I am not a young man. My children are grown, and I am approaching the age my father died, so I write with some urgency – but not for myself. I am writing for a fisherman’s daughter and a carpenter’s son, for a postal worker’s daughter and a nurse’s son. You see, I want to bring them home

As kids, they prayed that their difference would go away, and, if they could, they kept it secret for 18 or 20 years and then they left. And their parents keep the secret still. The conspiracy of silence allows the pain to continue in all the small towns in New England and across America where gay children cannot return. There are as many gay people in the U.S. as there are African-Americans, more than Asian and Native Americans combined- but they can’t come home.

Because of Leviticus, really. And Romans. Leviticus says that you should not lay with people of your own sex, and also forbids haircuts, shellfish, pork, and clothing made of two kinds of fiber. Leviticus sets the guidelines for animal sacrifice and advises that you can enslave foreigners and their children and “make them slaves for life.” (NIV Leviticus 25: 46) And because of Romans, where Paul condemns same-sex relationships- and also forbids divorce and remarriage.

But it’s not just Leviticus, or Romans. It’s us. When I was young, my friends and I mercilessly mocked kids that we perceived as gay. Painful for me to say, but true. And apparently, in 40 years little has changed – a recent study showed the average ninth grader hears 26 anti-gay slurs a day. And the pain these slurs inflict is real: a 1995 Massachusetts study showed that gay teens attempt suicide at four times the rate of straight teens. And our own Maine Bureau of Health tells us that for the 10-year period 1988-1997, Maine has had the highest rate of youth suicide in New England, higher than the national average.

Think of the kids who are considering suicide at this very second, because of our society’s stigmas. I’ve been a country doctor for more than 20 years – and more than 20 years a medical examiner for the state of Maine.

I know what the grieving community will ask: “Why did he kill himself? He had everything going for him. Honor student. Loving family. Hoped to be an Air Force pilot.” Why, indeed? Maybe he lived in fear of being thrown out of his own life. He knew what his friends thought of gays. He knew what his father thought of gays. He knew what his church thought of gays. Maybe he feared that his life as he knew it would be extinguished by a chance comment, and so, in preference, he extinguished it himself.

Perhaps the single most important public health step we can take in Maine is not to add another childhood shot for our two-year-olds, but simply to open our minds and arms and hearts to our teens. Nationwide, over a thousand children’s lives could be saved each year.

Gayness is an involuntary human quality, like blue eyes or freckles or being left-handed. These are all-natural kids who didn’t choose to be gay any more than their classmates chose to be straight.

I say all-natural, because every human society that researchers have studied has had gay people. If gayness occurs in every human culture, that means it occurs by nature, which means it’s natural – just like those freckles. What is not natural (or moral) is when a society tries to stifle gay people and to make them into something they are not, or worse.

And Leviticus? Societies have always had the burden of choosing wisely from their holy books, given all the contradictions they hold and given the ever-unfolding of new knowledge.

The biblical condemnation of homosexuality must be treated in the same way as the biblical condemnation of divorce, and treated in the same fashion as the biblical approval of slavery, that is, it is a position that is inconsistent with modern understanding of human nature, dignity and freedom.

In medical practice, every visit needs to end with a plan. This would be mine: 1. Start talking about it. At the supper table tonight, ask: “What do you think it’s like being gay in our town?” Try using the word “gay” everyday in a positive way. 2. Don’t accept your acquaintances’ demeaning jokes or comments about gays, any more than you would accept negative comments about race or religion. 3. Be sure your schools have an effective no-harassment policy: talk to your principals. 4. Support gay people’s political efforts for equality and respect. 5. Remember this reality: Gays are us. Gays are not them. We all know and love someone gay, whether we’re aware of it or not. 6. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Your own child, sitting in front of you right now – she may be gay. It’s a statistical probability, whether you’re Christian, Muslim or agnostic. Ask yourself this question: “Will she dare to tell me- before she tries to take her own life?”

Let us not allow another child to die because of society’s ancient, cruel, misguided stigma. And for those brave kids who do survive the trying rites of our communities and schools, let’s bring them back. And hug them for every year they’ve been gone. Back to Hancock. Back to Aroostook. Back to Waldo. Back to Maine.

Let’s bring the children home.

Tony Garland, M.D. lives in Deer Isle.