On Tuesday, Americans elected the country’s first African American president. I wasn’t sure it was possible.<\/p>\n
When I was a kid in rural Kansas, my grandfather talked openly and frankly of blacks as monkeys, as tar-babies, as flatly inhuman.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
America should be proud. But the journey’s not over.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t help but wonder what stories were being told to grandkids in this country now.<\/p>\n
Not about black men bouncing like tar-babies but about “abnormal” gays, about lesbians who flaunt “traditional” values.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It’s a kind of societally accepted minstrel show.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Which is why Americans should think long and hard about the moral dimensions of denying that right to millions of our neighbors.<\/p>\n
What do you think? Leave a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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