Gay (A Poem)

Sep 07th, 2011 12:11 PM By Willie

There’s something wrong with our way of thinking even as we play
Ignorantly insulting each other as we say
“That’s so gay”
It’s not okay

Because you’re insulting so many people without a single thought
Even without trying, you simply had bought
Into the idea that you weren’t, but you’ve been caught
In a web of discrimination, so saying you’re just playing is all for naught

There are people getting hurt without even a say
Because others hurt them and don’t want them to stay
Violence against them, they don’t ever play
All because they’re gay and others don’t think it’s okay

Think about the ones who’ve been hurt and died
Of the families who’ve screamed and cried
Never told a soul, “I’m okay,” they lied
Gave up on life because there was no place to hide

Be aware of what you’re saying before it’s too late
You might be justifying someone’s hidden hate
Saying it’s alright to deny their rights like Proposition 8
All because of who they love and who they choose to be their mate

Someone Who I Trusted

Aug 15th, 2011 10:43 AM By shawn

On Christmas Morning of ‘09, I was visiting my family for a nice Christmas Dinner, I was getting ready for a wonderful lunch fulled with Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Veggies and so on. The only thing I truly cared about on this day is my family. My father, my mother, my brother, my sis-in law, my baby nephew (Sebastien) and myself. My father was gone exchanging a gift for my baby nephew, so he was absent while the incident happened…

I was in my bedroom getting ready for this big afternoon with the family. My brother came into my room and wanted to talk to me and so I said “Ok!” I was confused as to why he wanted to talk to me and then he said “I’m not comfortable with you being around Sebastien. I don’t want you to be around him anymore.” I looked at my brother and I just walked away in disbelief, obviously insulted and in shock of what he was saying. Then I yelled, “your not going to accuse me of something that I didn’t do” and he said, “I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m just not comfortable with you being around him.”

I looked at him and said, “why is that?” My mother was cooking food and was wondering what was going on. My sis-in-law was minding her own business because she knew how angry my brother can become. Then this explosion of hatred of me being gay came from my brother (I guess he was holding on to his feelings for way too long until he finally revealed his feelings towards me, I mean he knew I was gay for 2 yrs now). He was insulting and humiliating me in front of my family and my poor mother was trying to be the peace keeper in this situation. My brother yelled at her, “this is none of your business” with his hands up as if he was going to slap her in her face.
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Giving A Damn So Others Don’t Have To

Aug 12th, 2011 12:36 PM By Joseph

I’m a 16 year old sophomore and I can’t begin to say that I have the greatest group of friends in the ENTIRE world. I’m been aware of my homosexuality since sixth grade as confused as I may have been. Ever since I confided to the first person that I called my friend I’ve been able to become more and more secure with myself. Slowly but surely I began to open up to more and more people until I hit freshman year of high school. At this point the majority of people I bothered to call my friends (there were and currently are too many to count) knew of my sexual orientation. As a New Year’s resolution I essentially said “f**k it” and decided to immerse myself in what I knew I was, a homosexual young man. High school was never the same but I’ve always had friends to back me up. I’ve been lucky.

Now, openly gay and content with who I am I’ve seen the harsh reality and immense joy of being open with your sexuality. I’ve personally had to deal with the loss of many friends who didn’t agree with my life choice and I’ve been ridiculed beyond which no one should ever have to put up with. I’ve learned so much about who I am and who I DON’T have to be and I’ve overjoyed to know that no matter what I choose in life my friends, my family and anyone who has ever had the pleasure of knowing me will be right there by my side. My personal accomplishments with LGBT rights are few and far between, so small in fact that they’ve barely made a dent in the issue at hand in everyday life. However, I’ve bettered my life in High School by coming out as a homosexual, I’ve bettered the lives of others who have chosen to confide within me and I’ve bettered the lives of everyone who I’ve ever met by allowing them to say they’ve met a proud gay man who isn’t afraid to take on the world.
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“I’ll Fix You…”

Aug 12th, 2011 12:23 PM By Ashley

When I lived in Los Angeles, CA a couple years back I was in a loving committed relationship with my girlfriend of 3 years. I had placed a rainbow sticker on my back window. As I was driving to lunch one day I saw a car following me, “no biggie just going the same direction,” I thought.

As I parked I saw the man pull up behind me in his car, pull me out of mine and throw me against my vehicle. He pressed himself against me telling me that, “lesbians are women that have not gotten F**K** right and he will fix me right.” As I hear him say this, his hands are roaming everywhere and tears fall down my cheeks. I felt this is going to be bad, and I close my eyes to everything around me.

I feel a tug on my pants in the crowded parking lot and a voice that says “you’re going to love this!” As I’m waiting to feel something, I feel the man pulled off me and then onto the ground. A male onlooker saw what was happening, handed his child off to his wife and came to my rescue. The guy ended up getting a broken nose and loosing 2 teeth. When I looked up there were so many people watching and I kept thinking to myself “NO ONE HELPED.”
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Laughter

Aug 12th, 2011 11:32 AM By Keith

I’m 19 years old and going to college at LIT in Beaumont, TX. I have a relationship with the most beautiful person in the world. He just happens to be a man. One night, a year ago, after my classes I was on my way home. Now I usually have one of my friends drive me or I take the bus. However I chose to walk that night. Because that night was special. I had just told the love of my life, for the first time, those three precious, yet almost insignificant, words: “I love you.”

However, I was so absentminded in this ecstatic moment that I failed to pay attention to my surroundings. I let my guard down for the briefest of moments and this allowed two assailants to brutalize me. I blurred many times between the points of consciousness and comatose from the various punts to my head, the multitude of shuddering cracks that accompanies broken ribs, and the thunderous pop that indicates a joint dislocation.

They realized that my body had gone limp and there was no more “sport in beating on a quiet faggot.” I thought they would leave me to die on the sidewalk they had began their attack on… I was wrong. One chuckled and said “I know what’ll make his day.” They lowered my pants and began to take turns violating me. I screamed. I tried to kick, claw, squirm, bite, and punch. But my body had given out on me. I cried as they laughed.
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That Day in High School

Aug 11th, 2011 10:06 PM By Stephen

Well, I’m not sure how to start, so I’ll jump right in. I grew up in a very small town in the bible belt of the south. Good ol’ Alabama. I knew I was different from a very young age. I think I was about 9 when I realized I wasn’t like most boys. When I was about 11 or 12 I finally came to terms with the fact that I was gay. I still had to live the life of the country straight guy though. When I was 15 I came out to very supportive family and a few friends.

Going to high school I was harassed every day. Calls down the hall – FAGGOT, SISSY, C**K SUCKER. I would just hold it in and do nothing, say nothing. One day a guy started calling me names again and tried to start a fight with me. Finally, enough was enough and I fought back. He blackened my eye and bruised my cheek. I didn’t know what happened until I was in my car leaving school grounds. My fist was bloody and my face hurt. I got so mad in rage that I blacked out during the fight. I apparently broke his arm, cheek, and 4 ribs. I’m not proud of this at all.

Upon arrival to school the next morning I was pulled into the office and was suspended for a week. Turns out the guy that started the fight didn’t even get into any trouble at all. Gotta love the south.

Why Would You Put Someone Through This…?

Aug 11th, 2011 10:01 PM By carl

Well first off, I am a gay male, and I’ve been through hell and back again. When I was in eighth grade, I began to come out to my parents and the people around me. Everything began to change, from my parents not accepting me to kids in school pulling pranks on me. It all came to a head when I was walking through school with a group of boys behind me, I began to walk down a flight of stairs, hoping that I could get rid of them by going the wrong way. I was wrong.

Instead of leaving, one of them came up behind me and pushed me. I fell, tumbling down sixteen steps, my books flying out of my hands, hitting me in the head, pencils being broken in my chest, snapping in two. I couldn’t believe it. I laid there for two and a half minutes, unable to breath, blood trickling down the side of my head from where my eyebrow split in two. The students received a weeks worth of detention a piece, but other than that, nothing.

The next year I went on to high school, hoping that I could get away from the people who would push me down and tell me I’m not good enough. I was walking home, my backpack at school, just walking, when I heard the familiar voices of the kids that had pushed me down the stairs. I thought, dear god, why would you put someone through this. I picked up my pace, without looking back, hoping that they would leave me alone, but they didn’t.
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My Meeting With Hate

Aug 11th, 2011 01:54 PM By Keith

This is my story I wrote for my blog:

I was thinking this morning about what I would blog about today, and I remembered a pretty darn funny story to share with you. However, in order for that story to make sense, I would need to share a very unfunny, unpleasant event with you. It is something that I have not shared with many people outside my family and circle of friends in Lexington, but it is has become such a turning point in my life, I decided that I should just share it. Hopefully by doing so, some people will become more aware of the hate and issues that gay and lesbian people face each day.

On February 17, 2008, I was gay-bashed in downtown Lexington. We are talking about losing consciousness, 911, ambulance, hospital, the works.

Until the beating, the evening had been great. Andy and I, along with our friends Glenn and Doug, had been to dinner at A La Lucie, a great bistro in downtown Lexington. Lexington had just recently been named as one of the top 10 cities in the nation for GLBT people to live, and we were completely happy and proud to be a part of that. We all four had a very trying work week, one in which Glenn had actually totaled my car (which is actually another blog story!), and we were relaxing in an open atmosphere full of people who did not judge us at all. The memory of that night is so vivid I still remember that I had a delicious fish stew for my entree.
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NOT FAIR

Aug 11th, 2011 01:51 PM By Morgan

I’m 15 years old and I live in Roanoke, Virginia. My uncles are gay and my sister is bisexual. So, I am very offended when people make ignorant comments. I have grown up with gay/bi-sexual/transgender/and lesbian people my whole life. They are people just like everyone else, and shouldn’t be treated ANY different. I have been called names for standing up for what I believe in, and if I get my point across, then call me anything you want.

I don’t understand people who dislike them because if you don’t accept them, how do you expect yourself to be treated any different. And as far as hate crimes go, it is COMPLETELY unacceptable to be raped, tortured, beaten, or even killed because of a personal choice that makes them happy. If a straight person was ever treated like that I’m sure matters would be handled differently.

It’s just not fair, people are people no matter what sexual orientation they are and we are ALL created equal. It’s not fair for gay and lesbian couples not being able to get married, I mean straight people do. Come on people open your eyes, we can all make a difference, and fight for equality, I give a damn, why don’t you?

Hate Without Thought

Aug 11th, 2011 01:33 PM By Molly

My name is Molly and I am a 16 year old straight girl who’s fed up with how many people act toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders. There’s nothing that shocks me more than hearing a well loved friend or family member say something distasteful about someone else. A lot of kids at my school speak as if being a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender individual is something not only to be ashamed of, but a choice. Obviously it is a choice but not in the way many people seem to refer to it as.

It isn’t a choice like deciding whether to do your chores or not, because a choice like that can be changed by willpower. I can choose to clean my room or to not clean my room. If I clean my room one day I can still choose not to the next and vice versa. However, no one can successfully will themselves into changing a part of what makes them who they are, and nobody should feel like they have to.

A common argument I make to my straight friends is, “Why are you straight? If I told you tomorrow that it wasn’t acceptable to be attracted to the opposite sex, would you be able to switch that attraction to the same sex as yourself?” Every single one I’ve said that to hasn’t made a rude comment about gays, lesbians, etc. in front of me since because I made them think about what they were saying. The thing is when people around you hate something, sometimes its easy and automatic to concentrate on the hate itself instead of on the reason for the hate.

When you think about what you’re against and why, a lot of prejudices dissolve. In my opinion the biggest and worst hate crimes are when people don’t ask themselves the reason why they hate something.