Reply #10: Why I am for human rights, period.

[stevedeshazer]

I'm straight.

But I have had sex with other men. (Okay, there goes any chance to run for political office forever.)

That's not the point, I'm just setting the table here.

When I was much younger, I was a minor punk rock star. My feelings about gays were not fully formed then, except that I knew that I was different from all the small-town stereotypes I had experienced. Try being a punk rocker in a cow town, you see.

After a gig late one night (late '70s), I was walking down the street. Some drunken high-school aged assholes in a pickup truck drove by and starting yelling at me, "Fuck you, faggot!" and tried to run me over.

Not content with missing me, they tried to chase me down an alley and beat me up. I ran faster then than I ever have run in my life.

That's the moment I learned that EVERYONE is a human being and is entitled to be who they are. Period.

That's why I stand for human rights. For EVERYONE.

Be who you are. It's your right.