[at-l] Letter to the Editor: Intolerance Is Not a 'Value'

[GoVolsKelly at aol.com (GoVolsKelly@aol.com)]

Very, very nice.  I wish I had written it.  

Thank you for sharing.

GoVols

In a message dated 11/18/2004 6:36:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
stephensadams@hotmail.com writes:


> The following is a Letter to the Editor.
> 
> One of my favorite teachers was a wiry little man with thick, horn-rimmed 
> glasses who taught us fifth grade. It's been 40 years, but I can still see 
> his crooked grin and hear his voice cracking with excitement.
> 
> He made learning fun, constantly getting the class to act out skits to 
> reinforce one lesson or another. His eyes were keen and his heart was big: 
> He always made sure that kids from broken homes or the wrong side of the 
> tracks got starring roles in our productions. He helped implant in me a 
> lifelong love of history. I was out sick with the flu for a couple of days 
> that year; he waited until I returned to resume class readings of a Civil 
> War book that he knew I loved. He was everything a great teacher is supposed 
> 
> to be: unfailingly kind, considerate and dedicated.
> 
> He was, also, we learned much later, gay. But because this was the mid-1960s 
> 
> in a small town, he didn't dare live as such -- especially since he doubled 
> as the school's principal. Only in his twilight years did he follow his 
> heart, moving to a city to live as a gay American.
> 
> Imagine for a moment, however, that it wasn't four decades ago but four days 
> 
> ago that my teacher was reaching out to help a less fortunate kid with a 
> thorny math problem. And imagine that he'd had the courage in that small 
> town to "come out" and had taken up residence with his partner. In the new 
> world order dictated by champions of "moral values," this wonderful, caring 
> teacher might be branded dangerous. Emboldened by national conservative 
> leaders, the town's evangelicals -- and there are plenty of them -- could 
> well have raised a hue and cry to keep this teacher and "his kind" away from 
> 
> their children. And the town's young people would have been denied the 
> chance to have their lives shaped by a remarkable educator.
> 
> Here's what Republicans of conscience have to understand about the 
> machinations of Karl Rove and company. Fear isn't some emotion that can be 
> easily bottled back up after it's been -- viciously -- unleashed. It isn't a 
> 
> once-every-four-years vehicle that can be wheeled out for a few months, then 
> 
> stowed back in the garage to be retooled for the next election cycle. 
> Encouraging fundamentalist preachers to pound their pulpits and inveigh 
> against gay people has consequences. It puts men and women in communities 
> across this country at personal and professional risk. There's nothing more 
> despicable than creating a phony political issue (just how many gay couples 
> are clamoring for marriage certificates in the state of Ohio, anyhow?) and 
> preying on people's prejudices.
> 
> So now it's up to discerning Republicans to wrestle with this quandary: You 
> won all right, but at what cost? What happened to the party that once shared 
> 
> Abraham Lincoln's faith in the "better angels of our nature"? That 
> fifth-grade teacher taught me to appreciate how -- through Lincoln's resolve 
> 
> -- our nation overcame a cataclysm of hate to stop the Union from 
> dissolving. Back then, certain avatars of ignorance were called 
> Know-Nothings, which, come to think of it, is an apt description of more 
> than a few right-wingers today.
> 
> "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid," Lincoln wrote 
> 
> in the years leading up to the Civil War. "As a nation, we began by 
> declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all 
> men are created equal, except Negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, 
> it will read 'all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and 
> Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country 
> 
> where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, 
> where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
> 
> There are a lot of Republicans troubled by their party's exploitation of 
> contemporary know-nothingism. You know who you are. And before your party's 
> degeneracy is complete, you ought to do something about it. Because 
> camouflaging the fear and loathing of gay people as "moral values" isn't the 
> 
> base alloy of hypocrisy. It's hypocrisy itself.
> 
> Timothy M. Gay is.
> 
> Intolerance Is Not a 'Value'  -  Timothy M. Gay, a Washington writer.  ? 
> 2004 The Washington Post Company, published Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page 
> 
> A25.
>