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Mark is an eighteen-year-old boy
who wants what we all want: to love and be loved. His
dreams are realized when he meets
Taylor, the boy of his
dreams. The boys struggle to keep their love hidden from
a world that cannot understand, but ultimately, no
secret is safe in a small Midwestern town.
Ancient Prejudice is a story of love, friendship,
understanding, and an age-old prejudice that still has
the power to kill. It is a story for young and old, gay
and straight. It reminds us all that everyone should be
treated with dignity and respect and that there is
nothing greater than the power of love.
Mark is an eighteen-year-old boy who wants what we all
want: to love and be loved. His dreams are realized when
he meets Taylor, the boy of his dreams. The boys
struggle to keep their love hidden from a world that
cannot understand, but ultimately, no secret is safe in
a small Midwestern town.
Ancient Prejudice is a story of love, friendship,
understanding, and an age-old prejudice that still has
the power to kill. It is a story for young and old, gay
and straight. It reminds us all that everyone should be
treated with dignity and respect and that there is
nothing greater than the power of love.
Mark's thoughts about
Ancient Prejudice
I've always been horrified
by the high suicide rate of gay youth. These are
needless deaths that are caused by the non-acceptance
and abuse of our society. Everyone who says negative
things about gays or calls others names such as "queer",
"fag", "fairy", and all the rest are directly
responsible for the suicides of gay youth. It is very
difficult to get this point across to most individuals
however. In Ancient Prejudice I sought to show how this
process works, how taunts of classmates and general
non-acceptance makes life unbearable for gay boys (and
girls). We are a society that sentences our children to
death because we won't accept them for what they are.
Mark and Taylor take their own lives, not because they
desire to do so, but because the society in which they
live gives them no choice.
Another point I wanted to make in Ancient Prejudice is
that the traditional gay stereotypes are untrue. There
are definitely those who fit the stereotype, both
homosexuals and heterosexuals, but to stereotype any
group does it a disservice. There are all kinds of gay
boys, just as there are all types of boys. Mark is the
opposite of the gay stereotype, he is athletic,
confident, popular, masculine, and etc. Even Taylor,
with his more sensitive nature, is not what many think
of as gay. The truth is that there are many gay boys out
there just like Mark and Taylor. To assume that all gay
boys are effeminate, weak, and not into sports is
ridiculous. There are all types of gay boys, just as
there are all types of boys. Sexual orientation is
irrelevant to the characteristics that are considered to
be "gay". There are far more heterosexual boys who fit
the gay stereotype than there are gay boys who fit it.
The gay stereotype simply does not hold in the real
world.
In Ancient Prejudice the problems come from without.
Both Mark and Taylor are quite proud of what they are,
as they should be. It is the non-acceptance of others
and the mental and physical abuse that create
difficulties for them. It is time that our society
realizes that gays are the not the problem, the
non-acceptance of our society is the problem.
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