Easy answer: Immoral. Or, to be more precise, that was the easy answer until late last year, when the easy became slightly more difficult, as it often does. As a proud conservative as well as OUTSIDE THE BOX thinker, the kind who knows no labels, I appreciated the GAYS for their colorful clothes and enthusiasm. But I thought they crossed a line somewhere. A moral line. I stood with our President, I voted them down. But things change.
Last year, my brother (let's call him SKIP) turned out to be a GAY. There was much turmoil and second-guessing in my household after he made his announcement. My mother gesticulated madly, my father went outside to stand in the snow and stare at the moon. SKIP called somebody. It was a poignant tableau. I put on a BACH CD and tried to come to terms with this, with the fact that my own brother was IMMORAL/ GAY.
But SKIP is my brother, I reasoned. He bought me thoughtful Christmas gifts. He often helped clear the table after dinner. He watered my plants while I was in COSTA RICA. Troubled by this discrepancy, I pondered. So later that week, to better understand SKIP and his ways, I went to see the celebrated film ON BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. I will not drag out the tired cliche and say that I laughed and I cried, because I didn't laugh much. I did giggle a few times. But mostly it was a powerful film, filled with rueful landscape and hurt feelings, and I left the theater thinking about life and whistling the theme song. I thought: the GAYS really aren't immoral. Rather, they are moral.
This conclusion was reinforced. After the movie, I went to get a coffee to prepare myself for a long night of thoughtful musing. The coffee came to $1.35, but I only had $1.25. The guy behind the counter shrugged and said "Don't worry about it." He was a GAY. Clearly something was happening. Clearly fate was intervening. Fate itself, I thought, may be GAY.
I support our President because he is a strong leader, but he has it wrong on this one. The GAYS should be given civil rights, because they are not immoral, but moral.
Daily Kos, we need to think OUTSIDE THE BOX. You must surely see in my story the message that conservatives think and can change, and we conservatives must think and change sometimes, and vice versa. For example: stem cells. My good friend JOHN PETTY MUSSELBORO developed severe chronic laryngitis. Now he desperately needs some stem cells. Legalize them, Mr President, if you're listening. You've got this one wrong.
I hope he is listening. News reports say he is, and I don't mind one bit. I have many OUTSIDE THE BOX ideas that he could learn about if he tapped my phone.
In sum, let's not get trapped in our own thoughts. Let's think.
Thank you, DailyKos, for this forum. I see now that getting kicked off of redstate.com was actually a good thing. We should use dialogue to repair our divides, not to kick people off of websites within 8 minutes and yell at them.
This diary is dedicated to SKIP.
Yours truly,
Chip Mitchell
scientist, thinker, conservative