This issue of denying homosexuals, on any level, is a recurring one, and will be until ignorance is erased and tolerance is the norm.
In The Time It Takes
A Gay Opinion 3/25/01
By R.A. Melos
When I removed the rose colored glasses I wore throughout most of my life, I
saw something so terrible it forever changed the way I looked at the world.
At one time in my life I was very trusting of my fellow man. I didn't hurt anyone
and saw no reason for anyone to hurt me, yet I was being hurt on an almost daily
basis by the cruel remarks, the snide glances, the outright hatred of my fellow
man. I donned the rose colored glasses many of us, especially those of us in
the homosexual community, wear to ease the pain of daily life among the cruelty
of our fellow human beings, at an early age. I had to, because I was too young
to really understand the animosity directed toward me for simply existing.
I thought it was jealousy because I was smarter or better looking than some
others, but that was not the reason. I thought maybe it was simply misdirected
and meant for someone else, but that was not the reason. The cruelty of the
actions taken by my fellow human beings started so early in my life I could
not understand it, nor would I until I was much older.
Time didn't heal the wounds of open hostility because someone could sense I
was not exactly like them, and I did not want to even try to be like them. Time
could never, and will never heal the wounds inflicted on me by a cruel world,
which viciously swats at all that is different in an effort to preserve its
own ignorance.
Time moves in a forward motion, and yet we back track as a race, because of
our willingness to accept the familiar, when the familiar is the ignorance of
men like George W. Bush, and Jerry Falwell, and all the so-called leaders, authority
figures and people of power who either refuse to accept and embrace the different,
or choose to ignore the different, refusing to even acknowledge the different
exists.
So time is still going forward, and the ignorant of our society, especially
one who would've lost an election by 6,600 votes, if we went by popular vote,
has the audacity to actually make the decision not to address an issue because
it is something with which one segment of society is not comfortable.
Well, I'm not sorry if one segment of society is uncomfortable with that which
is different. The different I refer to has a name, it has an identity, it has
desires and feels just like those who would destroy it if given the chance.
The different I refer to is homosexuality.
I seriously suggest the ignorant of society, those burying their heads, or
those simply wishing it would go away, or those who refuse to acknowledge homosexuality,
get used to it because since the dawn of time homosexuality has not gone away,
and homosexuality will not go away because someone wishes it would, or because
someone in power annihilates homosexuals in a gas chamber, or because someone
tries to claim a "Gay panic" defense after murdering a homosexual.
What I'm saying is, and I suggest all the heterosexuals who fall into the ignorant
category, and you know who you are, anyone who claims God did not make the homosexual,
or anyone who has the gall to use God as their reason for perpetuating hate,
ignorance, and closed mindedness, learn the truth of the situation. Homosexuals
are not going to go away.
I've heard how time changes everything, but I do not see it changing. In fact,
I see ignorant people willing to accept lies, and willing to embrace fantasies,
all in order to avoid dealing with the simple truth. Homosexuals will not go
away.
It is time, no matter how much the ignorant of society want to put off the wake
up call. The George W's of this world may be hitting the snooze button for another
four years, but when they do wake up, time will have irrevocably changed their
world to the point where they will not recognize it. I pity all those who refuse
to accept and embrace their own differences, and embrace the differences in
others because of fear or ignorance, because they are the ones who are wasting
time. Mine, and their own.
One day soon many of these ignorant and fearful people will wake up and realize
the world and their lives, the lives they should've lived, have passed them
by all because they were too fearful or too ignorant to see how wonderful the
changes could be, and they simply were incapable of embracing the inevitable
changes.
No, homosexuality will not go away. Time will go on. Ignorance will die out,
and new ignorance will be born, but things will change. Homosexuality will not
go away, but it will become more accepted and embraced. Change is too slow for
me, but I know the changes will come. I may not see it in my lifetime, but I
know homosexuality will not go away.