Mistake of hateful messages written in history

[Mnemosyne]

Community Columnist:
BY LIN QUENZER

Recently I read in the news about a student at George Mason University who was arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace because he was protesting the presence of military recruiters on his campus. Tariq Khan, a 27-year-old American citizen, a veteran of four years in the Air Force, found that freedom of speech did not, apparently, extend to him as a Muslim American, nor to his views on war. Though Tariq’s professors and fellow students are fighting to restore his ability to express his opinions, they face an uphill battle.

This is not a new phenomenon in the United States; it is a page right out of the old Cold War play book that was penned in large part by Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his compatriot, Nebraska Sen. Kenneth Wherry, to silence political opposition.

Certainly some of the catch phrases have changed. Communists are now replaced with terrorists, Muslims have replaced “Godless Russians” and the Middle East has replaced Southeast Asia, but one drum continues to bang Wherry’s tired old message: Namely, that homosexuals are a threat to America and are the cause of all bad things that happen to our country.

Today we listen, agog at all these old, hateful messages dressed up in new clothes about “these people,” evildoers bent on America’s utter destruction and, in our fright, forget the painful lessons of McCarthy’s Red, and Wherry’s Lavender, Scares. In the dark days following 9/11, the American public was informed by Jerry Falwell that homosexuals had brought about this catastrophe and that we must “purge” ourselves of this evil. Sadly, many people swallowed this lie as easily as they swallowed it in 1950 when Wherry proclaimed from the Senate floor, “Can (you) think of a person who could be more dangerous to the United States of America than a pervert?” (“The Lavender Scare,” David K. Johnson, University of Chicago Press)

more:
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2005/10/15/letters/doc4350410351acc407467343.txt

[opihimoimoi]

1. But But The Prez himself and a lot of others in BushCo may be Lavender too

What now?

[Mnemosyne]

2. Ya' got me! Maybe a nice blue would

work! The Blue Menace!! Let it be us!!

* the President Quayle we never had.

[dalaigh lllama]

3. I think the anti-gay sentiment

that surfaced in last year's round of state amendments against gay marriage surprised me more than almost anything else. In my idealistic naivete, I had assumed that most Americans had moved beyond such simplistic bigotry. Boy, was I wrong.

I think if there were more education explaining that homosexuality does NOT equal pedophilia, maybe some of the paranoia would abate -- there I go, being hopelessly, naively optimistic again.

[Mnemosyne]

4. The ignorance and fear never

cease to astound me. I am constantly correcting those that have that connection in their head.

Someday maybe all the ignorance/fear about race and homosexuality will disappear. Yeah, I'm a dreamer.

[WildClarySage]

5. But you're not the only one.

:)

[Mnemosyne]

6. Perhaps someday they'll join us!

:toast: :bounce:

[Broken_Hero]

7. Yes...

You are not alone at all in that...we can dream together, but i'm trying hard to make it go away, it seems to me, that the gay rights movement is our civil rights wedge issue of today....