Adele Ferguson - Homosexual topics in columns stem from news

“HEY, YOU DUMB bitch! Written any more gay bashing articles lately? We got you out of our paper. Will look to get you out of other papers also. Signed, Friends of Gays. They are people to care about.”

The message was written on a card with a painting of flowers on the front and purchased from the American Assn. of University Women. It went through the Tacoma post office so I have no idea where in the Puget Sound area it was from.

There is no signature on it, which is usually the case with hate mail. I do not presume to credit it to a past or present AAUW member although I know women who are college graduates and have family members who are homosexual. I’ve never known them to behave other than as ladies.

I have lost some column customers of late, but I didn’t think it was because I opposed making same sex unions equal to the traditional marriage of one man and one woman. In one case the paper was sold and the new owner dumped me. In another the editor made changes in my column without asking me, and I wrote and told her to knock it off so she dumped me.

I’ve said before that I hate to write about homosexuals because they have taken the place of Social Security as the Third Rail in topics. Touch it and you get burned.

The problem is that they are in the news, therefore legitimate subjects for comment. We have Referendum 71 on the ballot in November repealing the Legislature’s bestowal of the rights and benefits of married heterosexuals on same sex unions. That’s news.

MASSACHUSETTS has sued the feds to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, claiming it infringes on a state’s sovereign right to define marital status. That’s news.

The Episcopal Church USA last month declared gays and lesbians eligible for any ordained ministry, thereby angering world Anglican leaders who instead wanted a moratorium on the Episcopalians consecrating any more openly gay bishops as they did in 2003 in New Hampshire. Some Episcopalians have left the main church and formed the Anglican Province of North America. The dissidents also voted in their constitutions that each congregation can own its own property, whereas the Episcopal church they left gives ownership to the bishop of each diocese. That’s news.

Since Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, of which many Washingtonians are members, is now a partner of the Episcopal church, sharing pastors and buildings, it shouldn’t be long before we find out how that applies to us. I am a Lutheran.

MY CHURCH voted overwhelmingly to accept homosexual pastors only if they are celibate and to not allow the blessing of same sex unions. Some Lutheran congregations are, however, splitting off from the main church where the hierarchy that runs things is not only tolerant but pushing the issue of gay pastors and same sex blessings.

Not much is written about the relationship of homosexuals with their communities because, I believe, other writers and/or their editors also find that it’s stepping on the Third Rail. When I do write about it, which I don’t often, besides the hate mail, I get letters from people thanking me for information they haven’t been able to get elsewhere.

As for my respondent’s admonition that Gays are people to care about, I have gay and lesbian friends, and not a single one of them displays a vicious streak. I think people like my respondent aren’t gay themselves but strike out at disagreements because they have kin who are and and they can’t accept that gays are made, not born. It’s only an opinion. If I am ever proven wrong, and I don’t mean by some gay would-be researcher, I’ll admit it.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville Wa., 98340.)