Tolerance Would Be a Start

I'm encouraged that columns like this seem to be appearing more often in the mainstream media. No new ground here, but I believe this piece in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is worth reading nonetheless for the way the writer, O. Ricardo Pimentel, approaches the subject:

Parents sued a Massachusetts school district after, in one case, class material that included a gay family came home and, in another case, after a teacher read from a book about two gay princes.

Given their resistance to having their children exposed to such notions, it's inescapable that what the suing parents are really saying is gays are bad. And because the parents cited their religion, that gays are against God's law. Which are all ways of saying, "You disgust me so much that I need to shelter my school-age children from even knowing you exist until I get a chance first to convince them that you are disordered."

Yes, this is the stuff tolerance is made of.

Or maybe they will, in what they perceive to be a burst of magnanimity, tell their children to hate the sin but love the sinner. The message in that for gays? Submit (change so that there are no more of you left); go away; just keep it to yourself (hide who you are and what you, yuck, do).

Yes, this is what people tell people they love.

This poppycock might be cloaked in the fine raiment of religious freedom or choice, but the folks who utter it are judging one group of people who, near as I and compelling research can tell, were made by the same God they believe in. In other words, not created by their social environments but by whatever occurs in that wondrous process when humans are created.

The courts ruled against the parents that brought suit, which of course resulted in charges of the court system furthering the infamous "homosexual agenda," which is what the right wing usually says when courts choose upholding the U. S. Constitution rather than their bigotry.

You've got to love a writer who uses the word "poppycock," but I wish Mr. Pimentel had not focused on the word "tolerance." Sure, that would be a major improvement over the attitudes he derides in his column, but is that the end goal we're seeking with the GLBT community? Should I walk up to the gay and lesbian members of my church next Sunday, hug them, and say, "I tolerate you." I know at least with a couple of them, I'd better plan on ducking if I pulled something like that.

Tolerance is an incremental step, much like civil unions are in the issue of same-sex marriage, but acceptance of GLBT people as full-fledged members of society needs to be the end result. A bad rash, you can tolerate. Traffic at rush hour, you can tolerate. Gay and lesbian people should be accepted.
Why? Because they're people and God made them.

Thanks to PageOneQ for the tip.