This is an open letter to Curt Winzenreid, who wrote in last week (Left and morality not always in sync
Nov. 10) to voice his opinion that Issue 1 was the fault of in-your-face tactics by homosexuals, who had no one to blame but themselves that it was passed.
Would you have told 15-year-old Emmett Till it was his fault that he was beaten to death because he looked at a white woman in Mississippi?
Would you have told the six million Jews killed during World War II it was their fault they were systematically killed because they stayed in Germany and wanted to live normal lives?
Would you tell a gay woman it was her fault Ohio voters passed Issue 1 because she had the audacity to ask for the same rights that Columbus grants to married couples?
In Ohio, on all but the last count, the answer would seemingly be no. It is utterly disgusting and shameful to blame a victim for the injustice perpetrated on them. And an equally as disgusting and shameful majority of Ohio voters -61 percent of them -agreed to forbid the state from granting domestic partner benefits to hetero-and homosexual couples.
Issue 1 was not about preventing gay marriage in Ohio -that was already illegal. Issue 1 was about kicking a minority when they were down, twisting the knife and turning the screw. Issue 1 was designed to get hard-core, Christian conservatives out to the polls in our battleground state to elect our president, George W. Bush. And it worked.
Contrary to many conservative minds, the gays don't have any secret agenda. They aren't out to destroy the sacred and serious institution of marriage, our way of life or anything, really.
Any claim that Issue 1 was just a ploy by gays to steal tax revenue from the government is just repulsive. Issue 1 bans civil unions and legal status to unmarried couples. So now, for example, one-half of an unmarried couple -gay or straight -can't visit the other in the hospital, and the two can't own a home together.
God bless the conservative majority in Ohio. I was distraught that a gay man might just get the chance to sit next to his partner in a hospital bed after having had an accident. Or another couple might have wanted to buy a house next-door to me. What would the neighbors think of all this sin and sacrilege?
Gay people aren't anything to be feared or mistrusted -they're people, just like everyone else. And they want the same things as most heterosexuals: someone to love, a nice place to live and a chance to get married, if they want.
Marriage isn't something that needs any protecting from Republicans; civil liberties, the American economy and women's reproductive rights, however, do. Their efforts to distract the electorate with platitudes about American morals are chilling and frightening. Almost as frightening as the American people buying it.
-Chuck Bowen is a junior journalism major who saw all sorts of gross heterosexual activity at the homecoming parade. Send him an e-mail at charles.bowen@ohiou.edu. 17
Archives
Chuck Bowen
