What's The Big Deal?

I remember the first time I was introduced to the concept of homosexuality. I was 9 years old and playing around during recess. One of my classmates was teasing me and asked if I was a “mo”. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked him to explain it. He said something to the effect of boys liking other boys the way boys like girls. I thought about it for a moment and shrugged. I asked what the big deal was with boys liking other boys. I didn’t get it.

That was in 1973. I am 44 years old as of this writing, and I still don’t get what the big deal is. Homosexuality is a non-issue. This is where people usually interrupt and ruefully ask me, “What if your son was gay?” I happen to have a son. I always respond the same way, “I guess I wasn’t clear enough the first time. Homosexuality is a non-issue.” I am a heterosexual, always have been, but I just can't seem to muster up the energy to care about anyone else’s sexuality.

Think about it for a minute. Why in the world would you care about how someone feels about someone else? Why would you care about how consenting adults express how they feel about each other? Why would you care about homosexuals having sex in the privacy of their own home? How does any of it affect you?

Everywhere around you there are horrible things going on every day. Spousal battery, drug & alcohol addiction, bestiality, child abuse, rape, murder, et cetera. These are real, they happen all the time, and they are among the worst things that human beings do to themselves and each other (and other beings, in the case of bestiality). I particularly hate it when adults hurt children. Pederasts are sub-human. How can anyone look at a beautiful child and have sexual urges, let alone carry them out? It's worse than murder, in my opinion. Once you kill someone their troubles are over. When you rape a child, you take their soul and leave a person who will be wounded forever.

How about poverty? All over the world, people are starving and dying from diseases most people have cures for in their bathroom medicine cabinet. Tuberculosis is on the rise, malaria is running rampant and water shortages are devastating certain areas. AIDS continues to ravage Africa and is still a huge problem in the United States. There are cattle that live better lives than some people do here in the richest country in the history of the world. Gun violence is insane. Our economy turns out to be a house of cards. Human and constitutional rights violations have been off the charts for way too long now, and war continues to plague humanity.

All these things are going on, and your biggest concern is whether two people of the same sex kiss? Seriously. No, seriously?

I happen to be an immigrant to the United States. I was born in the Dominican Republic and landed here when I was 2 years old. English is not my first language, but I think I've gotten a pretty good hang of it. The point is, I experienced racism and bigotry first hand, and sometimes violently, when I was in my teens. My family moved into a white neighborhood when I was 9 years old (for the record, I lived in a bi-racial home. My mother is Dominican, my step father was Jewish. My step brother and two step sisters are Jews as well).

As I walked home from school, people would come out of their houses to yell racial epithets at me. When I got to junior high school, older boys got in my face and threatened to hurt me. Some actually tried to hurt me. They were always shocked to find out that it wasn’t so easy to hurt me physically. They stopped trying by the time I was 14, concluding that it was a dangerous proposition for them. Even so, it was clear to me that minorities were not considered people, and some would be willing to end my life to illustrate that.

Although these events happened decades ago, they are fresh in my mind and took a long time to get over, especially in a country whose original sin is racism.

Now we come to the amazing and almost unbelievable events of November 4, 2008. The first black president was elected in the United States. I could fill pages expressing what that means to me, and I might another time. But the victory is tempered by the fact that homosexuals lost the right to marry each other in California because of Proposition 8. California's Proposition 8 consists of a single sentence: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." To refresh your memories, there was a time when marriage was defined as a man and a woman of the same race. Doesn’t that idea seem ridiculous now? How long will it take before banning gay marriage seems ridiculous?

What's particularly shameful to me is that 70% of blacks voted for the ban. Yes, we can. We shall overcome—screw everyone else. What kind of sentiment is that, at such an amazing time in our country’s history? How can people—like me—who have been repressed, suppressed and abused look at other people without compassion? It is absolutely bewildering to me.

I know some of you may attribute your belief to the bible. Do me a huge favor and don’t trot out all the passages that justify your prejudice. You would be mistaken if you did. Read this. Remember the following: The Catholic Church supported slavery until it became too unpopular and they still don’t see women as equal to men. Do you think Jesus Christ would support your belief? I think you know that he wouldn’t, especially since there is not a word recorded in the bible expressing his thoughts on the subject. Are you trying to tell me that the son of God was sent here to deliver the word of God and the part about gays slipped his mind? So, let's leave the dogma out of the dialog.

Instead, think about how you felt when it was announced that Barack Obama was elected President. I for one will keep that feeling with me for the rest of my life. I also want everyone to feel that way. I can only hope that people will wake up, and soon. A black president was thought to be impossible in this country. In our lifetime, it has come to pass. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” Although those words were not true when they were written, isn't it about time that they became true for everyone? What's the big deal?