Brody's Scribbles... Silence Is No Longer An Option

By Tim Trent (Dartmouth, England) OCT 15 | Part of coming out is living openly in order that those that come after us may live openly. I choose to participate in forums when I see fit, and I emphasise the ordinariness of being homosexual there. Over the past few days I've been participating in what some might call a discussion on Change.Org after a student teacher was fired in the USA for being honest and saying he wanted to marry his boyfriend but was not permitted. I want to bring you part of that discussion here:

...why can't we agree to disagree. one of the cases I brought up barry was one in which the christian counciler was being honest, told the women she was a christian and unqualified to handle her case, and then refered her to a collegue that could. she was instructed by her boss to lie next time after the woman decided to complain. She was fired because she refused to lie. The counciler wasn't denying the woman any rights or services, she didn't turn her away she reffered her to someone else who could handle the case more better, how is that hateful bigotry? Was she supposed to take the woman into her office and tell her there, there, everything is going to be okay and encourage something that she feels is immoral? Why is it that when a christian say's homosexuality is wrong that it's hatefull bigotry but when an athiest say's something derogatory towards religion or a specific religion he is exercising his freedom of speech? -- Alice Bea

Alice had listed some examples of discrimination, or items that she felt were discrimination. You may judge them if you follow the link up there in the opening paragraph. I disagree with her interpretation, but that is not what I wanted to say to her. I found the "agree to disagree" rankled, so I replied:

Alice, the thing is, faith, religion etc is an opinion. You have the right to believe in it. You have the right to disbelieve but say you believe, you have the right to believe and say you don't believe, and you have the right not to believe. Others have the right to criticise your beliefs. You have the right to criticise theirs. But it is all belief. There is not one shred of evidence for or against any deity or any religious practices based on that deity. You may believe that a venerated book is the inerrant words of that deity, or you may believe it is a storybook.

Homosexuality is as much a fact as being left handed or right handed. I do not 'believe' that I am homosexual, I know it beyond any shadow of a doubt. It was a powerful and dreadful shock to me to find out at 13 that I was homosexual and I have felt oppressed by it ever since. I have been told all my life by well meaning people that I am an abomination in the eyes of their god, something that is deeply disturbing and unpleasant to hear, especially at 13 years old.

I've been deeply and terribly afraid, because of bigotry against homosexuals, to tell anyone that I am homosexual. Yet my heterosexual colleagues spend their lives talking about all their heterosexualness to me. They are allowed to, you see. I am not.

Your telling me that what I am is wrong is hateful to me. It would be like my telling you that your pelvis is wrong. Yet your pelvis is your pelvis and my sexual orientation is my sexual orientation. They are attributes that we were born with and, presumably, that developed after our birth, created in part by our genes (intelligent design, if you will) and in part by our environment.

I never became homosexual so far as I know. I was raised by wholly heterosexual parents to become a happy heterosexual, and I expected it to happen as sure as night follows day. Only I am homosexual.

I was not sexually abused, physically abused, seduced by homosexuals, didn't do "boys will be boys" mutual show and tell and masturbation. I just discovered, in the same way I imagine a heterosexual person discovers that they are emotionally and sexually aroused by the opposite sex, that I found this with my own sex. No-one said it would be a good idea, or fun. Indeed I was terrified not only of being homosexual but of being cured of being homosexual. We queers are in a lose/lose situation.

There was no-one to turn to for guidance, but at every turn I heard how bad homosexuality was, how wrong it was, how perverted it was.

Have you any idea what that feels like at 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18...

Until recently in the UK I and those like me had no rights. Now we have them almost including marriage, something that is a civil contract despite also in some places having religious overtones.

And yet I still hear lines like "That's so GAY!" used about anything in a derogatory manner. But you never hear lines like "That's so CHRISTIAN!" used in that way. Or, if you do, you have the right to object wholeheartedly.

This is not an "agree to disagree" matter. Differing about a fact is like looking at a rock and one of us saying "It's a solid" and the other saying "It's a liquid" and agreeing to disagree. However uncomfortable you find it, however much your belief system tells you that homosexuality is wrong, it is a thing I cannot help, a thing I have resisted all my life and a thing I wish I had never discovered about myself. It is a fact. I don't find it particularly pleasant either. I have tried to change. I have not succeeded. I do not live as a homosexual, I do not have male lovers. The love for 31, almost 32, years of a wonderful, beautiful and feminine woman and wife has not cured me, nor am I bisexual. Prayer has not cured me.

Homosexuality is now declassified. It used to be an ailment. No longer. We are not ill, not perverts, now we are hate figures. But I, we, will no longer tolerate hate. We are all facets of society. We are as rich and as poor, as law abiding and as criminal, as intelligent and as unintelligent, as religious and as irreligious (etc) as all other parts of society, including the heterosexual majority.

And we will no longer be silent.