The Gainesville Sun just published my Letter to the Editor:
With President Barack Obama openly acknowledging his support for gay marriage there’s hope that the issue, continually impeded by outdated and severely bigoted views, will win national sentiment. But equally mirroring the importance of the president’s stance is the recent vocal support from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). For years they’ve balked at the opportunity to back a group of people systematically oppressed because of differences in their genetic code. This is a fight no different than the one that created their existence over one hundred years ago. The NAACP has stepped out of the closet filled with homophobic fanatics and begun to be a true association for not only colored people, but for all people still oppressed by bigotry.
For the sad few still steadfast in their belief that marriage is a holy sanctity only appropriated for a man and women, I wonder which–if not all–of you would have also argued that voting was likewise holy and therefore shouldn’t be granted to blacks. Those of you crass enough to single out a group of American citizens because of an uncontrollable difference predetermined before birth, need to understand it would’ve been you pushing Ms. Parks to the back of the bus. It was would’ve been you drinking from a separate fountain and it would’ve been you spitting deep racial slurs at the Little Rock Nine. Emmett Till’s casket was left open for the world to see the infectious rot at the core of racism; the hate for homosexuals spawns from the same vulgar seed.
We look at the past flabbergasted, wondering, “How could that have happened?” But yet, today it still ensues. Denial of marriage is the negative catalyst that leads to cyber bullying, beatings and teen suicide. To those of you whom continue to deny of rights of our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered (LGBT) neighbors, know you place your hands on the fire-hoses spraying down the blacks of 1960′s Birmingham. By standing with the oppressed, the NAACP has proudly positioned themselves back in the fury of raging water and I ask my fellow Americans to do the same. Stand strong with our neighbors, co-workers, friends and family and there will be no one to hold that hose. Our constitution reads, “we are for the people,” it’s about time we make it clear it’s, “for all the people… no matter their sexual preference.”
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120703/OPINION02/120709974?p=3&tc=pg
