Ropin wrote:Sure, you can say the 'just hide it.' I can tell you, though...it will wear a person down, having to hide and lie like that.
Ropin,
believe me, I do understand. I experience a similar exhaustion with my family back in California when I find myself playing down my conservatism and my Christian faith just in order to get along when I'm surrounded by people whom I otherwise love, but who are for the most part hostile to the principles of my faith and the principles of my politics.
It
does wear a person down. I think I speak for many when I say that the big issue isn't whether or not we can get along with others who are different from us - and that includes within the context of military service - whether "different" means race, or sexual orientation, or politics, or whatever. The real issue is having our noses rubbed in the expression of that difference, whatever form "different" takes.
For example, over the weekend, gubernatorial candidate Bill White marched in a gay pride parade. Now, I confess that I am not familiar with gay pride parades, Texas style, but I have seen plenty of what passes for gay pride parades in California. It is one thing to say "this is who I am;
deal with it." It is quite another thing to ask "how does my naked butt look in these chaps?" It's not the "gayness" that is so offensive, it is the unseemly behavior of a significant number of people who show up for these events. Contrast, if we want to use the black civil rights movement of the 1960s as a metaphor, the way in which Martin Luther King led that movement, and the behavior he expected from its leadership and its followers, and the way in which Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton led the Black Panther Party, and the behavior of their leadership and followers - which was essentially separatist and predatory.
On the one hand, you had a group that advocated unbending principle tempered by rectitude in personal behavior, and on the other hand, you had a militant group that advocated unbending principle and encouraged any behavior to achieve it - including armed robbery, drug dealing, bombing, and murder. Which group is judged more harshly by history today? Which group was the most effective at achieving its aims? I submit that it was Martin Luther King that history judges favorably, and Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton that have been relegated to history's dustbin.
Four years ago, Nancy Pelosi marched in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, right in the front row. Right next to her, marching together with her, was the head of NAMBLA - the North American Man Boy Love Association. To millions of Americans, by marching alongside this man who represents a significant threat to their children's physical safety, she was endorsing what he stands for. Well, I can't help what Nancy Pelosi does. She's an idiotic harridan, and everyone in her own party outside of the district that keeps reelecting her knows it. But, ask yourself the following 2 questions: 1) "What damage did Nancy Pelosi do to the cause of gaining general acceptance of homosexuals by the general population by marching alongside an advocate for sexual predation agains minors;" and 2) "What damage did the organizers of that particular gay pride parade do to the cause of acceptance by allowing the head of an organization that advocates sexual predation agains minors to march at the head of its parade?" For extra credit, answer this one: "Can't the guy in the chaps at least have the decency to wear a pair of boxers or whitey-tighties under those chaps, or does he
have no decency?"
Those are very valid questions, and they speak to the issue of rubbing the noses of everyone who does not belong to the aggrieved minority in behavior that is guaranteed to work
against acceptance instead of in favor of it. Militancy in social politics will
never succeed because it offends the sensibilities of the majority. MLK, on the other hand, was successful (even though it cost him his life) because he spoke to issues of justice, fair play, equal rights, and common human decency. I believe that gay friends who have met me in person or who have known me for any length of time - and in at least a couple of cases who have been in Bible study with me - understand that I do not sit in judgement of them. My pastor says, and I internalize this and own it, that we are all just messed up people trying to move forward. So, for whatever my advice is worth, my counsel to gay activists would be to abandon overt behavior which is offensive; do
not sanction or tolerate it in others such as NAMBLA and do not make common cause with them; and keep the policy discussion focused on justice, fair play, equal rights, and common human decency.
Does what I wrote make sense to you?
