Letter Six, December 1994

Wes Finally Responds to His Aunt (#3/3)

The effect of people promoting antigay sentiment is to give people permission to hate homosexuals, to discriminate, to gay-bash, even to kill. Just recently, 21-year old Navy airman apprentice Terry Helvey, who had pleaded guilty to killing 22-year old seaman Allen Schindler by beating him beyond recognition, was sentenced to death. Navy investigator Dale Wallace testified that Helvey had told him he hated gays and said that given the chance, "he'd do it again." Here in Houston, two people (in separate incidents a couple months apart) were killed in '91 after they came out of a gay bar. The police began a decoy system where officers dressed in plainclothes to try and catch gay-bashers. Later, these straight officers -- who'd been called "faggots!," punched in the face and hit with baseball bats among other things --said they'd never before realized how horrible straight people can be toward gays. Closer to home, MY OWN MOTHER -- responding to knowing I was gay, and reacting to her understanding of homosexuality based on the messages promulgated by our hateful society --once wrote me "I sincerely expect you to cut off your penis as a final gesture telling me to go to hell and I don't want to be around to see it. Signed, Your Former Mother. P.S. I hate your guts!"

I'm enclosing a New York Times article and a couple other items which deal with what I'm talking about.

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Civil rights/"protected class" status/"minority status"

In your letter, you mention that "A behavior (especially a sexual behavior) does not merit minority status." Later in the letter you mention "Homosexuality does not fall into the same category as race or religion."

This is a hot topic in several areas nationally.

According to 1993 material from Americans for Family Values:
"Gay militants have tried again and again to get special, protected minority status, locally, statewide and federally. Rejecting special, protected class status for gays doesn't take any rights away from gay people. It just prevents gays -- an affluent special interest -- from getting a special status reserved for the poor that gays don't qualify for anyway. According to prominent Civil Rights leaders, gays already have the same basic Constitutional rights as anyone else. That means they are equal right now. Denying them Protected status simply means they'll stay equal, not become special."

Notwithstanding the above, in early 1994, former Atlanta city council member Julian Bond, a longtime civil rights activist, told a group of Boise (Idaho) State College students that current efforts by gay men and lesbians to secure freedom from discrimination were similar to the black civil rights movement of the '60s. "The people who object to the establishment of sexual orientation as a category [for protection] are really objecting to losing the right to discriminate against their follow human beings," Bond said, speaking as part of the school's observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday celebration. "The opposition [to gay rights] is couching its argument in the same language [as opponents in the '60s], which is `Why should these people have special privileges?'"

The "special privileges" referred to are the rights guaranteed by the Constitution -- or as the Declaration of Independence stated for everybody, "...that all men are created equal." The reason groups are singled out for specific protection from discrimination is quite simply because those groups were being discriminated against and nothing was being done about it. Blacks weren't being treated equally. Catholics and Mormons weren't. And gays certainly aren't. As I heard someone say, "Why should anyone care if someone is not discriminated against?"

In Washington state, leaders from seven mainline denominations wrote a letter to all state senators in support of HB1443 in February '94, which would include gays & lesbians under the protections of the state's anti-discrimination laws. "In our state, we have protection against discrimination based on religion and yet no one accuses the law of endorsing a particular religion."

On October 11, 1994, the Colorado Supreme Court killed Amendment 2, the measure passed by voters that banned laws protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. In a 6-1 decision, the court said the amendment violated gays' right to equal protection under the law, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It denied them "the right to participate equally in the political process" and barred them from "having an effective voice in government affairs," the justices said. "The state has failed to establish that Amendment 2 is necessary to serve any compelling governmental interest in a narrowly tailored way," the majority added in its 34-page decision.

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As I said at the beginning, I appreciate you taking the time to tell me how you feel. I know this is an extremely long letter, but you raised many important points and I wanted to touch on each one as thoroughly as I could, as I've felt that many of the issues above have created unnecessary friction between us. You've been a very special person to me and I would like to see that end.