Don't tell the rainbow police I'm gay - Chap 2

I wouldn't wish the fear and thoughts of knowing that someone in your family is homosexual. I sat there through out the week in my classes, feeling as if nothing was going right. The teachers didn't seem to notice too much as I worked harder than I had before on my studies. I couldn't seem to talk without feeling as if I was going to choke on my words.1

Friday rolled around, it was also the day of the week that most everyone used to purify their souls. It was when like in the old catholic religion, we were given the chance to tell our spiritual leaders all the sins that weighed heavily on our hearts. I wondered if anyone else had a confessions as hard as mine or Luke's? Of course I would never tell a holy man. It was something that would get us all thrown out beyond the walls that protected us.2

I was very much an enemy from society as my own brother. It was so, from the fact that most people when harboring homosexuals back when they were cleaning them out, were very much seen as homosexuals themselves. The history book told us that these people where shipped out along with the other heretics of the time. I somehow started to believe that they weren't simply shipped out. The world around us was shut off to us, they didn't really have anywhere else to go. I felt as if those people probably were killed. 3

I looked up at the picture of our leader, the gleam in his eyes told me that he was a cold individual, but something in that smile of his didn't seem right. I felt cold all the sudden, the truths that I had felt crashing in on me made my heart hurt. It could mean death for Luke and I. I could actually be used as a sacrifice, or even as a lesson for the other people in this town. I knew that most of the people were used as massive examples in the purification.4

I remember watching videos as a child, the only remaining videos from that time. These messages weren't allowed to be shown to the mass now, I was given bits of the truth from it. I didn't know why my parents had kept them in the house hidden, I just remember watching as children my age were taken onto a bus. The bus was filled with people that looked like everyone else. That had fear just like everyone else, they felt just like everyone else. There only crime was the fact that they were homosexual. 5

They were taken onto the bus, and forced to look at their neighbors. The children didn't have much else to do with anything with what sexuality of the people on the bus. The fact they had been raised around homosexuality, to be seen as normal. It had been explained on the video, that they were much too exposed to the degrading life style of homosexuality. 6

Therefore, they couldn't possibly be retrained to know what it is to be raised the straight way. They were just as damned as the people that had supported or chosen the life style. The look on those people's faces haunted me, I had only been 7 years old but I understood what it was like to fear your fate. My mother had come in to discover me watching the videos, and had taken the video out of the player violently.7

She had almost broken the player if she hadn't of thought of the money put into that type of technology. She had thrust the tape away, and almost beat me to the point of death if it hadn't been for my Dad walking in on it. I had been practically lifeless by then, and my father saw it as justification for me looking at forbidden films. The videos had been hidden in another spot, that I had discovered 3 years later when looking for one of my old dolls to give away. 8

I had almost wanted to watch the videos again, but the reminder of how many bruises, cuts, and broken bones my mom could give me was still imprinted on my mind. It had taken a full month for me to recover enough to even go outside, my parents had forced me to say I had fallen down the stairs while chasing a ball. The people for the most part bought the lie, only my brother knew the truth and he had almost tried to kill both our parents. I still feared the weakness of my legs because of that day and even wore a scar up my right calf. 9

The beating I had received from my mother, would be nothing compared to what anyone else could do. I imagined, that things would be a whole lot more painful not only physically but all the way around. I knew that it would start out psychologically, because the last person who had finally been found out to be homosexual had been about two grades above me.10

First it started out with every girl, forcing her out of groups and not allowing her to sit with anyone. Then it went to them taking things from her, and making her do things she didn't want to do. Finally, it went to the teachers allowing them to hit her. Then it went to her getting pulled out of school, and put into jail. The last stage was her sitting in the courtroom as they read out her sentence of being guilty. She had been forced to walk out of the town with nothing but the clothes on her back.11

I remembered how she had started out as a girl that didn't have much to lose. She had been very pretty, and in fact most of the boys in school admired her. The girls all seemed to want to be her friend and always seemed to love her. When she came out, she started losing weight becoming more frail looking, and by the end of it all it seemed like she was walking on dead weight. When she had walked out of town, it seemed to pain her more to walk then it did to let people spit in her face.12

I remember watching her be escorted as her parents watched, her father had stood solemn as if she had never been his daughter. Where as her mother, could barely stand and had later been committed to a hospital were she died from heartache. Her name had been Magdalena, or Maggie for short. No one ever spoke of her, except in whispers as to warn those that wished the same fate. Maggie had only had to walk out of town, what happened after that walk was anyone's guess.13

I didn't think that my brother and I, would just get the walk out of town with escorts. We were children of the board, more than likely we would be crucified as examples. The fear of being put up on a cross didn't bother me, when I knew I would be doing it for the right reason. It actually seemed fitting in a way, and I almost would feel honored to die the same way as Jesus. I wasn't scared of dying, I was scared of my brother dying and me getting left behind. 14

I couldn't bare to be seen as a purification example, nor my brother. We thought like everyone else, we felt just like anyone else, and somehow everyone had forgotten that humanity was what God had intended as a pure of heart. God had intended us to love one another despite the differences, God had wanted us to reach across boundaries. God had wanted us to be brothers and sisters, actual brothers and sisters. God had intended for us to be a race of people in his image. Instead we were a fearful people, that jumped at any notice of indifference. We hated what we couldn't explain, and yet we couldn't explain God.15

We were constant hypocrites, and we didn't even know it. How could God make such a people? Why did God give us free will and hearts, when they were were so easily controlled or broken? Even if Friday meant purify your soul, it also meant to think about what God had to say to us. What he was saying to me, is that different or not he loved his hypocrites for people. He loved them, despite how impure and imperfect they were. Why didn't we all realize that? Why didn't we get the most basic lesson?16

I thought because we had to put those boundaries on love to understand, and yet God wasn't meant to be understood. He was meant to guide us, be there and to let us go with the flow. Yet, we intended to put him in a box, and map out what he was to do or say. It was a laugh to know that we were trying to control God, and how much we were going to pay for it in the end too. I could feel it, we would pay for it or I would pay for learning a lesson that no one else but my brother in this society could. I just didn't know, if I was ready to pay with my own blood or my brothers just yet.17