i was reading an opinion column in the buffalo news today about the current climate of public and political opinion on the rights of homosexuals, and it was so well written i've decided to reprint it here:

With foes like these, gays in good shape

8/9/2003

In a world of uncertainty, a person can usually take comfort in realizing that he or she is on the sane side of an issue when opposing Pat Robertson. However, just as homosexuals seem to be making a small amount of social progress - as evidenced by the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding gays in Texas, and the recent Canadian acceptance of gay marriage - we find the Christian right wing has dusted off its flintlocks to defend against perceived threats from the Supreme Court and those wild and crazy neighbors to the north.
These questions needs to be asked: What are the president, the pope and Robertson so afraid of? What do they think will happen? Their fear comes not only from a lack of tolerance, but from a continuing, perhaps willful, failure to understand the nature of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is not a choice; it is a condition - hard wired into a person's brain in exactly the same way heterosexuality is. Do most people "choose" to be attracted to members of the opposite sex? No, it is a predisposition that most, but not all of us, have. Historically, and regardless of culture or continent, somewhat less than 10 percent of the human population is, and will be, homosexual, regardless of what the president, the pope and Robertson like. These men merely reflect their inability to include the concept of homosexuality in a definition of what it means to be a normal human. Consider: who would choose to be rejected, scorned and persecuted by so much of the rest of humanity?

In the context of a recent speech, when the president said he is "mindful that all men are sinners," he was obviously implying that homosexuality is sinful, and by definition, evil. As a representative of all Americans, what qualifies this less-than-brilliant public servant to pronounce this judgment? Couching his rhetoric in language that most Christians would agree with does not mask the fact that his sentiment is not at all compassionate or Christ-like.

As for the pope, perhaps he should stick to getting his own church's moral house in order, before pronouncing upon human sexuality.

MARK YUNGBLUTH
Snyder

i have to say that is one of the most eloquently put messages i've read in quite some time on this subject. i only wish that it could have been run on the front page along side the blurb about lil' W's niece finally getting out of rehab. looks like jeb's not doing too much better on the family front. for all the stone casting the bush family as a whole has done from their moral high horse, they seem to have more family dysfunction than the kennedys. should they be forgiven their trespasses?