Purple.

I am wearing purple today.

This isn't about gay marriage. This isn't about religion. This isn't even about civil rights.

This is about not tormenting children.

Everyday kids are bullied. They're called names, they're physically hurt, they're made to feel like crap. This isn't just by other kids, this is often by adults, indirectly even when adults don't stop bullying when they see it.

I try to imagine how awful it must be to feel like you have to hide something like this from the world. To feel like you have to change how you talk, how you dress, how you act, your mannerisms. To feel like you're constantly acting for other people. I try to imagine what it must feel like to need to lie to everybody around you, including your own family.

It must be terribly lonely. And suffocating.

I don't personally know how awful it is, but I do know that when I have children I will teach them to respect everybody, including the kids they don't really like. Including people that aren't anything like them. Including people they've never even met before. If my children bully others, I will stop them. I will teach them not to.

Let's not just stop with my future children though, let's talk about my friends. Every time someone says "faggot" or "that's gay" I stop them. I tell them I don't like it. I explain why. I understand that I probaly don't change people's minds, and they probably just stop saying it in front of me. But by speaking up about how I feel, I have not implicitly consented to that language. I've brought attention to the issue. I've not backed down just because it would be easier to do.

I'm not going to wipe out homophobia by wearing purple or writing about it on my blog. But I am showing that I don't tolerate it. I'm making it known that I refuse to back down and let other people think that homophobia is okay. Homophobia isn't going to stop, but it's going to stop around me.