Note: These are my beliefs, my thoughts, the way I feel and not to be mistaken for anyone elses. If you agree great if not that's fine too. I know I have friends who have a variety of preferences as well as religious beliefs, so if you are easily offended please DO NOT READ.
I wrote this after I read an article on how gays were intolerant, and how they were destroying the "sanctity of marriage". It pissed me off if I'm being honest! I was frustrated at how my children were treated. How I was treated because I was dating a black man, then the schools didn't honor Martin Luther Kings birthday. I had had enough. So I wrote this and sent it to the editor of the Sidney Sun, our local newspaper at the time. The editor called me and told me they wanted to publish it, it was perfect, and since Martin Luther Kings birthday was the following week it would be a great time to publish it. This article reached people from all over Nebraska, and all the way to Denver Colorado. I am very proud of this. It was longer, but they shortened it so that they could publish it in one print. So you are getting the edited version!
"Dear Editor,
I was reading the newspaper Dec. 26 and found the article called “The Gay Community is Intolerant, Too” interesting. It was well written to say the least. Kudos to the writer!! It also got me thinking about the things that I have had to go through. I am a white women married to a black man. Our children are mixed race. My family moved here for peace and quiet, but the people here make me want to move. I have never experienced more disdain, contempt and outright hatred and racism as I have here in Sidney. Now, not all of the people here are like that. There are many who have not treated us like we are beneath them, they have treated us like “ordinary people.” Then there are those who have told my daughter they don’t want to be her friend because she is not “white” enough. Six-year-old children are telling my daughter this. There are those who know my husband is black and still have the audacity to use the “N” word around my family, thinking we will be OK with it. I have been called “N” lover, and my children have been called “negrites,” – a word for those of the bi-racial background. In Sidney, where black people are few are far between, people still have the nerve to use the “N” word! People are being taught that blacks are an inferior race, one beneath whites. Here in Sidney – where there are more whites then there are any race – shouldn’t National Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday be celebrated just they are in the other 49 states? Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was supposed to be observed in ALL 50 states in 2006! And yet here, it is not celebrated? Just because there are few black people in Sidney does not mean they should not learn about their background. Don’t you think that white children have the right to know what their race put others races through? Don’t you think that our children need to know what their ancestors did because they thought the darker-skinned were less of a people? No matter where we go, there will be people who can’t stand that my family is of mixed ethnicity. But to come to a small town that says it prides itself on family values and then teaches its children its okay to hate black people and that it’s okay to use the “N” word is not family values at all. That is racism. However small people may think it is, it is still racism, and it still hurts. I have written that to say this: Intolerance is not just for the religious or the gay or lesbian. I am intolerant of racism. I am intolerant of ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss. It is handed down from generation to generation. It can be fixed by education, education of history – all history. Intolerance, on the other hand, is not easily overcome. It is something that we have to live with. Some people do not tolerate liars, sexual predators, thieves, or murderers just as some people don’t tolerate religious people, and some people don’t tolerate gays and lesbians. We all have something that we do not tolerate, and if your preference is the same sex, or if you prefer black men to white men – or black women to white women – or if you believe in something or not doesn’t make you right or wrong. It just makes it your preference or your opinion. It is not a standard that has to be won or lost. You cannot force someone to believe or think the way you do. You can only state your opinion and let them state theirs. If in the end you do not agree, then you agree to disagree!! When the (Dec. 26) column’s writer stated, “someone’s standard has to win,” I believe he was incorrect. Being gay or lesbian is not a standard. It is a choice for some – something they may feel they need to be. Just as being religious is a choice that you can’t force on an individual! Being gay is not contagious, nor is being religious. By being gay or religious you live by different standards, yes, but neither one has to win. The gay and lesbian community is not trying to “hijack” anything. They just want to be treated fairly, just as the African Americans did during the slave days and the civil rights movement. Just because they want to be viewed as equals and have the right to marry who they wish does not make it right or wrong!! It does not mean that they are trying to steal something sacred. Let’s be honest – about 95 percent of the people that get married end up divorced in the first five to 10 years anyway, so what would they really be “hijacking”? The fact they are able to carry the same last name for however long they are able to stand each other? Or maybe the very religious are afraid of change in their own group and don’t want to incorporate the people that don’t think, act, walk, talk, and believe like them? I just don’t think that you are hurting anyone by being religious – or by being gay or lesbian. That is a personal thing. There is just a lack of communication here! Like I said, intolerance is not something you get over. It is handed down from generation to generation, just like ignorance! Just like racism. And while your writer has his opinion on the intolerance of the gay community, these are my opinions on the article he wrote and racism in Sidney."
As you can see, I was frustrated! Although any feedback you would like to give me would be great! And try to be contructive with the criticism! :) Thanks all!
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