My letter to Kotaku

Hello editors,

I usually love your website; it's witty, informative and eclectic, but when it comes to gay stuff you're not so nice. There was a Dragon Age 2 article in which you posted unfounded and untrue viewpoints basically saying the gay was forced on straight players and there was no stopping the gay come ons, when in fact to start a romance you have to click on specific, heart-labeled dialog choices. Now the Mass Effect article titled "Mass Effect Fans Worry That Expanded Gay Options Will Create Inconsistencies, Alter Canon." Yes, deeper in the article you post one pro gay view, but the title implies ALL Mass Effect fans are worried or at least MOST are worried. You quoted Ghost Warrior who is a homophobe who has closed down many gay positive threads on the social site and said that if a male character came on to him in the game that character would have to be brutally killed. Then the writer gives more weight to his argument by saying, "This argument appears to be quite persuasive."

It's all homophobic argument, it supposes that every character in the game is straight, if you never came on to Ashley or Kaiden their sexuality did not come up, and if it did it wasn't complete disclosure about every feeling and desire they had. Secondly, the argument relies on the fact that in this fictional universe there are even such designations as straight or gay which we don't know to be true, nor do we know the cultural practices of aliens. The worst part of these arguments is that somehow these characters could not be everything they have been written to be AND gay which is insulting and bizarre to me.

I did not see an article written by you even telling readers you could be gay in ME3, but the top story today is that people are upset by it. Why is your writing so slanted? Even writing articles like this invite readers to respond with homophobic and cruel things which make gays feel attacked and your website feel unsafe. It doesn't seem like you are able to write articles on gay subjects with anything but negativity. I know it didn't say "Kill Queers!" but it definitely made it a very us-against-them piece, and it was written with, at the very least, insensitivity. The argument in the article is homphobia masked in politeness, just like demanding Obama's birth certificate is really about him being black and a president, not about where he was born.

I am really upset about this, and I am so disappointed in a website I really respected.