Homophobes

Ms. Neita G. Trollinger, of Salem OR, writes that she is "sick and tired" of being called a homophobe. To be honest, I think she should change her mind and learn to like it; it's an attempt to be kind.

You see, what else are we, as gay people, to think of people who would deny us equality under the law? Who would deny us health insurance? The right to visit our loved one in the hospital? Inheritance rights? The right to make medical decisions to save our loved one's life? Who would see our children suffer in single parenthood when a loving person who wants to be the second parent is at hand? Who fought to maintain the criminalization of our deepest expression of love?

Ms. Trollinger says that Christians do not kill or name-call "homosexuals", and yet in saying so she does so, since we choose to be called "gay" and she insists on naming us "homosexual". Indeed, she compares us to murderers, thieves, adulterers, and liars. If it is true that Christians do not "name-call" us, then Ms. Trollinger should be asking herself if she is truly Christian.

And to claim that Christians do not kill us is a flat falsehood. People who have been convicted of murdering gay people have been well studied, and many have stated bluntly that they did so in whole or in part because of something their church told them about us, such as that we are minions of the devil or that we are trying to recruit their children or that we spread AIDS.

Ms. Trollinger should accept the moniker of "homophobe", because in calling people like her that, we are attempting to be charitible and believe that they do the horrible things they do to us because they are frightened for some reason, perhaps because they are ignorant or misinformed, and that maybe it doesn't mean they're really bad people. The alternative is to believe that they really know what they're doing, and believe they're bigots.