Joel Burns is a Total Badass

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"One day when I was in the ninth grade I was cornered by some older kids who roughed me up. They said that I was a faggot, and that I should die and go to hell where I belonged. That erupted the fear that I had kept pushed down, that what I was beginning to feel on the inside must somehow be showing on the outside. ... There must be something very wrong with me, I thought. Something I could never let my family or anyone else know."

- Joel Burns, a city councilman in Fort Worth, Texas (source)

Bravo, Mr. Burns. BRAVO.

If people had ANY inkling of the amount and depth of the isolation, despair and self-loathing that comes with society's intolerant views of homosexuality and being different, it would be crystal clear that it's not a choice.

What IS a choice is living with dignity and grace and love. And that's the sweetest revenge.

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