I remember as a child talking in my earliest classes about how boring life would be if we were all the same, that being different is what made the world an interesting place to be. For some reason that always brought an image to mind of this huge cookie cutter that cut as all from the same dough in the exact same shape. I can remember thinking, "How Boring!" I took away from that lesson that it's okay to be different, even preferred. My childhood classes would have taken place in the early 1970's, and at that time, I didn't even know what "
being gay" meant except being "
happy and gay" I'm not sure all of the people who were teaching me those lessons knew what "
being gay" meant. It was certainly never discussed in my household. However, I chose to be involved in the theatre at the age of 10, and many people that I came in contact with were "
gay" although I had no concept of that. They didn't hurt me. They didn't corrupt my mind with their "
evil" ways. We were just in a show together and talked and laughed and played. Fast forward to my high school days. By this time, I knew what "
gay" meant. It still didn't bother me. That was back in 1982. No one was really
"out" at that time. I remember one of my dear friends who was a senior decided to be "
out" It was a bold and courageous move on his part. I spent a great deal of time worrying about him, not because of what he was, but because of the way others might react. He made it out of high school unscathed, physically at least, but things could have been so much worse. Why? Because, unfortunately, there also exists something called "
hate." I remember at the time that he was physically threatened by some players on the football team. They were going to beat him up because he was "
different" Wait, what happened to that cookie cutter philosophy? Wasn't it good to be different? Not in those football players minds, but why so much animosity to the point of threatened violence? One word,
FEAR! It amazes me that they were afraid of my gentle, sweet friend, but that fear of his difference is what drove their hate of him.
13 years ago on this very day, that same type of fear led two men to brutally torture a 22 year old gay man and leave him to die in the cold and biting wind of a remote area in Laramie, Wyoming. Matthew Shepard suffered a fate that night that I wouldn't wish on a wild animal, let alone a fellow human being. There was no motivation for their actions but hate. They weren't crazy or maniacal. They knew exactly what they were doing, and that, my friends, is the true horror of it all. Why can't we go back to that preschool and early childhood mentality? We can't all be, think, live the same. That makes life boring. Just because someone is different than you doesn't mean there difference will rub off on you. Difference is not a disease, but
HATE is. Hate, when nurtured, spreads like wildfire. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for an end to this epidemic! Somebody posted the quote from Eminem on Facebook today in the picture above. It really is that simple.
