'I'm not homophobic, but ... '

[Butterfly]

'I'm not homophobic, but ... '
Newspaper Tree
By Verónica Carbajal
July 15, 2009


http://www.newspapertree.com/opinion/4053--i-m-not-homophobic-but 🔗


"I'm not homophobic, but..."

I just wish they wouldn't be themselves around me and my family." I have heard many versions of this statement since the incident at Chico's Tacos, where five men were told to leave after a security guard saw two of them kiss. The men refused and called the police. The police officer who arrived sided with the restaurant, citing a state law that he didn't know was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas in 2003, and who was clearly unaware of the local ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, among other things, in places of public accommodation (like restaurants, hotels, and other businesses). Each time I hear statements like this, I wonder if people realize that what they are saying is not at all different from what used to be said to justify exclusions, prohibitions, and inequality based on other identity markers (race, gender, etc.).

[sofiadragon1979]

I just wish that people would get over there insecuraties & realize that we are all just trying to be happy.