Sadly, Dale Carpenter is right on the mark here with his column, Heart of Darkness. (Please read the whole thing!)
At the zoo, walking down the street, and in the mall, we held hands at several points (always at my date’s initiative). Each time we got nasty looks. We would pass someone, then I’d turn my head and see that they were looking back at us and whispering to each other. A few parents turned their children away from us, as if we were contagious, harmful on sight.
Sad as I was about that, I was mostly stunned. Though I knew things weren’t perfect here, I had not experienced anything like it in the five years I’d lived in Minneapolis. Had all this really happened in my cocoon of tolerance and acceptance, my liberal bastion? Had it been a fluke, an unlucky weekend of chance encounters with the only ignoramuses around?
The truth is, there’s a deep aversion to gay people that will not be eliminated by enlightened laws. It’s a gut-level disgust that defies rationalization, that resists education, that fears without thinking. The laws that rule our lives are not written on statute books; they are written on hearts. And the heart of this country, in the heart of this country, is still darker than many of us had hoped it would be by now.
While this is an unfortunate reality, it also shows how flawed the court-forced gay marriage strategy has been… and why it backfired at the polls when America’s voters have their say.
Until the Human Rights Campaign, Log Cabin Republicans and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force wake up to this reality, and get out of their inside-the-urban-beltway mentality… their flawed strategy of forced acceptance will continue to fail.
It is hearts we need to change first, not laws. Otherwise all that will result is resentment.
-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com
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