10-Year-Old Student Refuses to Say Pledge

That's a fair point, so I'll give you that.

I can tell you that the decision to sit during the pledge of allegiance was his choice, and his alone. His mother called me and said "XXXXXX did something at school, and I have been called in." She had no idea he was planning to sit during the pledge.

He knows all about the issues that gay and lesbian persons go through every day. He has friends and relatives that are gay, and we live in a very gay-friendly area of Arkansas. He attends rallies and visits with people who are ill, and cannot get out. He is kind, and compassionate. He understands he is "just a kid," but also understands that he can, and will, make a difference.

Does your country have so little trust in its people that it asks its children daily to promise not to betray it?

The only "lifestyle" gay people have in common is being emotionally and/or sexually attracted to people of the same gender.

That's IT. Regarding every other aspect of their lives, they're as diverse and different as straight people.

It may shock you to know that we don't all subscribe to a "gay code of conduct".

Ah yes, the old "if you don't like it, leave" argument. You know, nothing ever gets improved with that attitude.

You wouldn't even EXIST as a country with that attitude. The people who didn't like living under British colonial rule? Well, if they didn't like it, they should leave; perhaps to France.

The people who boldly criticise the flaws in your country are the ones who are the most patriotic, and the ones who love your country the most; because they care enough to want something to be done about making it a better country.

The ones like you, the "my country, right or wrong" crowd are surely the ones who "hate" your country; you're the ones who refuse to recognise when it's sick and needs some medicine, the ones who will ignore it, pretend everything is peachy, while it grows sicker and dies around you.

You're right (and I'm glad) that some states over there are at the same point we are with equal civil unions, and some are further along than us, like Connecticut as you say. Unfortunately, the majority are not, and many are actively taking steps to take you in the other direction. It is those states, and the general way in which the issue is such a high-profile drama over there, compared to the comparably trivial "go ahead, let them, what's it matter to me" way that the majority of people treated the issue in other countries such as mine and Canada treated the issue, that leads to the opinion I've formed of America's handling of this.

MadDrBiggie, when you're proud of your nation's accomplishments, you're "patriotic", but when I'm proud of mine, I'm "full of himself and boastfully proud to be so much smarter than everyone around him".