We are Family!

When I see the face of this boy it haunts me to no end.

Still wet behind the ears, yet the sparkle in his eyes showed who he truly was. He was family. Like most of his kind, the desire for acceptance and compassion made him stand out. In a world of hate and biasness, he poured love from every fiber of his short being, in hopes that a society so obsessed with condemnation could somehow welcome him in as one of their own, to no avail.

The never ending struggle within one’s self, for acceptance of who you are, knowing you have done no wrong in a world that hates you so, without ever even knowing you.  It eats away at you, obviously even at this young man’s tender age. Humanity fears that which is different. If you were to fear something long enough you begin to hate it. If you hate it long enough you want to kill it. This is our animalistic instinct. Fortunately not all human beings hate the same and in some, passion prevails over hate.

The hatred of gays within our society is a biasness that defies all logic. The depth, to which American society allows, condones and even nurtures this hatred of a truly non threatening sub culture makes no sense at all. I guess it is no help that the contempt and hate is being spear-headed by our religious organizations under the pretense that God wants us to hate homosexuals. Are they to blame for this self righteous execution of innocence? What makes this torturous oppression anything less than what we witnessed in “The Passion of the Christ”?

Homosexuality is the act of loving someone …although that someone happens to be within your own gender. It is still, none the less an act of love, nothing more and nothing less. It is no less natural and no less real than a heterosexual love. With so much hate in this world, how can society condemn someone solely on the basis that they love someone else? My God, this boy deserved so much more.

I know he spent countless hours pondering who he was and what exactly it meant for him to be who he was. He could no more change his desires than a heterosexual could change there’s to love within their gender. He was who he was. Larry was Larry. The endless nights wondering "how I have become burdened with the torturous existence known to the world as “gay” gnaws at you. Who could ever wish it on someone? Was it a conscious decision I made or did God make me this way…and if so why? Why me? The pain is unbearable, yet I still can’t help but feel who I am is good and I am this way for a reason." Close your eyes and go to sleep little one and save the struggle for another day. There will always be another day?

All these thoughts and fears and truths about this world and their hatred of Larry and his kind could not stop him from being who he knew he was. Larry was a lamb who knowingly came out in the Lions den as he tried to reached out and teach the world that Gay is ok, good and not bad. He did what he felt he needed to do to achieve true happiness and spread the word of love. Larry wanted to teach tolerance and acceptance and he was light years ahead of those his age ( and most of humanity as a whole) in understanding just what this meant. Larry was family to me because Larry has lived behind the same fears, endured the same taunts and biasness’s and evolved into a compassionate human being our heterosexual counter parts very rarely could ever achieve. It is not because they are heterosexual but rather because they are not gay. They do not live in a world that tells them they are evil, which forces us to somehow prove our right to exist in a world we are not welcome in. Our compassion is our strength, which I guess holds true within all of humanity. However, our (gay) family just has evolved to have more compassion, simply because we need it to survive in this dog eat dog world.

In the end, the purveyors of hatred succeeded in ending Larry’s tortured existence on this planet prematurely. It was an obviously fitting sentence for such a heinous crime against humanity I am sure some would agree. However, those who preach hate could not and have not silenced Larry even in death. Larry was a David against Goliath and he prevailed.

 Larry is and always will be my hero. He is my saint and my Christ. Larry is all that good can and ever will be. I love you Larry and I am sure God loves you too in Heaven where you truly belong. My brother, my son you are what family is all about. It is about humanity and it is about being gay if that is who you are. Bless you my boy!