2 Cents Blog and Review

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Hop Against Homophobia!


Greetings Loved Ones and Welcome to the Hop Against Homophobia!

There are over 200 M/M Authors involved in showing our support against homophobia and over the next few days in blogs across the web we are talking about our personal fights against homophobia and our support for equality for GLBTQ.

I like many others will be offering a prize for visiting my blog during the HOP. I’ll be giving away 3 of my ebooks, winners chooses the title. All you have to do is comment on my page at the end of the blog to be registered for a copy. The winners will be chosen at random at the end of the hop. Please be sure to include your contact email in the body of the message if you wish to be included in the drawing.

Homophobia is an illogical and hard to understand hatred for me. I can’t say I’ve ever really hated anyone for any reason, at least the kind of hatred that would make someone physically violent. I abhor violence. I’ve had many friends-gay, straight and lesbian-over the years, and met many people in the different places I’ve lived. My feelings for them, those of friendship or dislike, develop because of who they were as people not because of sexual orientation, race, religion or even political party.

I grew up in a small white rural conservative catholic republican community of about 2000 people. To say the words ‘Closed Minded’ is truly putting it lightly. Hatred, be it racial, religious, sexist or whatever only happened on TV. Bullying on the other hand was alive and well, running rampant in the town as the ‘haves’ vs the ‘have nots’ among adults and children alike butted heads in the schools, church and the community in general.

To this day, even having been brought up in such a conservative community, I feel fortunate. My parents, now in their upper 80’s have little or no understanding of other cultures, other than what they see on TV. To give you an idea, my parents still watch reruns of ‘The Laurence Welk show’ on PBS. My father’s favorite past time is watching golf and he refers to anyone not white as a foreigner, even if they are from the US. Still I learned the importance of morality, honesty, and the importance of using good judgment and common sense from these sheltered loving people.

Hatred, whatever form and wherever it stems from, is a choice. People chose to hate. It isn’t something we are born with. We can chose not to hate, not to give in to our ignorance. For where else would such an illogical hatred come from. To me homophobia is as foreign a concept as racism. I don’t understand that hatred either. People are different, and Thank God! If we were all running around looking exactly the same, doing the same thing, believing the same thing, wanting the same things—what a bunch of lemmings we would be. Differences are to be celebrated not feared. Each person on this planet deserves to live their lives without fear of others hating them for something they cannot or even choose not to change, be it religious beliefs, race, height, weight, sex, political view, or dare I say it sexual orientation.

If you don’t like my sexual orientation, religion, race, color of my hair, tattoos or whatever. You have the right to ‘not like it’. You don’t have the right to force me to change because I have just as much a right to be myself as you do. In these days of the new millennium, because I’m a child of the old millennium — I remember our family getting our first color television, rotary telephones, record players, playing outside with friends in the neighborhood until Mom called us-by hollering at the top of her lungs-for us to come in — wouldn’t it be wonderful to be open minded so when history is written we can all say… Yes and at the turn of the century homophobia was abolished from the human condition and humanity went forward with an open mind.

Now for the fun stuff… Just a note on what’s happening in my corner.

Nico’s Fire just released. It’s the second book in the Elements of Love series. You can take a look at the blurb and excerpt from the book by clicking on the page marked Elements of Love on the right. It will give you information about that book and any of my other titles and works in progress, which are listed there and are available for sale from Silver Publishing or Dreamspinner Press.

Don’t forget to leave a comment and your contact information if you wish to participate in the give away and visit the other authors participating in the hop for more chances to win at their sites! Just click on the Hop against Homophobia pic and it will take you to the site showing all the participating authors! Please support the fight against Homophobia. Together we can make a difference and stop the hatred. J

Wishing you Love and Butterflies,
Sui Lynn~~

28 comments:

  1. This is such a great cause. Hope it opens some minds. nlerickson@aol.com

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  2. I totally agree that homophopia is illocical. Why is it that others care so much about who somebody else love as long as it is not abusing?

    sabina.martinsson@gmail.com

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  3. Homophobia is so wrong, no- not only that, hatred of any kind is wrong. Sadly, we live in a bigoted world and try to change people's minds -hoping they have a more open mind- it's hard. And I live in a country where there are too many bigots and homophobic, due to the fact the church has too much influence here. :(

    Thanks for taking part in the Hop! :)
    aerithkanzaka@yahoo.it

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  4. Fabulous post, Sui!

    andianderson@live.com

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  5. This blog hop is huge and every post is meaningful so it's taking a lot of time to get through. That's a good thing! I'm really enjoying reading the different stories, experiences and thoughts being posted. Thank you for sharing yours.

    andreagrendahl AT gmail DOT com

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  6. I'm so happy to hear from so many of you! I agree this is a great cause and I hope it opens many eyes! You are all entered in the drawing for the prize at the end of the hop. Thank You for participating! :)

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  7. Great post Sui! Congrats also to your new release!

    dannyfiredragon@aol.com

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  8. I have to agree everybody has the right to like and dislike things but not the right to show that in a hurtful way to others. I hope people will change when they see that all their prejudice is baseless.

    anzuazura at yahoo dot de

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  9. Great post Sui!

    lyraDOTlucky7 at gmail dot com

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  10. great blog! and i am so glad y'all are doing this to raise awarness!

    laurie

    parisfan_ca@yahoo.com

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  11. Great Post Sui, loved both Adel's Purr and Nico's fire, read it earlier this week!!

    vonalogan@gmail.com

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  12. Thank you for being a part of the blog hop and being a part of the vocal outcry for social justice and freedoms. <3

    juliebites at gmail dot com

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  13. Thanks for being a part of this great blog hop and speaking out :)

    penumbrareads(at)gmail(dot)com

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  14. Thanks for sharing and participating.

    tiger-chick-1 (at) hotmail (dot) com

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  15. I have to say I'm thrilled with the support that I'm seeing and the participation across the web at other sites. Thank you Everyone. Together we can all make a difference by showing our support!

    Sui~~

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  16. Well said!! You have the choice to not like me or the things I do or stand for, but you have no right to force me to change. This may be the best thing I've read all day!! Thanks Sui!!

    morris.crissy@gmail.com

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  17. Great post. Seeing people as "the Other" is too common. Sigh.

    elle.cee6@gmail.com

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  18. Thanks for the wonderful post...we all need to take a stand and do the right thing.
    Yvette
    yratpatrol@aol.com

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  19. What a great post and how fantastic is it to see so many people come together in the fight against homophobia. It would be great if we could eradicate all forms of prejudice and create a more peaceful and tolerant world.
    Jase G.
    jada76@gmail.com

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  20. I grew up in small town BFE, OK in the 1950s. You can imagine the attitudes that I was exposed to but I escaped and learned about the wide world and all its variety. I passed my knowledge on to my children and grandchildren and hope for a better world soon, even in BFE,OK.

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  21. It would be great if soon we could say that homophobia was no longer an issue. It's ridiculous to me that it still is.

    burchills AT gmail DOT com

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  22. Thanks for taking part in the hop. I would hope that one day people will look back at the history books and wonder what it is all about because they don't have any sort of homophobia in their society at all.

    lmbrownauthor at gmail dot com

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  23. I'm also a small-town girl, and I was also blessed with non-judgmental parents :)

    Erica
    eripike at gmail dot com

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  24. That was one of the most moving and honest posts I have read so far. It's about freedom. Something we were given, and they don't have the right to take away.

    branali05@gmail.com

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  25. Thanks so much for sharing, Sui. What a wonderful post.

    ashley.vanburen[at]gmail[dot]com

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  26. Interesting post. Thanks for participating in the HOP.

    gisu29(at)gmail(dot)com

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  27. Thanks for the post. The hop was great.

    peggy1984@live.com

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  28. Thanks for participating!!

    annawelch23456@hotmail.com

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