It is all about compassion - by Max Disposti

INSIGHTS - by Max Disposti of Oceanside

COMMUNITY FORUM: It is all about compassion

By Max Disposti -- North County LGBT Coalition
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Article Source NORTH COUNTY TIMES

In the past few weeks, many words have been written over the passing of Prop. 8, and whatever your feelings are on this matter, we can all agree that this debate is nothing like anything else we have witnessed in the past.

One thing, though, that many seem to have forgotten during the whole campaign is how stereotyping can turn into prejudice and discrimination, and how words of hate can easily turn into actions.

In a country where sexual orientation is the No. 3 cause on the hate crimes list, in a place where love, compassion and tolerance are so much needed to put a margin to the violence in our schools and neighborhoods, in a time where bullies still feel it is legitimate to pick their next victim based on the color of their skin or perceived sexual orientation, the words of John Cusumano of Escondido in his letter "Homosexual Radicalism" echo as a rumble of war.

His words are a reminder of how much education is still needed in our community to defeat the physical and psychological violence that we have to endure every day in our lives.

As if the hundreds of years of persecutions and discriminations were not enough, as if the Holocaust and the concentration camps for gays and lesbians have never existed, as if our struggle for a better and equal world will not benefit even people like Mr. Cusumano. His remarkably offensive words have reached far behind the LGBT community; they are a violent attack on all of our freedoms and a disgrace to anyone of intelligence and common sense.


NOTE: Read the letter by Mr. Cusimano at the end of this page

"Sexual deviancy," "perverted sexual inclinations," "perversion of love," "sexual predator" ---- it does not surprise me that Mr. Cusumano believes that we already have our civil rights, just because in his mind, it is already a privilege for us to be alive.

If this is not hate, an expression of intolerance and an attempt to justify violence against us by comparing our love to the sexual abuse of the innocents, then this society needs to redefine not only marriage and the Constitution but also the true meaning of love, and outright teach our children that with discrimination and hate, in some cases, we can allow some exceptions.

With so much indifference, passivity and ignorance even from our local institutions that are still too shy to take a stand to support all diversities, or to engage in an educational program to prevent the harmful consequences of this kind of reasoning in our society, I am really surprised that someone has not yet knocked at my door to put an end to my love for my husband, which Mr. Cusumano has asked you not to mistake for real love.

Associating our love for our families and kids with a pedophilic act is the product of a sick mind that is also really far from the truth. Sexual predators and pedophiles are, by an impressive majority, heterosexual men ---- perhaps as "normal" as those crusading from their computers against our "sexual perversions" and "social deviances."

Max Disposti is the chairman of the North County LGBT Coalition.


Dec 9, 2008
Letter to the editor - North County Times
by John Cusimano
Article Source NC TIMES

Homosexual radicalism



Proposition 8 had nothing to do with preventing people from loving each other. It had everything to do with preventing our legal institutions from recognizing sexual deviancy as love. Now we are being threatened daily by the hate that comes from this love of sexual devia

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