If you aren't aware of the issue at hand, read this.
I refuse to repeat Henderson's hatred and ignorance here.
__________
Letter excerpts submitted without comment. Anything I could dare say, would just ruin the sentiment.
Go read the whole thing.
TO MARSHALL HENDERSON'S 11-YEAR-OLD BROTHER
By cjanerun01 @cjane87 on May 12 2014, 12:33p 148
1.) Hi! I hope you are enjoying being 11.
2.) If you are 11 years old, that means you were born the year the United States went to war in Iraq, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on national television, a man went on a shooting rampage at a Lockheed Martin facility in Mississippi and killed six people, and Jon Gruden won a Super Bowl. All of these events were arguably more controversial and/or disturbing than a man kissing his partner on national television.
3.) Marriage equality passed in Massachusetts the year you were born. Gay people have been getting married and presumably making out and smearing cake on one another's faces for your entire life.
4.) I turned 11 years old in September of 1998. Matthew Shepard was tied to a fence and left to die the following month. Ellen Degeneres lost her television show earlier that year. That was what it meant to be gay in 1998 for an 11-year-old.
5.) I am gay.
9.) When I was 11 years old, I would have given up having my own room to see a Michael Sam happily kiss his boyfriend on national television. I thought my life as a gay person would end in fear or pain or loneliness. The sense of possibility that every kid should have - the idea that you could be or do anything, as long as you tried hard enough - didn't exist for gay kids like me in 1998. I didn't know any gay adults. I didn't have any gay role models. I felt that the only solutions were to either make myself straight or end my own life. I tried both.
14.) I wish you, and every 11-year-old, the absolute best in life. But be good to those other 11-year-olds, the ones more like you and the ones more like Michael Sam.
Thanks,
Jane