#tolerance trap

“Perhaps the most pressing problem facing America today is that a majority of our citizenry are being compelled to accept or endorse ideas and actions they find unethical, immoral—or just plain crazy—by the addicts, thieves, violent criminals, and sociopaths who are now determined to drag us down to their level in the name of equity.”

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then gay men are from Pluto and lesbians are from the land of hobbits and blue avatars. Or men will be men, gay men will be kinda like men but pinker, and lesbians will be an enigma wrapped in a mystery. What is completely absent here is any notion of the social.

Washington Post writer Marguerite Kelly claims that 'most scientists think that a person’s sexuality is the work of nature, not nurture; that it is as innate as the color of his eyes and just as immutable. A homosexual can no more be attracted to a member of the opposite sex than he can be attracted to a lamppost.' Tell that to all the attractive lampposts out there.

While gay teachers may not 'turn' kids gay (just as my hetero parents failed to turn me hetero), can't we also offer up the possibility that openly gay teachers (or neighbors or mothers or firefighters) may create environments that encourage expansive thinking about sexuality and gender?

In asserting that gay, lesbian and bisexual citizens want rights such as pay equity, voting rights, and an end to discrimination in the workplace and judicial system—indeed, 'full and deep integration and inclusion in the American dream'—[the author] makes it clear that tolerance is much too limited a goal. An enlightening examination of identity and the quest for 'deep freedom' by a largely misunderstood and marginalized group.