DAVID'S HOMEPAGE at http://arlekin.com/indexeng.htm [site has disappeared]

A friend of mine, Scott, gave me, as birthday present, my own domain, ARLEKIN.COM (Scott is an adult, but in spite of that he is a good buddy, he is an "amigote")

[At another part of the site:] >

He is my best friend. Nobody, not even the law, can stop me from having my own feelings and expressing them freely. I love him. Why do I have to hide it? Can any judge, bishop, teacher, politician give me an answer to this question? [<]

Hi. My name is David and I am 14 years old. I am studying high school. It is a religious school - unfortunately for me and I suppose they don't like putting up with me either. My mother is Spanish and my father is from Venezuela, although now we live in the Land of the Incas. I am writing this because I am sick and tired of having everyone trying to protect me. Actually they are stopping my growth. They are afraid to let me be free. But now I can express myself thanks to this server.

MY COMPLAINTS

I want

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE: I want to be able to think what I want. I want my freedom, in spite of my age, to be able to think what I want. Nobody should stop me from choosing my own beliefs. My parents are Catholics (but it could be any other religion for that matter). They baptized me but I did know about it. They made me make my first communion (lots of great gifts). They make me go to Mass on Sundays (if don't go they don't give me pocket money and I am prepared to self myself). They make me go to confession (if they only knew) and worst of all they make me go to an ultra-conservative school. All this would be ok if I held their beliefs but I don't believe any of this. I am an agnostic (but it would be the same no matter what I believed). I love my parents. And I know that they love me too. But my parents are afraid of life and I want live and enjoy life.

SEXUAL AND EMOTIONAL FREEDOM. I want to love and be loved by whom I want. For the last two years I have an older friend. I am not gay, I like girls. He doesn't, but we understand each other very well.  It is nobody's business what we do or don't do. But my friend could be put in jail for the simple fact of loving me. They would say that it was an abuse of a minor. Who is he abusing? I want to be with him. I love him. Have they every heard about mutual consent? In any case there are all these people who want protect me. They want to stop me from being happy and stop me from growing. There are so many groups that speak in my name. But they have never asked me. Do they ever ask kids their needs or feelings? They take it for granted that they know what is best for us. But they are only defending their conservative and puritanical ideas of life. I want to be able to love any person without condition of age, sex, social condition or economic condition. This is what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says. But they only say it for adults. For kids it is the exact opposite. Stop protecting me, please!

FREEDOM TO LIVE WITH THE PERSON I LIKE. I am no property of my parents. The laws won't allow me to live with whom I like, they force me to live with my parents. But I demand my right to live with my friend, simply, because I want and he wants to. My parents and the law have me kidnapped.

FREEDOM NOT TO BE A MURDERER. I do not want to be involved with either the military or wars. I could say a lot of more about this, but I don't dare to because I am not a hero. All military men frighten me. You cannot trust them. The further away from them the better.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM. Freedom to go or not to school. They force me to go a school I don't like. I don't like the teachers -true child abusers-, I don't like the subjects they make me memorize without even understanding them..., I don't like the ideas they are trying to force on me, on human beings, on the world and on life... I want to study. I like it. I even get good grades. But I demand my right to be able to decide for myself and not forced. I want them to teach me to think, to develop myself as a person, to be free. I like freedom which is the only thing which is worth bothering about. But is the thing that adults, governments, police, teachers, laws and churches try now take away from us. They are afraid of us if we are free.

FREEDOM TO VOTE. That is to vote or not to vote. I demand my rigth to be able to vote or not in the elections. I hold double nationality and in neither of the two countries can I vote because of my age -age again!-. And in one of the countries if I had the rigth to vote, I would not be able to abstain. Do you understand that? I don't.

FREEDOM TO BE ABLE TO WORK. Freedom to be able to earn money if I want to and I am able. They say that child labor is exploitation, as if that most adults were not. But children are forbidden to work by law. I want to be able to work, not be exploited. Work is not the same thing as exploitation.

But above all, I demand that STOP PROTECTING ME!!!

More from David's Site

[Doc. List E4]