LETTER: Gay people are hated

Editor,

On Oct. 15, I learned that derision is a dish best served with orange juice and a bagel. Upon my perusal of the morning’s Statesman, I was delighted to see another of Mr. Westbroek’s impeccable articles. Dave Barry, move over – this kid Jared’s a dark horse like I’ve never seen. Within seconds I was roaring with laughter, waving the paper, and yelling my friends over. Westbroek’s latest triumph had me in fits.

Let me paraphrase. “Everybody in America has the right to choose their sexuality and express it in a legal manner. Lo, the government should stay out of it. Homosexuals have issues with homosexuals – religions don’t. Indeed, you have the right to breathe and have babies and that’s marriage no matter what you say. Yea, marriage can’t be taken, and homosexuals will take it if the government lets them. The ‘free modern world’ is based on rights that can’t be taken. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable laws. You must be happy. Same-sex marriages will make you sad and you will lose the Laws of Breathing and Gravity. Children are better being hit by a father and a mother than being hugged by two of either, because Mom and Dad teach it the right way and Homos do drugs. Plus, they don’t believe that there are wrong things. That is why same-sex marriages are bad.”

OK, seriously: Why do we put up with this?

The facts are that gay people can be thrown out of their apartments and fired from their jobs for the sole fact that they’re gay. Beating a gay man to death with a baseball bat because you think he made a pass at you isn’t considered a hate crime by Utah law. Of course gay people are doing their best to make these issues heard – it isn’t a right to choose your sexuality: You Can’t Choose! Ask any straight person! And, of course, the “Right” wants to make sure homosexuals have as few rights as possible. Why? Because they hate us – it’s that simple. My name is Wilson Bateman, I am a gay man, and I still have enough morality to tell my children – tell anyone: Hate is wrong!

Wilson A. Bateman