A historic day, flawed

On Tuesday, Americans elected the country’s first African American president. I wasn’t sure it was possible.

When I was a kid in rural Kansas, my grandfather talked openly and frankly of blacks as monkeys, as tar-babies, as flatly inhuman.

He had a favorite story — one he loved to tell the grandkids — about seeing a truckload of black farmworkers crash and spill. He claimed that the men bounced, as if made of rubber.

From bias and hatred so deep that we viewed our neighbors as inferior to a tolerance so expansive that we embrace Sen. Obama as our Commander In Chief — that’s a hell of a journey.

America should be proud. But the journey’s not over.

I was struck that on the same day we turned a corner on race, voters in California also chose to revoke equal marriage rights for millions of gay and lesbian couples.

I couldn’t help but wonder what stories were being told to grandkids in this country now.

Not about black men bouncing like tar-babies but about “abnormal” gays, about lesbians who flaunt “traditional” values.

I wince when I see TV shows and stand-up comics using “queer” stereotypes (the mincing queen, the tough dike) as regular fodder for their jokes.

It’s a kind of societally accepted minstrel show.

I happen to be heterosexual. I’m happily married, a father. I am deeply devoted to the institution of marriage. It really is the cornerstone of our society.

Which is why Americans should think long and hard about the moral dimensions of denying that right to millions of our neighbors.

What do you think? Leave a comment.