Dear Editor,
In April Elmhurst College will be hosting a presentation by a crude-mouthed, hate-mongering, heterophobic bigot named Dan Savage. This is an embarrassment to the whole west suburban area. Elmhurst College should cancel this degrading travesty.
Homosexuals and their misguided straight supporters have turned reality upside down when it comes to homosexuality. Someday people are going to look back at these weird times and wonder how pro-homosexual people got away with offending people of color by comparing them to people who voluntarily engage in sexually aberrant behavior. There simply is no valid comparison between blacks and heterophobic people who voluntarily engage in homosexual behavior.
They’ll also wonder how pro-homosexual people got away with comparing physiologically unnatural behavior which has negative health consequences to physiologically natural heterosexual behavior. For example, male homosexuals have an above normal anal cancer rate and lesbians have an above normal breast cancer rate.
They’ll also wonder how pro-homosexual people could label decent, moral people logically opposed to so-called “gay rights” (sad wrongs) as bigots, especially when it is pro-homosexual people who offend blacks with bogus comparisons and who offend people who adhere to reasonable moral values. Where does the true bigotry lie?
They’ll wonder how pro-homosexual people could actually think they are progressive, when they want to take us back thousands of years to Sodom.
Prior to 1973, the American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality to be a disorder. The APA had reasons for deeming it so, which reasons are still valid today. (If you read the book Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis by Dr. Ronald Bayer, you’ll read about how the APA’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of disorders was NOT based on science. The APA caved in to severe pressure put on it by radical homosexual activists, who, back in 1973, totally disrupted numerous APA meetings and threatened APA members.)
And really, how is a homosexual mind in a heterosexual body NOT a disorder? It’s not much different from a female mind in a male body, which is clearly a disorder. In both cases, it’s pretty obvious that something went wrong somewhere, in either nature and/or nurture
Thinking people have known for centuries that homosexual activity is immoral and a bad legal precedent. There are other abnormal, consenting-adult sexual minorities (currently “discriminated” against by homosexual groups who aren’t fighting for their “rights”) waiting in the wings for their “rights” too; for example, consenting-adult incestuous people, exhibitionists, etc. Let’s stop the normalization of deviancy. Indeed, we need to undo the damage already done.
Wayne Lela
Woodridge resident
You sir, are a fucking moron.
Thank you for the mature response. The educational system is working.
Oh hey Wayne,
You didn’t respond to everyone did you run out of smart remarks? Did you think you could compete with a college full of liberally educated students? Did you actually have a reason why Dan Savage shouldn’t speak? Do you like teen suicide Wayne? Because you’re one of the reasons kids feel they cannot live in this world full of hate. They can’t help how they feel, they’re not confused or stupid, they’re not taking us back to the dark ages. I volunteer with teens who are LGBTQ and they are some of the most amazing kids I have met. They have day in and day out faced people like you and still come to our volunteer organization with their heads held high. I know they realize they’re lucky to have a place to go to talk about what happens to them in this world of ours.
What about those kids who don’t? When you spread messages of hate, and falsehoods you create a hostile place for the kids I care so much about, the community I admire for standing firm despite people like you. The education system did work Wayne, it made us believers in supporting every color,race,class,orientation and by telling you you’re words I won’t reuse someone was just expressing their disgust with your blind hatred. Read a book Wayne, get a degree, find something better to do than to hate on people. Since you can spout off a bunch of random crap and get published maybe I can say most people who fear and hate homosexuals to the point of using fake words like herterophobic are closet homosexuals. Have you seen American Beauty Wayne?
I freely declare the students of Elmhurst college the winner in this arguement. We are taught acceptance, not hate, not tolerance, acceptance. We lead by example and we will continue to lead with our example. When you have an education or are a doctorate in something worthwhile write us again, I’m sure we’ll have more to say, hell maybe the comments toward you will be civilized but you sure didn’t deserve some of the respect even I’ve shown you as I respectfully disagree with you. I hope you find yourself Wayne, find your way in the world and find something better to do with your time then to spout off hate and lies. Try knitting, I hear it works wonders for anger.
Lady, I’m not sure what you are talking about or where you are getting your information. Lesbians most CERTAINLY do NOT have higher rates of breast cancer. That is fear-mongering at it’s finest. This is one of the most offensive things I have EVER read. If you don’t want Dan Savage to speak, fine, whatever. But stop trying to humiliate an entire group of people for no reason except that you hate them. That is certainly clear.
If you google “Top Ten Things Lesbians Should Discuss With Their Health Care Providers” you will get links to a document from the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association which confirms the high lesbian breast cancer rate. But of course the gay and lesbian doctors who belong to the GLMA must be homophobes.
It is refreshing, and encouraging that truth is still spoken. Lies are spread easily, truth takes courage. I commend you Wayne for your courage and your willingness to speak truth, and speak it with conviction.
I hope you don’t attend our school Evan. I really truely hope you don’t. If you do you better read the college mission statement again, and consider where you’re getting an education. Elmhurst is a college campus of respect and acceptance. Lies are spread easily, and its sad you fell for Wayne’s hate mongering and lies.
Bruce Bagemihl published “Biological Exuberance”, which is a conglomeration of observations of “non-human animals partaking in non-heteronormative sexual behaviors”. For instance, “researchers have observed that up to 12 percent of pairs were homosexual in populations of Branta candensis”, or the Canadian Goose. These relations do not seem to be caused in part because of lack of potential mates, as in a specific example where:
“a male harassed a female who was part of a long lasting lesbian pair and separated her from her companion, mating with her. However, the next year, she returned to her female partner and their pair bond resumed”.
Other examples: red squirrels are seasonally bisexual, male boto dolphins have been observed to partake in homosexual relations, and even giraffes, warthogs and hummingbirds exhibit these behaviors.
Maybe you even heard of the two male chin strap penguins from the New York Central Park Zoo, a homosexual couplet, who were given an egg that needed to be hatched, and they successfully raised it together.
I don’t think that 12% geese or other animals happened to just eat something and suddenly turn homosexual, and I don’t think that alternative sexualities are disorders, when they are occurring naturally in animal populations, as well as in our own.
Get the facts, buddy.
There are many things wrong here.
Lets begin with cancer. Being an individual of homosexual orientation DOES NOT lead to cancer of any kind. There is simply no scientific, reviewed proof of this. Further, there are not any biological models specific to how the habits of homosexual individuals lead to DNA damage/mutation causing rapid and uncontrollable cell proliferation (this is what “cancer” actually is). I have done scientific work in the field of cancer and immunology for the past three years and have never come across such a finding (it just doesn’t make sense).
Lets move to the APA argument. It is true that the APA did list homosexuality as an Axis II personality disorder in 1973. They later rescinded it not by threat but because they found many confounding variables in terming it a disorder. The term disorder describes a condition that causes distress to an individual’s everyday functioning life and is not congruent even with the author’s biased definition of a homosexual individual. One cannot simply say that homosexuality is a male’s mind in a female body and vice versa and call it a disorder. It is more a matter of preference. What is more disturbing, and something that I will not delve into is the discussion of “rights” and how one does not have a right if they are homosexual, or taking it even the author’s point of view, have a mental disorder. Even if homosexuality is described as a mental disorder (which it will never be) are we then saying that those with mental disorders forfeit their basic rights?
Lastly, and my most favorite argument, is the discussion of bigotry. I find this article to be a model of hypocrisy in this essence. I have suggested above that the author is severely misinformed and skews biological information with misinformation and US history with conspiracy. At the point where he continues to recant misinformation one can only assume that he is merely prejudiced against homosexual individuals and is intolerant to any other view than his own–the definition of bigotry. If anything, this article exemplifies the type of oppressive mindset and prejudice we must do away with.
Since you are claiming that homosexuality is aberrant and deviant, and also claim that people against homosexuality are moral, I am going to combine this into one. You are claiming that homosexuality is immoral. Since you are claiming something is immoral, the burden of proof is on you.
I think it would be significantly difficult to argue that homosexual behavior is physiologically unnatural. The urges and drives are not different from heterosexual urges and drives, they simply apply to the same sex. They are as natural as any other urge, and homosexuals are acting in accordance with this natural urge. Since you are appealing to nature to support the claim that homosexuality is immoral, I might remind you that not only is homosexual behavior documented in many species (and so it is certainly natural), what is natural is also not a good indicator of what is morally right.
In other words, you cannot simply appeal to nature to deduce that homosexuality is immoral, and even if you did, both heterosexuality and homosexuality are common in nature and manifest in these individuals naturally. You will need to find another route to support anti-homosexual conclusions, you cannot simply appeal to a sense of what is natural.
Secondly, choosing to live next to a power plant may increase radiation levels, and thus create adverse health consequences, but it’d be difficult to argue that the act of living next to a coal plant is immoral simply because of the adverse health consequences. So even if you were correct that homosexual sex increases the risk of health problems, you would still be hard pressed to argue that anything that causes health problems is immoral. (Your choice to live in America and live the American lifestyle may statistically correlate to high risk of heart disease and cancer, but I would not say you are immoral for choosing to live in America instead of somewhere with less risks.)
Again, you need another path toward anti-homosexual conclusions, as you cannot simply state that behavior or choice that has negative health benefits compared to something else is necessarily immoral. Otherwise, every time someone ate at a fast food restaurant, they would be doing something immoral.
While I disagree that homosexuality is a disorder, even if it were, how exactly would that prove your point? You would be no different from bullying someone diagnosed with any disorder and claiming that their actions are immoral due to something that’s of no fault of their own. It’s as if you would be going up to people diagnosed with a permanent depression and telling them they are immoral because they act sad. That would be bullying.
For a third time, you need to find another road to support anti-homosexual conclusions, as bullying (if it hypothetically were a disorder) or appealing to what people 50 years ago thought was a disorder does not necessarily make something immoral.
People had thought for centuries that it was immoral for a woman to speak her mind or hold any authority over any men, that it defied either God’s will or nature, and as such created terrible legal precedents (like women not being able to own property). If you are arguing that simply because something was thought to be immoral for centuries, it will always be immoral, then I do believe you are merely repeating an argument that has already been used countless times and is always demonstrated to be unsound. And so you will need to find another avenue to support anti-homosexual conclusions.
The slippery slope at the end is already a fallacy and needs no explanation. You also can’t simply argue that because homosexuals have an opinion on something else, homosexuality is immoral. Find another path, this one is blocked.
According to The Bible, Sodom was destroyed for being inhospitable, not for having what modern homosexual relationships are understood to be. Alternatively, since the interpretation that Sodom was destroyed for having consensual homosexual relationships in it is debatable, you are simply choosing the interpretation that fits an anti-homosexual worldview and holding it as solid evidence instead of any of the other interpretations. Find another path.
Finally, while gays face less discrimination than minorities faced in the past, there still exists a significant amount of hate that leads to people killing homosexuals simply because they exist. The lack of understanding of homosexuals in the past lead to the death of Alan Turing, one of the most important mathematicians and computer scientists to have ever existed, not to mention many others who had to hide their identity in fear. And he is not the only one to have suffered and died at the hands of anti-homosexual prejudice. There still exists a large number of people who live in fear perpetrated by anti-homosexual sentiment, who are told they are hellbound and hated because of the they are wired. They may not face the same discrimination minorities face and faced, but they certainly have valid parallels to draw as far as how prejudice affects their lives, or outright leads to them being murdered.
I guess that cuts off your final pathway to anti-homosexuality. If I missed any, feel free to give me another chance to set up more road blocks. Or try to take new roads, I’m sure I can block them too.
Since you have not successfully laid down any argument that homosexuality is immoral, I cannot find your morals to be reasonable. The fervor with which you attack homosexuals and their supporters has no compassion nor love, and so I also cannot support the conclusion that you could possibly speak for anyone with logical or decent morals.
Finally, I encourage you to read an article called “I’m Christian, unless you’re gay,” as I hope it will help you understand how loving one another is so much more important than all these disconnected, ill-posed rationalizations with which you justify turning against your own neighbors.
Thanks. <3
Evan you are a fucking prick. I am gay. Im not a flaming homosexual bc I hate flaming gays it gives the rest of us a bad image. And it not like i just woke up one mother f**king day and decided yeah I’m going to be gay. When is that you decided you were going to be straight oh yeah i forgot you didn’t now stop your ignorance and live with it just the same as i have to live with people like you. how would you feel if you heterosexual people were the minority and gay people thought u guys were weird for being hetero?
Dan Savage is going to be in town! Oh, fantastic! I’ll put that right on my calendar and spread it around. This is friggin awesome!
Lies and fear mongering take courage? That is a news to me. I am sad more than I am outraged that someone can hold such a hate in their heart. I believe this person is entitled to their opinion but some of it should be based in the realm of reality. I.E the DSM didn’t remove gay as a diagnosis via threats. Breast cancer rates aren’t statistically significant between lesbians and straight women. We aren’t heterophobic and that isn’t a real word. However my point is I am sad for you sir, that there is such a hate in your heart. I respectfully disagree with your point of view but I cannot say you are wrong because America was indeed built on freedoms and your opinion is something you are entitled to. I want to know however, because of who I am, am I entitled to mine or am I a second class citizen to you?
This is unbelievable. How can there be people in the world who still think like this? Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, and this is a country where discourse is allowed and should be encouraged–but I think your opinion, Wayne, is a dangerous one. I agree with a commenter before me that this is one of the most offensive and hate-filled things I’ve ever read.
Wayne, have you ever actually talked to a gay person? They’re really not all that different from the rest of us. I bet you actually know a few of them without even knowing it. It’s not like they’ve got horns or anything. They live life just like the rest of us, Wayne. They go to work, pay their taxes, and complain about gas prices too. Because they’re people. Homosexuals are people too. And they, like African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, just want to be accepted into society for who and what they are.
I’ll pray for you and people like you, Wayne.
Hello,
I am a student of Elmhurst College.
You are not.
Please do not assume that the entire student body is going to cancel plans to revolve around your personal belief structure. It, as a student body, does not go to your house and tell you or your family what to do or how to think. We do not think that our belief structure in any way dictates what you do in your place of business or in your home or with people with which you choose to associate.
Furthermore, though Elmhurst College is very open to all sorts of beliefs and religions– well, need I say more? The campus is very friendly to everyone. Discriminating against anyone is wrong. However, we are not discriminating against you or your beliefs. You by no means have to attend this event. We are not harming anyone by engaging with Mr.Savage.
And if you choose to express these ‘concerns’ anyways, please get your facts straight at the very least, please.
More importantly, you do not have to come to my school if you do not like the activities happening there. It has no affect on you if you do not attend. So if it bothers you, do not go. Furthermore, I do not go to your house/work/whatever and say “don’t bring so and so” there because I do not like them or I disagree with their views. I sincerely doubt you would like it very much if someone told you who you should and should not engage with. You are a grown man. Likewise, we are all adults at this campus that have the capacity to deem what we think is right and wrong and whom we wish to have alliances, friendships, and relationships with.
Elmhurst College’s faculty and student body are more than capable of making mature judgement calls pertaining to its guests it allows to come speak at it. Therefore, though you may have concerns I implore you not to. We’re very comfortable with the decision we’re making by letting Mr.Savage come speak to us.
Thank you for your time,
Mikayla Matz
I don’t know what to say to this. I have so many things I COULD say to this…but none of them can properly convey my disgust of the purely hate-driven, vile, and contemptible, factually incorrect diatribe that I’ve just read. I really had to force myself to continue reading. The author of this letter is a truly horrible human being.
Frankly, I am surprised to see something so full of self-righteous arrogance (and outright falsehoods) coming out of a campus that is very dear to my heart. And while I do not agree with your anti-gay message, I only hope that one day you will see that your intolerant beliefs are what propagate the suffering and pain of millions of GLBT people around the world.
As someone once said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”.
And further, you did not state any viable reasons for Mr.Savage’s appearance to be cancelled. Instead you resort to name-calling in your opening sentence. Surely a liberal-arts educated student can do better.
Kudos to The Leader for publishing this man’s letter. Though I personally find his views reprehensible, NOT publishing it would add fuel to the fire of his thinking that everyone is brainwashed by pro-gay agendas, refusing to publish his viewpoint.
Dan Savage has led the successful “It Gets Better” project which hopefully helps young adults facing people like Mr. Lela gain perspective and move past his hateful words and ideas. Speaking of his hateful words and ideas…
http://www.home60515.com/
http://chicagomaroon.com/2007/04/03/students-picket-anti-gay-protesters/
(I would love to know if he accepted the invitation to come back and speak with this group)
https://sites.google.com/site/wnlela/apa
http://instinctmagazine.com/tag=wayne-lela
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2012/01/19/why-is-andrew-sullivan-so-dumb/
Dear Wayne,
Dan Savage helps kids who are going through a tough time. He does it through love. Whether he has a foul mouth or not is pointless. He knows full-well that he’s going to be speaking on an ELCA based campus, and he also knows that Elmhurst is one of the most conservative suburbs north of Chicago. What makes you think he’s going to be blatantly crude just to enrage morons like you?
Furthermore, the “It Gets Better” project has not only shown a strong support system for the LGBT community, but it also has funding from stronger individuals than you. Let’s be honest here, do you really think you can do better with a support system against the LGBT community with a project like, say…”It’s a Disorder”?
Plus, you speak about progressive behavior by homosexuals like it’s a step backwards. What you need to realize is that what you are saying, in your letter, right now, has set back equality in America by at least 30 years. The sheer audacity that you can slap some facts together, without any coherent thesis or approach, tells me that you had no plans in being thoughtful or insightful, but prejudiced and irresponsible in your message.
The last thing I should point out is I have no intention of arguing with you about whether you are heard over me or not. I don’t care if you get pissed off or, for lack of a better term, ‘disorderly’, because you don’t seem the intelligent type who would come back at me with something intelligent to say.
So, in conclusion, do us all a favor and keep yourself away from Elmhurst College when this happens. Your homophobia might get me sick.
Michael Gardner
PS: Evan, if you seriously think this guy is courageous, then you should see how many people go through the terrifying ordeal of coming out to the world. They speak the truth, and you are obviously mislead.
I’m from Seattle. I like Dan Savage. I’m proud of him. I bet there are lots of civilized people at Elmhurst who think ‘people of color’ are just normal people, just like the GLBTQ community. What’s immoral is to ostracize whole segments of society because your imaginary friend doesn’t like them.
Max
As a current Elmhurst student, Mr. Lela, I pray for you.
I pray that you’ll find light in the corner of darkness you so disturbingly paint in your letter.
I pray that God will replace the fear, anger and brokenness within you with understanding.
I am gay. And a child of God. And a Bluejay.