Published: May 02, 2008 11:41 am            

The long shadow of history

In the Washington Holocaust Museum is a room with photographs covering the walls of the inhabitants of a village whose destiny was to go up a chimney. One looks on these faces in earnest to connect with these fellow humans and wish them a different fate.

Do gays and lesbians have faces? Or are they faceless and nameless?

The public dialogue regarding the remarks of Sally Kern is poorly framed. The issue should not be about the freedom of speech, but whether an elected official of all the peoples in her district is well informed about critical issues.

A traveling exhibit documenting the Nazi persecution of gays from 1933 to 1945 is crossing America. About 100,000 men were arrested under an anti-gay law. Between five and fifteen thousand were sent to concentration camps, where many died from starvation, beatings and murder.

All elected officials and citizens should visit the Holocaust Museum as well as viewing the traveling exhibit of the persecution of homosexuals. What is compelling is this persecution occurred in an overwhelmingly Christian country, Germany, while a similar movement of discrimination has swept America under the guise of “protecting woman and children.”

In the 1930s, about 1 percent of the Germany population was Jewish who lived in urban areas. Few Germans ever personally met a Jew. The frequency of homosexuals remains constant over time and populations.

About 1 percent of the female population is lesbian and 4 percent of the male population is gay. In either country why does the overwhelming Christian majority feel threaten to the point of lashing out against extremely small populations of humans?

        

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