What are we Afraid of? by Prentiss Smith
That is the question that I want to ask all the people who are having a hard time with the whole idea of gay marriage. I will be honest with you, I don't understand homosexuality, but maybe I am not supposed to. Maybe they don't understand some heterosexuals, and I can understand that. But before a person is a homosexual or a heterosexual, he or she is first a human being. That is the most important thing that all of us should think about when we start trying to deny equal rights to any American or any human being for that matter. All people deserve to be treated with dignity, even those whose lifestyle some of us may not understand or agree with. Homosexuality is here, and it is not going anywhere. I don t believe that people who are homosexual have any choice in the way that they are. I also do not believe that they are any different from those of us who are heterosexual, except for the fact that they are attracted to the same sex. That is a big difference, but in my mind that is the only difference, and these people should not be castigated for being themselves.
The real problem for homosexuals is that they want to use the word marriage to describe their unions. That scares people, and in this overwhelmingly Christian country -- it is an anathema. People are put off by it, and they believe it to be perverted and unnatural. But what these same people who go to church on Sunday fail to realize is that these people are our brothers and our sisters, they are our fathers and our mothers, and they are our friends. Many families have been touched by homosexuality. I have known many people who happen to be homosexual, but they were no different from the heterosexuals that I knew. They wanted the same things that I wanted. They wanted to work, they wanted to worship, they wanted to enjoy their lives, and they wanted to love and be loved. The ones that I knew were some of the best people in the world, and I could not be party to anything that is going to deny them the same freedoms that I enjoy. I enjoy those freedoms because of the blood that was shed for me in the racial struggle by my forefathers, who at one time were not able to marry a white person, because it was against the law for blacks and whites to marry. That was 40 years ago, and today those sentiments are in the trash heap of discrimination, where they belong. My point is that people thought that they were doing the right thing then also, but it was wrong then, and it is wrong now. People are people -- regardless of their sexual orientation.
President Bush, being the Christian that he says he is, now wants to put an amendment in the constitution that takes rights away from his fellow Americans. He wants to codify intolerance and bigotry in the constitution. Outside of the bible for most Americans, the constitution of the United States is the most important document in the world. It is the living, breathing, apparatus that allows us to thrive in freedom and equality. Those are the values that the Constitution states unequivocally. The bill of rights states that we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights -- those being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a wonderful thing, and we should rejoice in it. Homosexuals are human beings who only want to be treated like every other human being. I don't know whether they will be able to legally get married, but I do know that people who spend their lives together in loving relationships should have the rights to be involved in every aspect of their partners life. Maybe it won t be marriage, but something very close to it -- something that will all of us to move on to the real things that matter in our lives -- education of our children, providing good care for our elderly parents, providing health care for all of our citizens, and being good to the world that feeds us and sustains us -- in other words, taking care of our environment. Homosexual marriage has become a divisive issue in this country, and it is a shame.
People are fearful of the unknown. But for the most part, most people are fair and tolerant. Tolerance for those things that are different is part of the American fabric. We are a big country, and we can accommodate all people. I am not afraid of homosexuals, and I believe that they deserve every benefit that every human being deserves.
What are we afraid of?
And that's the way I see it.
-- Prentiss Smith, March 2005
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