Posted on 10/17/2001 11:36:28 PM PDT by rockfish59
A question for you.
What were your intentions when you gave your money? When you wrote that check to the American Red Cross, when you swiped your credit card at that supermarket collection point, when you dropped a $20 bill into that firefighters boot at the intersection, what was going through your head?
Probably, your thoughts were with the victims of the Sept. 11th atrocity. Maybe you wished you had more to give, maybe you breathed a prayer for victims and families, maybe your thoughts were simply sad.
But I'd be willing to bet my factory-sealed copy of 'The Temptations-Live In London' that the one thing the vast majority of you didn't think was this: 'They'd best make darn sure no homosexuals get their hands on my money'.
Nope
It takes a right wing Christian ideologue to think like that. Not many other people could muster the necessary nastiness.
Take, for instance, the Rev. Louis Sheldon, who said last week during an interview with an Internet news service that money collected in the nationwide relief effort should be 'given on the basis and priority of one man and one woman in a marital relationship.'
Sheldon, founder of something called the Traditional Values Coalition, fears that gay rights groups are attempting to capitalize on the nation's sense of crisis to legitimize the idea of gay marriage.
'They are taking advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda', he said.
Yeah, you know how it is. We've got to be vigilant. Turn your head just for a second and those danged homosexuals will promote their agenda all over you.
This man who purports to speak for God? God ought to sue for slander.
Gay rights isn't the issue. I'm sure the good reverend and I would never agree on that subject, but in any event, this dispute isn't about that. It is, rather, about fundamental decency. About how you treat people in their moment of most profound loss.
About whether we are drawn together in recognition of the things that make us alike or whether one pulls apart from the other because of the things that make us different. As if, because of difference, pain is somehow mitigated, modified, lessened, or otherwise not the same on one side as it is on the other.
There's something terribly small in the idea that, in this time of communal unity, we should make our compassion contingent upon sexual orientation. So that, if Shiela has died and she was the sole breadwinner, we should allow Sharon to be thrown out in the street in her time of grieving because our money mustn't be used for people like that. And we can help bury everybody else, but, sorry, Harvey, we have to leave Hank above ground because he was gay.
Is that really the kind of nation we are? Are we really that cold? Really that cruel? I don't think so, but God help us if we are.God help us if this guy represents anything beyond his morally illiterate self.
I've always known the religious right to be a tad obsessive on the subject of gay people, but this is ridiculous. What does it tell you about the man's mind-set that, at a time when everybody is worried about anthrax, worried about bioterrorism, worried about airline safety, Sheldon's worried that relief money might benefit somebody gay?
When I dropped my donation in the bucket at the mall, it didn't occur to me to ask if the cash would benefit gay people. My only concern was that it be used to help people-my countrymen and women who were in need.For all I know, my cash went to some confederate flag-waving Klansman or Holocaust-denying neo-Nazi. Maybe it even went to some right-wing ideologue with a vacancy sign where his heart should be.
For the life of me, I can't understand why I should worry about it. It's not that I suddenly like those people or they, me. It's not that the differences between us are not important.
No, it's just that there's a time and a place for those differences. And this is neither.
Leonard Pitts is a Miami Herald columnist. Reach him at 1-888-251-4407 or leonardpitts@mindspring.com
I can!
Sounds like the author would require everyone to support his prejudice in favor of homosexual marriage. He sure does not sound very tolerant to me.
Why stop there? There could be 2 (or more) roommates who aren't even in a sexual relationship. These people need to suddenly meet the full rent without their roommate's share!
What happens to their well being and the stability of their lives?!!! < /sarcasm>
Leonard, you're right about one thing. It never occurred to me to want to exclude anyone. As for homosexuals, the thought never crossed my mind, but I hope and pray that I helped them, along with everyone else.
The rest of this is just plain stupid.
Bigots and slobs come in all colors and varieties.
They definitely don't have to be "right-wing".
They most definitely don't have to be "Christians".
And they don't even have to be "idealogues".
As for mustering "the necessary nastiness", you showed as much nastiness as that in this nasty--and bigoted--little column you wrote.
Really, Leonard, you must be the pitts. What a slob!
Stupid people saying stupid things, bigotry is intolerance of race, religion or political affiliation. There is no such thing as bigotry towards a behavior. Perversion is in NOT innate condition; it’s a filthy choice of behavior.
There are no words to describe the disgust I feel for these people.
The good news is they are committing political harakiri with this tact. The landscape has shifted under their feet since 9/11 & they do not seem to have noticed.
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