Ellen's Message

I wrote this quite a long time ago when this was still NEWS, but I only have the previlege to post it now. This one is actually an author's note for one of my songs, but well, I think it's good to be posted here.

Here's what she said. "On February 12th, an openly gay fifteen year-old boy named Larry who is an eight grader in Oxford California was murdered by a fellow eight grader named Brandon. Larry was killed because he was gay. Days before he was murdered, Larry asked his killer to be his valentine. I don't want to be political, this is not political, I'm not a political person, but this is personal to me. A boy has been killed and a number of lives have been ruined. And somewhere along the line the killer Brandon got the message that is so threatening and so awful and so horrific that Larry wanna be his valentine that killing Larry seemed to be the right thing to do. And then the message out there is so horrible. That to be gay, you get killed for. We need to change the message. Larry was not a second class citizen, I am not a second class citizen. It is okay if you're gay."

I applauded her for it. I applauded her for putting herself at risk by saying something controversial after the backlash following her coming out. This woman is really really brave. She uses her power to remind people how gay jokes can lead to laughing at gay people, then verbal abuse, then physical abuse, then a kid like Brandon kills a kid like Larry. We need to stop all kind of discrimination, people. Why can't you understand that nobody can choose where they were born, what color of skin they have, how they were raised, what their sexual orientation is, etc? Especially Christians. You worship Christ who was crucified for love. Now you're the one crucifies somebody who loves just because your bible say it's a sin. Don't you see that if you lived in the time of Jesus you'd be the one to crucify Him too just because He denied many rules in the Old Testament?

Wake up, this is 2008. You can believe something is a sin, but since it doesn't and will not affect you in any way, would you just shut up and let us live our lives in peace? It's true, you know, that the jokes often lead to something much more horrible. Like the bullying at school. That too is horrible. To quote someone on the web (I'm really really horrible at remembering names, forgive me please), why are we more comfortable seeing two mans holding guns to each other than seeing them holding hands?