On the eve of the day on which voters in North Carolina will decide whether to add discrimination against gays and lesbians to the state constitution, Fred Clark, also known as Slacktivist, directs us to three commentators who could enlarge Billy Graham’s sense of what it means to be Christian.
Graham is supporting Amendment One because he believes “the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected.”
But Jeffrey Pugh, one of the writers featured by Clark, thinks Graham does not understand what a family is. He writes:
The supporters of this amendment have been told that the family is under attack and must be protected, but from where I sit the only family under attack is mine. From my lesbian aunt, who took her own life in the 1940s because societal pressure was so harsh, to my daughter, my loved ones are the ones who are under attack. People like my daughter are no different than you or I, save for their sexual orientation. They have the same hopes, fears and dreams that the rest of us have.
The people this amendment is aimed at work hard in their communities, seek to live their lives with integrity and hope they will be appreciated for their contributions to society. They are our children, our friends, our brothers and sisters, our parents, and they find it hard to understand why they are so hated, so vilified, that special oppression must be placed on them and their lives. I’m a bit mystified myself.
How is it that those who use the rhetoric of “freedom” so strongly are the same people who are eager to deny civil freedoms to others not like them?