Here
is an open letter from a self-described "Latina Mama" named Ana
Samuel to Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay, happily married mayor from
South Bend, Indiana, who is running for president.
I
agree with Dr. Samuel's statement and share her concerns about how the
so-called tolerant left is in fact hostile to people of faith and/or to people
who hold conservative, traditional, Judeo-Christian values.
To those who wish to castigate the
author as an ignorant, narrow-minded bigot, here is her bio:
Ana Samuel, PhD, is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, the
wife of an Argentine immigrant, and the mother of six awesome children. She
completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University and her doctoral
degree from the University of Notre Dame before becoming a founding mother and
the Academic Director of CanaVox.
Here's an excerpt:
Mothers tend to emphatically care
about the welfare of all children, regardless of their family’s origin or
current form. We also tend to emphatically care about every LGBT
person—recognizing our common humanity even when we do not agree with their
lifestyle choices. When we are polite to you, we are coming from a place of
deep moral principle and authenticity. It’s not a superficial cover up for our
true beliefs about you. You are rights-bearing individuals (like all of us)
endowed with human dignity.
Although our home countries have
often been viciously anti-gay places, there is a deep understanding among
Hispanic mothers that those who identify as LGBT have suffered a lot, and that
many have lived a life of hurt, harm and pain. We feel great sympathy for your
suffering. But the ideas you have developed from painful experiences are not
always sound ones. And we can distinguish between the two: between affectionate
concern for you as a person and disagreement with your ideas. So please stop
shutting us out of the conversation by the intellectually dishonest rhetorical
expedient of implying or saying that we are bigots. We are the opposite of
bigots.
We are prepared to co-exist
peacefully and tolerate a great deal of what you propose, but not at the
expense of losing our own ability to practice and preach our own values and
freedoms. We are happy to work side-by-side with you, to have you as our
coaches, neighbors and friends, but don’t cross the line and tell us what
sexual values to cherish and uphold.
A Message to Mayor Pete from a Latina Mama:Don't Force Your Sexual Ideology on Me and My Children
