Why I'm writing this

Yesterday I was having a hard time writing. For the first time since I began the final push towards completing the first draft, I didn't write 1000 words. In fact, I wrote hardly anything at all.

You see, I'd forgotten why I'm writing Shades of Gay. I'm writing it just to write it or just to make money or even just to have a published book. I'm writing it to draw my line in the sand, to squarely face off all those who insist on judging homosexuality, who insist on accusing good people of being "deceived" and being aligned with Satan, who insist on throwing their hurtful words and sometimes more around and don't give a fuck who they hurt.

I'm writing Shades of Gay to say this is going to stop. I have a good friend who I have seen suffer so much and so undeservedly because of hir sexual orientation. 30% of GLBT youth commit suicide every year because, like my friend, they can't make themselves be straight like the people around them think they ought to be. 30%. According to the Talmud, whoever saves one life saves the world entire and yet we are allowing 30% of our youth to die in the name of I don't know what. Religious people would say G-d, but the G-d I worship doesn't encourage people to live short, miserable lives and die at their own hands.
Sadder yet, knowing this will not change the minds of those people who believe that homosexuality is a sin that they ought to help rid the world of. They'll just say, "The wages of sin are death," as if that somehow makes all this wasted life okay. It makes me wonder what G-d they serve and what they really believe. It certainly isn't the G-d I'm familiar with.

So I'm going to say this one last time: stop being so careless with your judgments. Sit at a distance and judge if you want, but keep it to yourself. Better yet, before you judge, hold your best friend in your arms and pray that it's enough to stop him/her from kill hirself. Then tell me that the wages of sin are death and that if an LGBT person kills hirself it's no loss.

While you're doing that, I'll be writing Shades of Gay.