Prejudice manifests itself in ugly ways - again

Robert and Clipper's dream of living in tranquility in the woods of northeastern Washington died last month.

As death threats were hurled at them - verbal grenades exploding the phone in their hand - it destroyed their peace and security. Some deluded fanatics had found them, knew who they were (could such closed-hearted people ever really have known them?) and "those queers had better get out!"

"Queers" they had said. Something "strange and uncommon," Webster tells us. It really was the seething, almost vengeful outpouring of hate that was so strange, so truly queer and nonsensical. Robert and Clipper's love for each other as gay men, their expression of the human souls longing to be found, to be held and to be loved, how is that queer?

Yet regardless of how ridiculous such inflammatory rhetoric is, it still can ignite a burning desire for righteous and willful recrimination.

Thankfully, this particular act of prehistoric behavior was responded to with the loving potency of the human heart: friends arrived with offers of support; petitions circulated condemning the childish intimidation; even the press helped expose the absurd act. But even more satisfying to my mind was that amidst the pain, these men were offered sanctuary in Sandpoint.

The biblical prophet Amos understood the need to open our arms to all who are burdened, who have suffered indignation or privation. The Sanctuary Movement that helped political refugees from Guatemala and Honduras knew the power of the human embrace. These are the manifest forms of compassion.

Sadly, the hate of prejudice arises out of fear, a feeling not just reserved for those who use it to hate but that is common to us all. It is the same fear that kept me awake through years of very, very dark nights after my father was murdered. Fear of what's different and unknown, threatening my safety, my control. I spent my childhood so afraid of my mother being next to go I have an unavoidably conditioned reaction when a girlfriend is even five minutes late for dinner. But at least it's my fear and mine alone. It is not a weapon that has been nurtured on isolation and refined by self-pride, honed to a sharpness that can run others right through, intentionally inflicting suffering on another human soul.

Holding back the tears, Robert put it so well: "In a life of only a few pure and precious moments, how can this be? They might as well have shot us."

Perhaps with the public repudiation and demise of Richard Butler's particular brand of hate, some people are looking for a new target, something that will get more support? And, of course, the shifting sights of the narrow-minded always have liked a change of pace.

In 1892, the Japanese were the target as the Idaho Daily Statesman carried articles supporting Nampa residents who had ordered "Japs," who clearly once were queer, out of the state. Nationally, we have gone from lynching blacks and making postcards out of their misery to Jew-bashing and commie-baiting.

It's sad that as France passes national recognition for gay couples and Vermont agrees to civil unions and rights therein, in Idaho, if a gay man dies, his possessions may not go to his surviving partner, since in the eyes of the courts there is no surviving partner.

These are the same Idaho eyes that did not give the Japanese full state citizenship until 1962. Yes, 1962. From the early 1900s, when Alice Fletcher, scholar, archaeologist and lesbian, helped photograph and document life in early Idaho, to the persecution that gays suffered in "The Boys of Boise" case, I wonder when it will be the year for gay rights in Idaho. In 2062?

Peter was a friend of theirs. When he was 16, to be honest to his parents and faithful to himself, he told them he was gay. He was promptly and summarily thrown out of his home.

Their parting gift was a plane ticket and a drive to the airport. Within the week, in a strange city and a strange world, he was raped and stabbed.

I am white, American, heterosexual and male. A member of the most privileged group on the planet. My parents did not throw me out. I have never been raped or stabbed and I have no idea, nor will I ever, of what these men have been through.

But Robert, Clipper, Peter and I share one thing: We all want to love and to be loved. In these days of uncertain futures, what else have we got?

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