A Personal Plea Against Prop 102

Jim Burroway

October 30th, 2008

Karen Kressley live in the retirement community of Green Valley, AZ. She and her husband raised four children in what she calls a “heterosexual home environment.” Except one of their boys wasn’t heterosexual. At age 16, he tried to take his own life. He survived, and in counseling a few weeks later, he came out as gay, and had felt this way since he was five or six:

My mind flashed back to little girl crushes I’d had on boys in the early 1950s. I did not have to keep these feelings a secret. Now, I realized, our son had been holding his feelings secret for a long time, while trying to pretend to himself and to us that he could be straight.

Our ignorance nearly cost us the life of our child. Regrettably, the message our son received in his “heterosexual home environment” was a distinct “Only Straight People Accepted Here.” My husband and I had so much to learn and unlearn.

The tragedy of Prop 102 is that it reinforces that same message on a wider scale: only straight people accepted here.

I am appalled by Proposition 102, a second attempt (a similar initiative failed in 2006) to single out our GLBT citizens of Arizona for exemption from living out their dreams… The sin is not in whom one loves. The sin is with those who want their narrowly defined religious beliefs enshrined in the Arizona Constitution.

Proposition 102, if passed, will set a dangerous precedent and will only further serve to marginalize our equally deserving GLBT citizens.

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Arizona - Vote No On Proposition 102 - Again!

Maurice

October 30th, 2008

I was struck by the words, “My mind raced back to when I had little girl crushes…” The author realized that her SON did not seem to have childhood crushes. That was quite insightful of her to realize that he DID have crushes, if only he could have felt free to express them. There is a sin in raising children who are allowed to grow up- and no one in the family ever really knowing them. That is why I stand from the roof and shout out, Gay is normal and I will get busy if any homophobe tries to hurt one of those less able to shout for himself! God Speed!

Louie

October 30th, 2008

Man, what an AWESOME letter this lady wrote!!! She’s GREAT!

Speaking of “crushes”, I remember being 4 years old when I had a “crush” on some of the boys in my neighborhood.

Nobody had to “teach” me how to feel these things. That’s just what came naturally to me.

I didn’t know it from gay or straight. It just was what it was and it had no name at that time in my life. But, when I was “caught” by my parents it was they that told me it was wrong and didn’t let me forget it.

Time went on and these feelings never went away. They only intensified.

It is what it is. A natural variant of the diverse human experience.


California – Vote “NO” on Prop. 8!
Arizona – Vote “NO” on Prop. 102! AGAIN!
Florida – Vote “NO” on Amendment 2!
Connecticut – Vote “NO” on Question 1!

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