Jan 23, 2009   | COMMENTS     

To the Editors: Re: “New reports challenge assumptions about Prop 8” (news, Jan. 9)

In reflecting on the defeat of Proposition 8, perhaps a reminder of Martin Luther King’s arguments against segregation from his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would offer some inspiration.

There, in responding to religious clergymen who decried King’s use of civil disobedience, he said, “there are two types of laws: just and unjust.” For King, “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.”

He goes on, “An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.”

Though Proposition 8 is certainly a setback for gay marriage equality, I would still draw consolation from King’s timeless conclusion to his eloquent letter when he says that “right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”

RICHARD SCHAEFERS
Washington

Ken Blackwell at RNC would doom the GOP

To the Editors: Despite having been trounced in two consecutive elections, the Republican Party still refuses to back down from exclusion and scapegoat politics. Flummoxed and beaten, the party is actually considering Ken Blackwell for the RNC chair post. Seriously?

In a time when many GOP insiders agree that the tent must be broadened, the promotion of a bigot like Blackwell to the top strategy post may be one of the final nails in the coffin for the once powerful conservative voting bloc.

American voters may not necessarily be ready for gay marriage, but it doesn’t automatically translate that America is against gay rights. Inept radicals like Blackwell use this conflation to their advantage. Like an insecure teen trying to assert his own masculinity, Blackwell appears to be hiding behind family values and homophobia in an attempt to bolster his reputation.   

When Blackwell unsuccessfully ran for Ohio governor, he compared gays to arsonists and kleptomaniacs who can be “changed.” He recently said, “You can choose to restrain that compulsion … And so I think in fact you don’t have to give in to the compulsion to be homosexual.” Adding, “I’ve never had to make the choice because I’ve never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual, but if in fact I had the urge to be something else I could have in fact suppressed that urge.” Not to mention, he led the successful gay marriage ban in his home state.

Methinks he doth project too much.

Blackwell now has the endorsement of Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council where he’s now being considered for a senior fellow position. This is a classic example of the blind leading the blind. Conservatives have consistently been one step behind on everything:

• Following Obama’s senatorial debut, they run Michael Steele as a conservative voice for African Americans

• Taking cues from Hillary Clinton’s near-successful presidential bid, they ran Sarah Palin as their vice presidential pick.

• And now Ken Blackwell seeks to peel back the sizable congressional gains and inroads in the African-American community that Barack Obama’s historic election has made. This newfound tokenism of the GOP is blatantly disingenuous and the American public sees right through them.
In lieu of Obama’s “hope,” they still employ the politics of fear. They manipulate the emotions and reservations of Americans by creating an “us versus them” atmosphere that doesn’t exist. Gays and lesbians aren’t fighting for anything more than equal rights.

Here’s a hint: Pretending to expand your “tent” and yet only allowing in the like-minded in is a recipe for extinction, especially in the wake of such a progressive political climate change. Drop the homophobic dogma and you’ll have a much better chance in 2010. Elect Ken Blackwell RNC chair and you’ll seal your fate.

JAY BOULAY
Washington
Editor’s note: The writer is president of D.C. based Gay Action Strategic Political Group, an organization dedicated to monitoring political misinformation on GLBT issues.

Eartha Kitt was a purrfect lady

To the Editors: Re: “Dec. 25: The day Eartha stood still” (op-ed by Michael Bedwell, Jan. 9)

Thank you for your article. In 1985 or thereabouts, I was the PR director at a theater in Englewood, N.J., then called the John Harms Center For The Arts (since ...