Speak Compassion

Here is the text of an email I have sent to Sally Kern, the Oklahoma Rep in the in video.

Representative Kern,

I heard your speech attached to the YouTube video regarding gays and lesbians.  I can hear in the video, your pain and fear around the exposure to gays and lesbians in our schools.   I can hear your frustration with the city council where several of the members of gay or lesbian.   I believe if I heard you correctly, that you anguish over having a Gay Straight Alliance come to your school.   I hear your need to protect the country, children and yourself from the threat you find with gays and lesbians.   I admire your passion and conviction to stand up for your beliefs.

I have to say when I heard your speech, I felt dismayed.  I have a need to be seen authentically and accurately and I am not confident that you see me or people like me in that way.  In my younger days, I would feel such anger and hostility at hearing a speech like yours, but as I have gotten older I try to hear your needs and feelings.  I am realizing that learning about others fears is more of a gift.    I want so much to connect with the reasons you would see gays and lesbians the way you do.  I would love for you to experience gays and lesbians in a different way.    I am sure that you are getting all sorts of emails and letters right now that contain the anger and hostility.  Please know that I feel great disappointment knowing some don’t know how to reach out, so they in turn, lash out.   I am always hoping we start teaching people better conflict management, but so far MTV teaches them to lash out.

I could spend a lifetime trying to convince you, gays and lesbians don’t indoctrinate youth and that the gay agenda is really about the safety and wellbeing of gay people, but I sense that you may not be in a place where you would hear me.  Either way, I invite you to Rhode Island to spend some time with my partner, me and some of our friends.   I would love for you to learn about us.   I would love for you to see the gay agenda for yourself and see that it has very real families and people attached to it.   It is not a vast conspiracy but a word that has real lives attached to it.   My partner holds a PhD in community health and I work in mental health training and advocacy.   We would feel delighted to have you in our home to meet our friends and see our lives. (I must warn you our life is pretty boring)

I feel grateful you have expressed your needs and fears to the world as you did in this meeting.   It again reminds me how many people out there have not experienced gays and lesbians as we are, but as we have been portrayed by right wing organizations.   Please feel free to contact me at (xxx) xxx-xxxx or via email at joebrummer@joebrummer.com.

Sincerely and in Peace,

Joe Brummer