Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

One small spark of freedom

The path to equality for this country is pitted and full of roadblocks. One by one they have been overcome, sometimes through nothing but the passage of time and sometimes through sacrifice, death, and enlightened lawmakers.

Our checkered human rights history began when the first Europeans sailed to New England to escape religious persecution in Europe.

I wonder if the irony of their eventual decimation of the indigenous population ever occurred to them?

The mid-1800s saw the importation of 10,000 Chinese laborers to lay track for our transcontinental railway. They were paid less than other laborers and not allowed to live in the same camps.

Later, race laws were passed in California including the interesting one prohibiting Chinese, Indians, or Negroes from ever testifying in court against a white man.

Women in this country didn't receive the vote until 1920. Prior to this they couldn't own land or sign a contract.

'No Irish Need Apply' was a sign hung in restaurants or factories needing workers in the Boston area after Irish immigrants fled the potato blight. Later, Italians suffered the stigma of 'Mafioso'.

Inevitably Jews, no matter how poor, were legally shunned for their involvement in a 'worldwide financial conspiracy', and using the blood of Christian babies in their religious ceremonies of course.

The most overarching of our American injustices was, of course, slavery. After its repeal black citizens were faced with 'Jim Crow' and three generations of institutional racism.

Japanese citizens were sent to internment camps during WWII. Young Americans of Japanese descent fought for this country in Europe while their families were herded into camps like the Jews in Europe.

We still have our little pockets of hatred where public policies skirt a fine line between preference and prejudice. Bob Jones University springs to mind.

Despite their hateful rhetoric against Catholics and Mormons and their ban on interracial dating, our Republican Presidential leaders make the pilgrimage every election year to secure votes from the Christian zealots.

Our current Attorney General owns an honorary degree from Bob Jones U. Must look great on the wall beside his oath to treat all citizens equally.

We have only one group left in our society that is lawfully given a lower status than other citizens. Gay men and women may not marry and may not be afforded the benefits of marriage in every state save Vermont.

In Vermont we have kindled a tiny flame of freedom called 'civil union'.

Because Vermont has ignited this one small spark of freedom for gay men and women, there are some lawmakers who are virtually foaming at the mouth in retaliation. Instead of pressing on with legislation necessary to the well being of this state they are furiously proposing anti-gay legislation.

The latest outrage is a bill to equate the relationship between gay couples with incest. 'Just as a man may not marry his grandmother, so two women may not marry' is what it boils down to.

Logic is the last thing on the narrow minds of these 'lawmakers' as they use a mob mentality to lash back at gays for daring to insist on rights expected by every straight citizen.

The day will come when gay citizens in all states will be free to marry the person of their choice and not be discriminated against. When that day comes these lawmakers will have a choice: they can make a pilgrimage to gay leaders asking forgiveness much like former Governor George Wallace did when his racism and his mortality became irreconcilable, or they can fester in a black hole of hatred like Byron De La Beckwith, who wallowed in his racism to his dying day.

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