I came to this blog via Chrys Stevenson’s fb.

Funnily enough you have the same name as my ( now deceased) brother in law. He suffered for years the slings and arrows of vilification, hatred, bullying and confusion before succombing to an AIDS related illness in 1997. He fell in love many times and wanted so much to live an accepted life.
When Gregory died his mother said to me; “Don’t ever mention what he died of, you hear me? He died of CANCER!”

I had spoken to Gregory about his life and about his nephew and nieces ( my children) and their open acceptance and love of him. He was proud they were not afraid and showed by example how much they loved him by lots of hugs and kisses.

And now that one of my nephews has ‘come out’ I am again motivated to sign petitions, write on blogs, write to politicians and talk to friends about the importance of marriage equality. I don’t want to call it ‘gay marriage’ coz that delineates it from being ‘equal’. I don’t want ‘civil union’ or anything else as I see the cause as being the equivalent as that which women have fought for for so long in equality for the vote, ownership of property, rights to their own bodies, equal pay etc.

Thank you for this well written, heart felt and open piece.

We are out here, Gregory, working quietly, persistently and with passion against the religious and their twisted judgements, hosing down one by one their stupid and dangerous calls by these bible-wielding bigots to dimiss and vilify our brothers and sisters who have yet to be given full equality of all our citizenry.

Best wishes fly to you and Michael.
Alison

I just wanted to say that as the mother of same-sex attracted young people, I sincerely sympathise with your situation. To that end, I created a little FB group where I am trying to do my wee bit to show support for LGBTI friends and family. That’s how I found you, actually. One of our members posted a link to your blog. You can find our group here if you’d like to take a peek. https://www.facebook.com/groups/101289996590859/ I use FB to gather information about campaigns I can be involved in, applying pressure to politicians to change discriminatory legislation, and showing I straight friends that I am standing proudly beside my LGBTI loved ones. It’s a small thing but it feels important to use my voice anyway.

As it happens, I’m also a former Christian fundamentalist. Not so many years ago, I would have believed the verses about abomination you mention above and not given a thought to how that may have harmed real people. My children’s journeys of discovering their sexuality were a part of what helped me begin to see that the Bible and I were no longer compatible.

Actually, I finally came out as an apostate last night. If you’d like to see how Christians feel about that, you could take a look at my most recent blog post and read the comments underneath. When you poke bible-believing Christians’ confidence in the Scriptures even quite gently, they fly to attack formation. I think I’m about to get a taste of how it feels to be the attackee. Not so comfortable as when I sided with the Bible perhaps.

Anyway, thank you for this post. All the best to you and Michael.

Jane

http://allthewayout.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/the-righter-you-get-it/

My email to you clearly sets out WHY I thought censorship had occurred, and why I was thus so disappointed. There is no point in repeating it here.

g.

See how easy it is to censor when you have your own site/blog?

“Stupid, hateful comments are permitted so that the rest of the online community can pull them to shreds.”

Don’t do that. Please.

Don’t use others, as ‘you’ (gay community) have been used. That rationale is dependent on being allowed to disagree. (And Young has used much the same argument in his ABC interview BTW).

There has to be a graveyard somewhere that is littered with the ‘bodies’ of those moderates who have been banned (as myself) or withdrawn in disgust from OLO.

If anything it is the other way around. I am convinced that some articles are allowed because Young knows they will take a hammering from what is undoubtedly a central core of OLO stalwarts (the same names appear again and again) who run unchecked on OLO. Moderates that remain there have to accept that these same stalwarts will turn on them. Moderates WITHOUT DOUBT know that THEY must be careful in what they write; how they respond…

(Interestingly, though Young does not admit it, he has taken some steps to curb one? a couple if? his more radical core. It has been like smacking a spoiled brat! They cannot believe it, and are mightily annoyed! Far too little; and too late).