Anti-gay sentiment remains America’s last bastion of acceptable prejudice.
Many otherwise good citizens are proud to attack the multi-colored flag of gay liberation.
Left to their own devices, some of them would outlaw any sexual identity other than good, old-fashioned heterosexuality.
Some might agree to burn gay people at the stake.
I’m not kidding.
A 15-year-old girl called “Corbett” yesterday to voice her opposition to gay marriage and gay people. She said that homosexuality should be outlawed. She said gay people should be imprisoned.
Then she went over the top.
“They should be killed,” she said.
I tried as best as I could to steer the conversation away from a 21st Century final solution.
But I still ponder her words.
Later in the show, her 11-year-old brother called to offer his sentiments about the matter. He and I have talked before. The child describes himself as home-schooled, African-American and Muslim.
Suddenly I faced a dilemma.
Other callers, all adults, had piled on the anti-gay debate.
And I felt uncomfortable addressing sexuality with an 11-year-old on live news talk radio.
Not sure what to do, I let him hang on as I worked my way through caller after caller, a minority of whom defended the civil and human rights of gays and lesbians in our community.
By the time I had decided that I would not put this child on the air – maybe for his own good - he was gone.
I imagined him and his sister talking into the night about people who lack civil rights in a society that historically had gone out of its way to deprive others of theirs - including women and blacks.
Oppression lives.
And the threat of violence against gays is born out on our streets in our towns and cities throughout the nation.
I’ll ponder the words of this young brother and sister from our community for a long time to come.
And I hope that one day they find caring guides among us who talk them off the edge of potential violence toward good, caring people who commit no crime, yet face potential death sentences from strangers who harbor grudges against them simply because of their sexual identity.
But the odds of that happening are slim.
Yesterday’s topic started because state officials are deciding whether to endorse a constitutional amendment that would further strengthen the state’s ban against same-sex marriage.
During an Appropriations Committee hearing to discuss the proposed amendment, Sen. Vince Fumo shocked some observers when he said that some of his colleagues would bring back slavery if they could, particularly if they voted in secret.
I know what he means.
The longtime Senate leader, who is retiring in the fall to face trial on criminal corruption charges, said that no one is safe if we allow the “tyranny of the majority to prevail.”
I’ve said that for years.
I’ve also said that if given the chance, the American people might bring back slavery and take away a woman’s right to vote – once public policy in the land of the free.
Whatever he meant, Fumo is on his way out.
But I know a young brother and sister who are growing up and on their way into roles as citizens of this great society that holds so much promise.
We must guarantee that the promise of equality exists for us all. Unless we safeguard liberty and justice for all, none of us is truly free. As long as that’s the norm, we have killed something sacred.
Sue Henry
