I Scared a Kid Today

    
     Today I scared a little kid. Okay, I use the word "little" loosely. He was probably around 7 years old, but that's besides the point. You're going to need a little bit of background knowledge for my story to make much sense. I'm going to a theater summer camp. There's a surprising amount of boys there, and no, most of them are not the flamboyant gay boys you're probably thinking of (and if you didn't, good job!). A boy named Pedro (I'm not going to use any actual names to prevent any embarrassment) and a girl named Wilma thought it would be funny if they pretended to get married. I don't know why, I just went with it. Suddenly, a bunch of people thought that would be funny. Soon a girl named Paula jokingly put her friend, Leena, on her lap and she said "Leena and I can get married." She meant this purely as a joke and not to imply that either of them were gay, but of course, that's where it went.
     Then the boy that I scared walked over (from here on out I might be a little off because the conversation happened about 8 hours ago and I was really, really mad). I'll call him Draco 'cause I'm re-reading Harry Potter and it would be an insult to call him anything else. Anyways, he says in a dead serious tone, "Gay people are wrong." I just kind of stared at him for a bit to give him a chance to say that he was joking, but he didn't. He repeated himself and then several people, including me, spoke up at once. "No they're not!"
     Paula told him that neither of them were lesbians, but that they didn't have a problem with them. And he said something along the lines of "Oh, that's good." At that point I knew that if I continued to listen to Draco I would explode, so I tuned out. Then, I heard him say "You'd understand if you were Christian."
     At this point I had a million thoughts going through my head and I'm sure it was obvious that I was thoroughly pissed off. I figured that it wasn't worth scolding him and we had to continue the scene anyways. We finished the scene and went back to the sides and our instructor began giving the other side some tips. Then, Draco turned around and waved his finger like he was saying "shame on you" right at Paula. I had enough. I looked him right in the eyes and said, "You're really ticking me off." At that point people were staring and I really didn't care. The little boy looked at me a little funny, kind of like he wasn't sure what to say. He just mumbled "Huh?" in a really confused voice. I repeated myself in a tone that showed that I wasn't in the mood where you could mess would me. Then the boy kind of shuffled away and people kept staring. Later that day, the boy asked me if we were okay and told me that I really scared him. I was pleased at this and told him we were okay.
     Now, time for my rant. First off, I don't blame the kid whatsoever. It's his parent's fault. I don't care what religion you have, I'm not going to judge you because of your beliefs. It's when you force your beliefs of other people, especially children that I get mad. Don't force your religion on your kids. Let them decide what they want to believe. If you feel as thought it's vital that your child has your religion, please let them know that it's okay if they don't agree 100% about everything in their religion and that they're welcome to change it. And, for crying out loud, don't fill your child's head with this kind of stuff! Please, tell me why gay people are wrong. Certain people might have their reasons, but now tell me why on Earth any of this concerns you to the point where you need to waste your time getting upset over it and forcing it on your children so that way they can get all upset about it as well. It's not worth it. If you want to help create a nice, accepting, and if I dare say, sane society, then please, open your eyes a bit! There's a lot of different kind of people out there, and not all of them are going to like you either. Can't we just try to get along? I mean, it's what, 2013 already!? Don't you think we should at least try to stop hating each other to the point of wars and hatred? Just, please, think over my rant a bit, start a comment war if you need to, and stay awesome.

~Emily