Times: ‘In your face’ actions do nothing to bring about tolerance of gay rights movement

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101031/letters/in-your-face-actions-do-nothing-to-bring-about-tolerance-of-gay-rights-movement
Sunday, 31st October 2010 by Bill Andrews, St Paul’s Bay

With reference to the letter by Bernard Muscat (The Sunday Times, October 10), as a member of the ‘live and let live’ school, I am more than happy to see gay couples showing signs of affection, such as holding hands, so long as they allow me to do the same with my wife of 37 years.

Although tolerant of all genders, I do not like anything ‘shoved in my face’, such as at the Gay Pride parade, held not long ago in Valletta. While I was sitting enjoying a coffee, one of these fanatics, who does not represent the gay community in general, thrust his face very close to mine, and between blowing on his whistle, demanded to know if I was homophobic. After the fourth such experience, I told the guy to go away. At this point he pushed a compressed air horn to my ear and pulled the trigger.

The pain, which lasted for two days, was indescribable, and I admit to shrieking like a schoolgirl. These actions do nothing to bring tolerance of the gay rights movement.

I was going to suggest that their time would be better spent in visits to youth groups and others to reassure them of their feelings, in that it is how nature made them.

Merely because they were born with a slightly different chemical make-up, by an act of nature, giving them an extra hormone, gene, chromosome, oestrogen or whatever, it is nothing to be ashamed of.

My second suggestion would have been the Malta Gay Rights Movement lobby the government.

However, having heard Home Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, who would have us live as an isolated island trapped in the past, I fear that issues such as divorce, abortion or gay rights will not be discussed, and civil liberties will remain very much in the shadows.

Finally, to those who quote the Bible, I will wager that for every quote made, I can find a passage in the good book which will totally contradict it.

[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]