This is where I should have started . . .

My name is Alan. I'm a 31 year-old caucasian man. I'm a Lutheran Christian (of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod variety). I'm predominantly of Polish and German descent, but there's a decent amount of English in me as well. That makes me a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or WASP for short. And there are some circles in which these facts make me into some sort of oppressor.

But I have never owned a slave. As far as I know I have never physically, sexually, emotionally, or verbally abused a woman, nor have I paid a woman less money than I have paid a man for the same labor. I have never burned nor gassed a Jew--Orthodox or otherwise. I have never gone on Crusade to repel the Moor or Turk from the Holy Land, raping and plundering along the way. I have never mass-murdered "native Americans" in the name of Christ. I do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, or gender.

I have plenty for which I apologize. But I refuse to apologize for those things I am not or that I have not done. And I refuse to apologize for things that I had no choice about being. I had no choice about my gender nor my skin color nor the nationalities of my parents. I chose to be a Lutheran, and I see nothing in that of which I should be ashamed. There is nothing inherently wrong in being any of those things.

This is fair warning: I am who I am. If you don't like it, that's really just too bad. I'm not going to change who I am merely to please you.