Depressing, and then funny...

So the first thing I have to post today is actually a bulletin on myspace. This is the second time that I run across this bulletin but it struck me as hard as it did the first time I read it, so I decided to post it here so everyone could see it.

Whether you are homosexual or not, you should repost this in support of
your friends and loved ones who are. Love is not defined by color, creed, or
gender.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore,
nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with
another woman.

I am the boy who never finished high school, because I got called a fag everyday

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt
me.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didnt have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am a warrior for my country serving proud, but can't be my true self because gays aren't allowed in the military.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends I'm a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.

I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to "teach me a lesson."

This is the boy, Matthew Shepard. On October 7, 1998 Aaron McKinney and Russell
Henderson lead him to a remote area east of Laramie where they demonstrated unimaginable acts of hate. Matthew was tied to a split-rail fence where he was
beaten and left to die in the cold of the night. Almost 18 hours later he was
found by a cyclist who initially mistook him for a scarecrow. Matthew died on
October 12 at 12:53 am at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. KILLED BECAUSE
HE WAS GAY!!!

---IF YOU BELIEVE THAT HOMOPHOBIA IS WRONG... REPOST THIS AS "HOMOPHOBIA."

---IF YOU ARE IGNORANT... IGNORE

I also added this video at the end which has nothing to do with this but which is terribly funny because of the rather depressing mood brought on by the post above.