The Democratic Party is going to have to confront homophobia. [View All]

[yardwork]

Homophobia is like the crazy aunt living upstairs - everybody knows she's there, but nobody wants to talk about it.

Some people on DU are genuinely outraged that anybody dare question their right to be bigots. "I'm a Christian!" they exclaim. "How can my religiously-motivated feeling that homosexuality is wrong be considered bigotry?"

On a thread pointing out the inconsistencies inherent in using selected passages from English-translation versions of the Bible while ignoring all the other passages, a few posters claimed that it is simply wrong to criticize their religion, period. These same posters probably feel no compunction about criticizing other people's religions.

The simple truth is that institutionalized homophobia is tolerated to a very great extent in this country. It is institutionalized in the form of thousands of laws and regulations that discriminate against people solely on the basis of their sexual orientation. It is institutionalized in the form of religious condemnation that is based on selective reading of selected passages while entire sections of the Bible are conveniently ignored.

Sooner or later, this country will confront its homophobia, as it confronted slavery and Jim Crow in the past. Sooner or later this country - I hope and trust - will progress as it has done in other ways, and lift the bigoted prejudicial discriminations against queer people. When that happens, a whole lot of people are going to conveniently forget that they ever thought there was anything wrong or even odd about loving a person of the same sex.

So I put out a challenge to everyone who considers themselves to be a Democrat. Which side are you on? Are you going to put down your prejudices now, or later? Will you wait until most people have figured out that discrimination against gay people is wrong, or will you stand up for human rights now?