaders in any form of government whatsoever.
This is a republish from my website: Fidlerten Place