Hearts-Full-of-Inexplicable-Hate-for-Gay-People Watch

As the thinking branch of the right wing in America remains uncomfortably silent about Bush's proposed Anti-Gay Amendment to the United States Constitution, the march of the radicals continues unabated. Some Republicans, like Dick Cheney, have voiced their concerns about the shameful amendment. Even as they do, though, they give the old look-at-the-ground, kick-a-pebble mumble that they guess they'll support the President anyway. Many more thinking Republicans simply pretend it's not part of their platform.

Well, sorry folks, but it is. And the only pretend argument you've got is that denying rights to gays is "good for families" or something like that. Well, I encourage you to read this editorial by the daughter of one of the sad constitutional crusaders.

I was 24 years old when my mother, through a series of mishaps, found out I was gay. My mother came over to where I worked, screaming, and told me I was "dead" to the family. She called me "sick," "crazy" and "of the devil." She said that I would never see my family again.
For more than five years after that day, I heard nothing from my family. No birthday cards, no invitations to Christmas or Thanksgiving events. It wasn't just the loss of my immediate family that was difficult, but the loss of my extended family as well. Since my mother refused to be in the same room with me, it forced my aunts and uncles to choose sides. I have not been to a family reunion in more than a decade.

. . . For all of the struggles my family experienced while I was growing up, none has been more damaging to its foundation than my mother's religious extremism and fervent black and white ideology. We have not been in the same room together for more than 11 years. My mother's religion has left us not merely splintered, but broken. It leaves no room for compromise or even mutual respect for people that have different ideologies.

Yes, family values at their best.

HAT TIP: Fellow Kerry supporter, Andrew Sullivan