Rampant homophobia can endanger gays

KEITH WRIGHT
DM Columnist

If you stand up in a crowded theater and yell fire, and there is no fire and people get hurt, you get in trouble for inciting a riot, yet that's exactly what Ole Miss Business School Associate Professor Kirk L. Wakefield did with the letter to the editor that he wrote last week.

His letter purported that "gay rights are wrong because homosexuality is wrong." He challenged people who make a case for human rights for homosexuals to state one's "firm belief that homosexuality is right."

I firmly believe that homosexuality is right for people who are gay. I do not believe that one's sexual preference is something that ought to conform to what society dictates. I believe that one's sexual preference comes from within each of us. I never remember making the decision to become a heterosexual. It just kind of happened.

I know from the experiences of some gay friends, though, that the same wasn't quite true for them. Finding out that they were gay is, for some gay people, a traumatizing event. Here's why.

The toll that our culture takes on America's gay youth is immoral and oppressive. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, studies on youth suicide consistently find that lesbian and gay youth are two to six times more likely to attempt suicide than other youth and may account for 30 percent of all completed suicides among teens. Why the desperation?

According to the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, in a study of students in public high schools, 97 percent report regularly hearing homophobic remarks from their peers. In fact, the typical high school student hears anti-gay slurs several times a day. A Des Moines Register article in 1997 cited a 14-city study of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth in which 80 percent reported verbal abuse, 44 percent reported threats of attack, 33 percent reported having objects thrown at them and 30 percent reported being chased or followed. Another report noted that in 73 schools in Washington State, 111 incidents of anti-gay harassment and violence have been reported in the past five years, with about a third of the incidents serious enough to warrant possible criminal allegations.

Some of our gay youth are literally fighting for their lives. Tragically, some don't make it. Take, for example, the story of Matthew Shepard, as told through the words of his mother:

"You may have heard the story of my son, Matthew Shepard, who was brutally beaten to death in Wyoming last October. The loss of his life was devastating to us. My son, Matthew, was a bright star poised to take on the future. He had such hopes and potential. He was an enthusiastic student, an articulate speaker, and he was honestly gay. His life was crushed by the hatred of others. I believe that my son was killed because somehow, somewhere, his killers learned that the lives of gay people are not as worthy of respect, dignity and honor as the lives of other people. I ask you to ensure that students in your school never learn that dangerous lesson. We will never know what Matt could have accomplished, whether he would have been President, or a peacemaker, or cured a deadly disease. While it is too late to help my son, it is important to recognize that other children, right in your school, are facing devastating physical and emotional violence that is crushing their potential, their dreams and sometimes their very will to live."

Mrs. Shepard wrote that letter as an endorsement of an organization called P-FLAG, Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (http://www.pflag.org/), an organization that is committed to help others learn what they have learned, to help change attitudes and to actively contribute to the creation of an environment of understanding, so that all gay people can live with dignity and respect.

It's a shame that someone of Kirk Wakefield's authority on campus would stand up and proclaim that homosexuality is wrong. It perpetuates ignorance-based stereotypes. It creates a climate that is less safe for gays and lesbians. It jeopardizes the health and well-being of our youth. It spawns homophobia instead of understanding. Professor Wakefield, how do such violations of decency qualify you to lecture about morality?