An Open Letter to President Obama

Mr. President, thank you.

Thank you for stating your personal convictions, instead of playing it safe, playing it cagey about your private views for political reasons.  You have taken the plunge; if it is possible, you now have an even larger target on your back for the hatred of the ignorant.
Those who oppose same sex orientation equality are ignorant.  Their convictions are based on an ill-founded belief, rather than a factual understanding of human gender and sexuality.  Their belief does not make them justified or correct on matters of fact any more than belief would make the world suddenly flat rather than round.
 Those individuals who oppose gay marriage, and anti-discrimination against gays are as wrong as those who do not believe in the equality of people on the basis of race or gender.  They are the old white people who largely populate the Republican party and the Tea Party movement.  They wish to impose a domination of this country, a lack of equality and a lack of freedom, to the status quo of the early 20th century.  They wish to impose faith over fact, they wish to impose their views of religion on everyone else, even when it is in opposition to objective reality. 
They want us to go backwards, not forwards, into the darkness of history, not into the light of our future.  They do not want progress.  They fear change, they fear the social changes which challenge their privilege.  They dislike and fear black and brown people, and they are not too fond of women as equal human beings either.
They fear human sexuality, they wish to repress it, to oppress it, to restrict it and to penalize it.  They wish to make people ignorant so as to make them more easily controlled.  They enshrine privilege for some and disadvantage for others on the basis of identity rather than merit.
They embrace lies to empower themselves, and fear and hate the truth when it conflicts with what they wish to believe, even when that belief is a fantasy.  It is the embrace of lies which is the greatest weakness, the greatest fault in those who embrace conservative politics, joined by rampant hypocrisy.
They embrace violence, and they embrace disregard for the rule of law, except when they can use it to coerce others to conform to their authority. 
Thank you Mr. President, for finally showing some signs that you will oppose the ignorant and the bigoted in this country, and adhere to the real principles of freedom and equality, and respect for human dignity.  Thank you for showing you are a man of moral courage.
The photo above left and below are from June 2011, the flags were flying in the front of the Federal Reserve Bank in Virginia, as reported by the Box Turtle Bulletin.

Federal Reserve Flies The Colors

Jim Burroway

June 2nd, 2011

The rainbow flag is flying at the Richmond, Virginia branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank:

“We strongly support a diverse and inclusive culture at the Richmond Fed and have learned that it is important to value and embrace differences, both seen and unseen,” Sally Green said, chief operating officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
“We are flying the ‘Pride’ flag as an example of our commitment to the values of acceptance and inclusion,” Green added.

The flag is being flown at the request of PRISM, an employee LGBT group started at the Fed’s Richmond branch last year, and will fly throughout the month of June. Predictably, the sight of the rainbow flag has anti-gay activists seeing red.

From the same site, there is an article "What Are Little Boys Made of?" that is revealing  just how ill informed, and sometimes hatefully bone ignorant and destructive people are who preach, like Pastor Sean Harris of  North Carolina, or who try to 'pray away the gay' like the therapists at the Marcus Bachmann clinic.  He preaches differing levels of force, depending on how much attention is put on him, but he holds to the premise that parents can CHANGE their children through punishment.
Our sexuality and gender is innate.  It is not something that can be changed by hitting, shoving or shouting, or any amount of preaching.  It can no more be changed by shouting than you can change eye color, height, or intelligence or a talent for athletics or the arts. To assert otherwise is to promote fear and hatred and bigotry rather than love and acceptance of differences.
 If you believe in God, it is the way God makes people, part of the variety of nature, common to all species.  To assert that parents must change that aspect of their children instead of loving them for who they are is wrong, and it is incredibly harmful.
To legislate that ignorance, so as to allow discrimination in employment, education, military service, or rights such as marriage is to enshrine ignorance as profound as to try to legislate the world is flat when it is not.

It is time for a 21st century push for light and enlightenment, for humanity and reality.  Just as the world looks back in horror at the abuses to people of color in the 20th century, history will look back at the acceptance and movement for equality of  human gender and sexual orientation.