When I was a homophobe

     There was a time recently when I was called a "homophobe."  When I heard this I thought that someone should immediately inform my boyfriend.  This was the was first time in my life I had ever been accused of this actually.  What happened was I responded to a picture I saw shared on Facebook. It was a photo of a little boy with the "No on 8" campaign design on his cheek while holding a sign which read "My name is" whatever his name is "I am not gay but get called'... then listed pejoratives variations of the word faggot.  The sign when on to explain how his parents complained about the bullying to the school district and they not only took no action but the bullied kid was reprimanded by the school. I saw this sign and was shocked.  I also felt horrible for the kid.  I commented on the photo saying that people should have supported the kid based on the fact that he was a child being bullied and that alone. His sexuality had no relevance.  Then lots of people commented getting upset.  I then went on to say that there was no reason to explain if this child was gay or not. People should support all bullied children and try to protect them for the reason that they are kids and that alone.  After hundreds of others commented on this post someone randomly commented that I was the H-word.  This was said out of context.  Then when I commented saying that whether this kid was gay or not all that mattered was he needed help  Then again I was attacked by people on this post.  One person even went on to talk about how he had met me and knew people like me even though we had never met nor did we have any mutual friends.  He also lived in a part of the country I had never been to.  Then one of people on this board took a photo of one of my comments without the context of the "No on 8" photo and then posted it onto a blog called Joemygod, because the more drama the merrier.  The next day I was tweeted by about 40 people calling me a hateful homophobe telling me about how homophobia still had existed, an argument I never made in the first place...  Interestingly enough what these twitter people hadn't realized was that attaching me in this way on my personal account was pretty homophobic in itself.  I did not ever say that homophobia didn't exist.  I also never said that this kid from the original conversation was not called homophobic slurs but that didn't make his cause a gay one.  By clearly mentioning that this kid is not gay while advertising a symbol of gay rights does not make this kid's cause a gay one.  It's about a child who needs defending. That's all.