Letter to the Editor: ‘We are your friends and neighbors’

| 10 Jun 2023 | 10:12

    Dear Editor,

    Last week, in the days before Warwick’s LGBTQ+ Pride celebration, some person or persons defaced promotional signs with defamation and slurs. I won’t repeat their messaging. Suffice it to say they repeated old, tired falsehoods about queer people that have recently regained popularity as the Republican Party seeks to distract its supporters from the fact that it has lost all direction and purpose beyond loyalty to its criminal figurehead.

    My message is to the people who chose to defame us: It’s disappointing to see political gamesmanship turn you against your community. You have lived among LGBTQ+ people your whole life. We are your friends and neighbors. We haven’t changed. The only thing that’s changed is that politicians and talking heads have told you to hate us.

    I won’t tell you your politics are wrong. I won’t attempt to convince you that these people just want power and money, and they don’t care who they hurt. If you want to, you’re free to hate the President and the Congress. But don’t direct that hate against your neighbors. This kind of political gamesmanship poisons communities. It turns us against one another, makes us suspicious and paranoid, and ruins everything that makes a place like Warwick wonderful. Demonize the President all you want, but try to remember your neighbors are human beings just like you.

    I’m a mid-40s queer man, so I remember the bad old days of the 80s and 90s. I remember the Republicans using fear of LGBTQ+ people to win reelection in the early 2000s, and I have a pretty thick skin. Pride didn’t start as a community festival that welcomed everyone; it started as a show of defiance against an establishment that told us to hate ourselves.

    We won’t hate ourselves, no matter what you write on a sign or shout at a parade. But that kind of hatred is toxic — it harms you much more than it harms us, and it harms our community more than anything. I would suggest, instead of spreading messages of hatred, you join us for a future Pride celebration. You might have some fun. At the very least you’ll be reminded that we aren’t the army of evil politicians want you to fear. We’re just people, like you, doing our best to get by.

    Thank you for considering my words,

    Christopher Keelty

    Warwick Village