We need to protect our children

Opinion: April 24, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By William S. MEYER

McClatchy-Tribune

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, recently provoked international outrage when he declared that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia. These assertions not only distracted attention from the scandal of priests sexually abusing children, but they agitated latent bigotry against homosexuals, a group that has a long history of being blamed for a host of social ills.

When people in the public eye conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, they ignite fear and foment reactionary paranoia in the general population.

Some will remember singer and Florida orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant, who in 1977 launched a successful, highly publicized campaign, Save Our Children. “As a mother,” Ms. Bryant said, “I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children.”

This emotionally charged, logic-free campaign, succeeded in repealing an ordinance that had outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Consequently, for the next 20 years, gays and lesbians in Dade County, Fla., suffered discrimination in housing and employment.

Fortunately, as a whole, we have progressed in this country from where we once were. A 1967 CBS poll revealed that two-thirds of Americans looked upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear — one out of 10 said hatred — and the majority of Americans favored legal punishment, even for homosexual acts committed in private between consenting adults.

Work remains

While laws and attitudes have changed considerably over the last 40 years, there is much work that remains. In the last several weeks, we saw what happened to 18-year-old Constance McMillen, a courageous honor student, in Mississippi. Wanting nothing more than to go to her senior prom with her girlfriend, she was subjected to a community response that took mean-spiritedness to a new level. The school administration not only refused to accommodate her simple request, they also canceled the prom.

Not wanting to confront the backlash from her fellow students, she said she did not want to go back to school the next day. Her father insisted that she face the others.

“My daddy told me that I needed to show them that I’m still proud of who I am,” she said. “The fact that this will help people later on, that’s what’s helping me to go on.”

Predictably, she was taunted by students, including one who told her, “Thanks for ruining my senior year.”

Fake prom

When a new prom was offered in secret to virtually everyone else in her class, Ms. McMillen, and a few others, were duped into attending a fake prom at a site across town.

How on earth could parents, who had to be in the know, stage such a cruel, humiliating prank? The biggest tragedy here was that the responsible adults in her school district squandered an opportunity to teach their children about love, tolerance and acceptance.

Anti-homosexual bigotry exacts an awful price.

While the Catholic Church is to be commended for no longer remaining silent on the problem of priests who take liberties with children, it must not do so by fostering anti-homosexual prejudice. Such communications encourage people to absolve themselves by believing that their bigotry is justified, thus promoting a society that values sanctimony and exclusion of persons outside the mainstream.

William S. Meyer in a faculty member in the Department of Social Work at Duke University, Durham, N.C.