On May 17th 1990 the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases. This is why May 17th has been declared the International Day Against Homophobia. The WHO accepts hetero, homo and bisexuality as types of human sexuality, yet a lot of people are too quick to declare themselves better and more knowledgeable experts than those who work at the WHO and denounce gay people as sick, immoral or just perverts. It hurts me to listen to educated intelligent people who say that homosexuals should go treat themselves and cure themselves of this illness. However, I am not going to go on a rant here, I am just going to share with you three things:

1) About 8-10% of the world population is gay. 10% comes down to one in ten. Think of how many people you know and do the math … Some (many?) gay people force themselves to live not-so-happy straight lives because they don’t have the strength to fight homophobia (which often results in violence and if not – then in hate speech) and discrimination. In this society we live in, I can’t blame them…

2) For the past couple of years there have been campaigns against homophobia around May 17th. Two of my favorite campaigns are Be careful who you hate – it might be someone you love and Homosexuality is not a choice. Homophobia is.

3) A letter Mrs. Sharon Underwood (who has a gay son) wrote to the Valley News (White River Junction, VT) in 2000:

I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny. My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance. How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin. The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving … to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

Sharon Underwood.

When I lived in Paris every Easter we went to this wonderful Russian church in the 19th arrondissement. It was quite an experience since the area around the church was somewhat ghetto-ish and it was almost a magical experience – after walking with fear of being mugged (the Eastern Orthodox mass starts around 11 o’clock at night) – to see it all lit up, standing on the top of a hill like something out of a fairy tale.

One Easter, a British photojournalist was there to cover the event and she was standing right next to Maria and me. The priest was really something – he looked like Santa Claus on Prozac. He was walking around, thrusting the incense burner at people, saying Christ has risen. At one point he saw the photojournalist who was taking pictures in a very serious manner, thrust the incense burner in her direction and said Uluibaite (which in Russian means “smile”.)

Her jaw DROPPED.

Maria and I, seeing how truly shocked she was asked her why she reacted like that. She looked at us in dismay and asked Did HE just say, “I want to bite you????”

Happy Easter to all!

This goes out to you, who met me at the airport ever since I was 3 years old and drove me to your wonderful house where I would spend the most amazing summers of my childhood.

This goes out to you, who when you saw me wearing skirts,  told me to stop being so girly and put on a pair of shorts.

This goes out to you, who taught me how to “drive” a horse carriage.

This goes out to you, who used to throw a watermelon to the ground, thus break it into pieces and offer me a delicious snack in the middle of day.

This goes out t you, who found the strength to watch me fall from the trees I was climbing, so I can learn a lesson. And then soothed me and told me that A hero without a wound is not a hero.

This goes out to you, who with a loving smile told everybody who would listen how I didn’t leave the house through the front door, but rather jumped over the fence.

This goes out to you, who told me that – yes! – our car could indeed fly and spent endless hours looking with me for its wings in your backyard.

This goes out to you, who every time when you saw me, pushed everyone aside and gave me a hug and cried with happiness.

This goes out to you, who every summer, before I came over, bought a goat, so I can have fresh milk in the morning. And then every summer got really upset that I hated goat milk and sold the goat.

This goes out to you, who understood how important it was to me to build a wooden house, and left the work you had to help me find the proper wood for it.

This goes out to you, who got up after massive heart attacks to work your garden, so that we have “quality” fruit and vegetables to eat.

This goes out to you, who gave me a very small glass of beer with a lot of foam at lunch since I was 4 – because with a little beer the hot summer lunches were more enjoyable.

This goes out to you, who told me not to quit smoking, but to smoke a little bit – like you: 3 cigarettes a day, one after each meal, but oh-so-enjoyable!

This goes out to you, who believed in education so much and who promised me anything I wanted if I aced math. And who didn’t complain when I asked for new furniture for my entire room.

This goes out to you, who had happy dreams of swimming, just because I could swim and that made you so happy.

This goes out to your big heart. This goes out to you, who loved me most of all, for I loved you and I will always love you back.

This goes out to you, Grandpa. Rest in peace!