Roger-Luc Chayer
Dear Mister President,
I am writing this open letter today to talk about the issue of LGBT communities in your beautiful country and around the world. If I do this, in an edition of this magazine, it is because a lot of things are said in the medias and on the Web in general about so-called « anti-gay » policies that would have originated from your administration.
Contrary to the traditional positions of the medias and gay groups, which tend to condemn you loudly, in the public square, without even bothering to corroborate the information they denounce, I decided to write to you and talk about our realities and our fears about what could also be mere rumors. In the same spirit, if you wish to answer and speak to us, I offer you all the necessary space in these pages, on receipt of your answer.
For years, on the issue of social rights and individual freedoms, the United States has been a great example to follow for many countries and governments. On both the issue of racial equality and the equality of homosexuals, even if everything does not seem perfect, your country has been a leader and a powerful locomotive that commands respect and admiration. However, since your election, and even during your election campaign, many voices have been raised to declare your social program and your goals as « homophobic ». Some people even went so far as to say that you were against marriage and equal rights for homosexuals and that you wanted to cancel recent progress on the issue.
Needless to say, these assertions are worrying not only for American homosexuals, but also for these people at the international level, because the example you give could inspire many other leaders to do the same and put policies in place to reduce the rights of these people or even punish them even more severely for their difference. For our differences.
Even so, before I wrote to you and draw my conclusions, I have done quite extensive research on the White House website and have not been able to find any information about any policy targeting people from the LGBT communities. I searched with the keywords « homosexual », « homosexuality », « gay », « trans », and « lesbian » and I found no mention of any policy whatsoever.
Of course, the same research done on Google, with your name on it, gives us hundreds of thousands of results, but we cannot corroborate what seems to be serious insinuations, I agree.
Could it be that all these insinuations, presented as facts, are only rumors propagated by groups interested in disseminating such information, such false news? Some fake news? I am personally very disturbed by the fact that past statements by the Vice-President have been associated with Nazism. I think everyone has the right to their opinions, but to consider the Vice-President of the United States as a Nazi, an equivalent of Adolf Hitler, is defamation and I do not endorse such statements that are done on behalf of LGBT communities.
Only one person is able to answer all that and you are the one Mister President!
You see, homosexuals are not responsible for what they are, they just exist naturally, it’s obviously not their choice or their fault, but like any other person in your country and in mine, they are equal and we cannot act by considering LGBT people as inferior, depraved or of a lesser moral.
I personally think that there is nothing very shocking for homosexuals to be able to unite lovingly and legally, to wish to adopt children, to have the right to pensions as surviving spouses or simply to exist peacefully in the same equality before the law. Your country is an example of democracy and it is for this reason that I invite you, on the homosexual question at least, to clarify your position in order to reassure these people, to reassure us, and to treat us as a good father, protector and unifying.
In many countries where these rights have been improved, especially in Europe, Canada and Oceania, not only have people in these communities thrived socially through egalitarian laws, so too has the society itself as to the acceptance of LGBT. Is it possible to believe that the President of the United States can be a good father figure for all and lead by example at the international level? I sincerely believe it. I say yes!
Thank you, Mr. Trump, for reading this open letter that was sent to you before publication to allow you to answer it. This would be a historic first and this dialogue could do a lot of good in the heart of our communities. Yours truly …