Last week we asked in our weekly SpeakOUT Poll whether LGBT advocacy groups should be involved with pushing for abortion rights. A majority said yes, but perhaps a smaller one than expected at just 53 percent. The poll apparently inspired the letter below, which we received last week from a gay pro-lifer calling for greater respect for the diversity of opinions within the LGBT community on issues like abortion. The author is local but has asked that his name be withheld for medical privacy reasons. Whether or not you agree with him, he raises some interesting points. What do you think?
I hear ever more frequently that being of a different sexuality or gender identification from most people is something akin to being of a different race or ethnicity. To a certain extent, I agree. Like any race or ethnicity, I believe that there is diversity within the LGBT community. However, it seems that people even within the gay community would like to portray those of us who are gay as being quite homogenous.
Just as people who are African-American, Latino or any other group may be united to some extent by the color of their skin, or their heritage or upbringing, even within each of those races, there is great diversity. Those of us who are in the LGBT community have some things that bring us together, and other things that show our distinctive differences and celebrated different personalities and beliefs. I believe that is a good thing that should be encouraged, not stifled.
You may laugh at my thought process, but I believe I have earned the right to have my thoughts on this subject. When I was in college, I finally came out, despite the backlash I faced within my family. I joined and served in several LGBT groups because I wanted to know more about people like me. Where there weren’t any of those groups, I started them, myself. Like most everyone else, I took the conservative protests with the hateful signs and shouts in stride, but as one who started and led an organization outside the confines of the Oak Lawn area, I also suffered under the beliefs of college administrators. I remember being forced to clean college administration-approved sidewalk chalk advertisements for official group meetings off of the sidewalks, or face jail. Instead of allowing me to get my own cleaning supplies, which I had readied at home for after the meeting, I was forced to spend hours on my hands and knees, until long after I began bleeding, wiping the chalk off of the cement with wet paper towels that disintegrated on contact with the hot cement, leaving my own blood in its place. I remember being called horrible gay slurs by college administrators who believed my organization to be a hedonistic orgy, while in actuality, it was all about recognizing and promoting the differences and similarities of various peoples, a quality which I thought all colleges aimed to teach.
Worst of all, I believe I have earned the right to believe in diversity because I was assaulted while on a college campus. In the state of Texas, a man cannot officially be raped, so I was brutally sexually assaulted and left for dead, leaving me permanently disabled as a result.
The diversity I am speaking of isn’t of the color of our skin, the gender with which we self-identify, or even our sexuality, but rather the diversity of thought that we each instinctively hold. I saw a poll on your web site asking if the LGBT community should be involved in the “women’s rights” issue. The way I see it, though a vast majority of the LGBT community may be card-carrying Democrats who hold similar beliefs on social and political issues, the rest of us are equally members of the LGBT community and we deserve a voice as well. No, I do not identify as a Republican, though if someone else did, I would have no problem with it. Neither party entirely espouses the beliefs that I hold. Liberty and freedom mean that we can each hold our own viewpoints, but not infringe on the rights of others, at least when those views allow for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
On the issue of “women’s rights,” I proudly proclaim myself to be pro-life. I have walked in the prayer marches, using my walker to support me, arm and arm with my brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church, of which I am a confirmed member, and watched as the Baptists joined in through the streets of downtown, because I know that if my mom would have aborted me, though I might not have known the pains I’ve known, I also wouldn’t have known the joys of life, either. How many people in the LGBT community long to adopt children? There is nothing more on that point that I need to say. I know that raising me was quite a challenge for my mom, as it is for every parent, and that it involved many sacrifices, but if my mom had chosen to legally kill me before I was born, I wouldn’t be here today. You wouldn’t be here, either, had your mom chosen such a path.
I respect the views of others, but I rarely see that respect reciprocated within the LGBT community when I share my beliefs. Often, I am ridiculed because I have religious beliefs, and because some of my political beliefs do not fit in with the far left. Obviously, my beliefs do not fit in with the far right, either.
I believe that enough of my blood and the blood of others has been shed to have earned me the right to believe what I believe. I pray that the generations to come can proudly stand on our shoulders and be able to have their own beliefs without having to shed their blood in the process.
With all of this said, I believe that the LGBT community can work together to achieve wonderful things, especially because of our diversity, not despite it.
Thank you for your time. If you choose to publish my writing, please edit out any of my mistakes. I have suffered numerous head injuries and seizures, so my writing skills aren’t as refined as they once were. Also, please do not publish anything that would name me specifically, due to the fact that I’ve mentioned my health in this message.
