LOVE LETTERS

14 December 2001

I've had another "love letter."  This one reads:

Dear Mrs. Sykes:

Please. Homosexuality is a behavior. Like robbery and rape. I don't think many left-handers or people of color will approve your linking them with sodomites.

To be blunt, Sodomy is despised and rejected everywhere in the world, except in some corners of Davis. 

Indeed, even in morally corrupt California, sodomy has been defined as a felony offense, subject to state imprisonment. When I worked there, I interviewed many of these fellows. Pathetic. Poor guys. How they squirmed. Bottom line? Let's get at this rationally. Not promotionally.

Don

While I realize that debate with someone so full of judgement (and erroneous facts!) is pointless, I guess I'm enjoying this little philosophical chess game we're having.

I know he's an old man and he was raised to believe what he believes, but there is entirely too much misinformation out there, and too much hatred based on that misinformation.

My response:

You need newer reference material. Sodomy was decriminalized in California in 1975. In fact, sodomy laws exclusively for homosexuals exist only in five states, and for heterosexuals as well in eleven more. Thirty-five states in this land of the free allow sodomy for both homosexuals and heterosexuals (yes, straight people engage in sodomy as well).

Just in case you doubt me, this is from the ACLU:

Assembly Bill 290 written by State Assembly member Barbara Alby (R-Fair Oaks) and signed by Governor Wilson on October 8, 1997 alters California's interpretation of Megan's Law .

Gay men no longer face the indignity of having to undergo annual registration as sex offenders, forced to submit fingerprints and photographs to the police like common criminals," said Elizabeth Schroeder of the ACLU of Southern California.

They will no longer live in fear that neighbors will shun them by mistakenly lumping gays convicted under out-dated laws with felons convicted of child molestation and rape," Schroeder added. "This law is long overdue; the state should, on its own, have purged these records more than twenty years ago."...

Prior to the decriminalization of consensual gay sex in the mid-1970s, a number of men were convicted and placed on California's sex offender registry.

As for your statement that "Sodomy is despised and rejected everywhere in the world, except in some corners of Davis," apparently you've never visited San Francisco. Or Los Angeles. Or New York. Or midtown Sacramento, for that matter!

However, over and above your misguided "facts," I wonder how you explain my celibate friends who identify as homosexual, not based on any behavior whatsoever, but on physical attraction, just as I am sure you find yourself attracted to a pretty female rather than her handsome companion.

In this season of love, it saddens me to know that there are people, such as yourself, with so much hatred in their hearts that they cannot think tolerantly of those who are different from themselves, and those whom they cannot understand, but whom they feel qualified to judge.

Merry Christmas, Mr. S. May the Prince of Peace put a little love in your heart.

Sincerely,

And if that doesn't get him, I've also made a donation to Youth Guardian Services, a youth-run, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides support services on the Internet to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, questioning, and straight supportive youth. I asked them to send Mr. S a note saying that the donation was in his honor, and to please include a brochure with the letter.