I must respond to Jean Macle’s letter “Bill Forbes’ obit
humiliating” (Letters, September 17). I hope that even though Ms. Macle
is only an occasional Coast reader, one of her friends will bring it to
her attention.
The fact that Bill Forbes (“Farwell to Forbes” by Alison Lang, July
30) was gay is not an embarrassment. It is not an embarrassment to
himself, or his family, nor his friends, colleagues or fellow
citizens.
I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you, Ms. Macle,
identify as heterosexual. Are you embarrassed by this? When you die,
and they write about you in the paper, would you like them to omit if
you had a husband or partner?
We try so hard to resist categorization by saying “well he was so
much more than gay…” et cetera, that we begin to lose sight of the
fact that our sexuality is who we are. It makes us up. It attracts us
to others in order to partner with them, but also to make friends and
business associations. Our sexuality does not reduce or embarrass us;
it frees us to be a fully expressed version of ourselves.
I sincerely hope that Ms. Macle is embarrassed that she acted on a
bigoted impulse and wrote a letter than did far more harm than the
original article about Bill that simply stated a simple, wonderful fact
about him.
As for the supposed readers The Coast has lost because of that
article—I call bullshit. Don’t be a bully, Ms. Macle. It’s
embarrassing.
—Stewart Legere, Halifax
This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2009.