To the Editor:
Re: Realities editorial July 1, 2021 (online dated June 30).
Why Pride parades? Why a Pride resource fair in Fillmore? Look no further than the mirror for your answer. A direct result of the heterosexual majority’s discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ minority.
The first Pride parade in New York was a response to repeated beatings and arrests of LGBTQIA+ people by police at the Stonewall Inn in lower Manhattan, at a time when the “cure” for LGBTQIA+ people was shock therapy, castration, and lobotomy.
You make primarily two arguments against LGBTQIA+; legal, but mostly theological.
Your legal argument attempts to redefine LGBTQIA+ advocacy as a religion for the purpose of making church-state separation arguments against their use of government facilities, public schools, etc. No. LGBTQIA+ is not a religion. No unchangeable holy book, no definition of a god, and no explanation for existence or what happens when you die. NRA, Sierra Club, US Chamber of Commerce, Coalition for Family Harmony, which offers LGBTQIA+ classes, and Fillmore's One Step A La Vez, which hosted the Pride event on the 27th, all advocacy groups, not religions.
Theology is an unreliable path to truth and morality. Thousands of different religions worldwide, 200 denominations of Christianity in the U.S. alone, all in theological conflict with each other. Catholics and Protestants cannot agree on what's true or moral.
You criticize "LGTQ group-think." Judeo-Christian group-think determined in Exodus 21:20-21 how hard we should beat our slaves (oops), Deuteronomy 25:11-12 requires a woman's hand chopped off if she interferes with two men fighting (oops), and it concluded torture and execution the punishment for anyone who dared read, what theologians deemed, a forbidden version of the Bible translated into English (oops).
You say the "fight" against LGBTQIA+ is worth "dying for." Sounds like the Islamic theology responsible for 9/11. Sacrificing yourself to kill infidels is what Allah commands, and theologically, you cannot say it is wrong or immoral, it is justified in Surah 9:5. The bloodiest behavior occurs when the pious put their theology over their humanity.
If nothing else, your screed confirms theology's core competency, defining exactly who you should hate.
If you don't want Pride parades and resource fairs, again, look no further than the mirror. As long as the pious place their theology over their humanity, asserting LGBTQIA+ people are repugnant, unnatural, abnormal, bizarre, disordered and condemned (all your words), there will be a need for advocacy.
Scott Duckett,
Fillmore

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To the Editor:
Dear members of the LGBTIQA community, the publisher of this newspaper cares about your safety, security and well-being. He asked an important question in his editorial last week: “Would the LGBT community reduce "bullying" if they avoided flaunting their often bizarre appearance?”
Clearly, the answer is “yes.” Members of the LGBT community, you can avoid bullying, taunting, name-calling, psychological abuse, abandonment, rejection, banishment, ridicule, beatings, torture, and murder, if you just tone it down. You know, act normal. It’s all up to you.
For those of you who identify as the “L word,” (I shall refrain from using the term, lest some young girl should read it here, become curious, and decide to ditch her boyfriend, get a crewcut, a tattoo, and a Harley), you should try to act more feminine. You know, wear long dresses, grow your hair out, marry a nice young man and have children, see a psychiatrist and wash down fistfuls of anti-depressants with a few gin and tonics before the Sarah and Skippy get home from school.
You guys who think you are “G,” should seek out and emulate icons of masculinity such as the Marlboro Man, Rock Hudson, and the original “G Man,” J. Edgar Hoover. If you can’t imagine marriage with a female, that’s okay, be a happy bachelor. Play the stock market. Take up golf. Wear jackets with patches on the elbows. Smoke tobacco in a pipe. Join a country club and yuck it up with the other fellows over whiskey sours and misogynistic jokes.
Above all, members of the LGBT community, live your life with purpose, and your purpose should be to avoid making the normal (i.e. white, heterosexual) people feel uncomfortable. Remember, conformity equals freedom, individuality equals deviancy, and some of us are more equal than others.
Art Sandford Sr.,
Fillmore, Ca