Look at this woman.  Closely.  This is the pleasant, slightly vacuous face of ignorance, bigotry and hatred.  This is the face of Diana Medley, who, along with others in her church, wants to create a “straights only” prom at Sullivan High School in Indiana.  This face is why ignorance and bigotry and hatred can continue to exist in the world.  When we think about ugly traits like these we still expect their faces to be equally ugly and scary.  But they aren’t.  They look like this – the church-going special education teacher who lives next door, the woman who will turn on your children if they cross her with the same sunny smile she wore when she brought that apple pie over the day you moved in.

Listen.  You can almost hear her say, “No I honestly don’t [think gays have a purpose in life]. Sorry, but I don’t.  I don’t understand it.”

Wow.  So many things to say and so little space to do it in.

No purpose in life?  That’s a big proclamation.  I’ve heard people say they hate gays and God knows there are people I’m none too fond of, but to decided that an entire group of people have no purpose at all?    Even the worst haters usually recognize that without us their hair, their home decor and the American musical theater would all be disasters.

And what does that even mean?  No purpose.  Is our only purpose on earth to marry and for each couple to make their own babies?  After all, the only thing gay couples can’t do that most – not all, but most – straights can is replicate on our own.  And if that is the benchmark of purpose, wouldn’t it mean that sterile straights and single straights and senior straights – pretty much all of us not actively in the process of making babies – have no purpose either?  Yes.  Yes it would.

How can Ms. Medley serve up such crap with her big Midwestern smile?  There’s a reason ignorance was first on my list of ugly traits.  She says it herself.  “I don’t understand it.”  She doesn’t understand it, yet she’s full of opinions on it.  She doesn’t agree with it.  She believes it’s a choice.  It’s offensive to her.

I have a news flash:  She doesn’t have to understand.  I’ll bet there are lots of things she doesn’t understand that have a much more profound impact on her life.  Gravity, for instance.  Nanotechnology.  Microprocessors.  Electricity.  Teacher or no, I just don’t get the feeling that Ms. Medley is a great thinker – largely because she offers up nothing to support her case.

I’m not completely unsympathetic.  I know I’d be stressed out all the time if I spent time trying to figure out heterosexuality.  Or lesbianism.  Or bisexuality.  There are billions of people out there who want to have sex with women!  Can you believe it?  I know!  It stunned me, too.  I don’t understand it.  Luckily I don’t have to.  I’m not looking to make a change.  But if I spent my time worrying about who they are and where they are and trying to figure out ways to keep them out of my proms and my club house, I would wear an expression like Diana Medley’s.  It’s not worth it.

One more thing:  Just how many homosexuals are there at Sullivan High School?  Not that, strictly speaking, numbers should matter, but how much of an impact could a handful of gays at the prom even make?  My graduating class was 450 people.  I fewer than half of those attended the prom and as I recall only about four of “us” showed up – with dates of the opposite sex, of course.  That’s less than 2%.  Granted there would probably be a larger percentage today, but folks we’re only supposed to be a max of 10% of the total population.  This whole squabble exploded over two girls.  One couple.  How horrible could it be to have two girls slow dance in the same room with the rest of the kids?  Who would notice?

One more thing more:  There’s an old saying that you’ve got to be cruel to be kind.  That seems to be the attitude of Ms. Medley and her exclusionary friends.  Using their religion as a shield and a false justification, they claim to love the “sinners” while hating the “sin,” when in fact, they are simply being hateful to people who have “sinned” in a way that has no effect on them and that is none of their business in the first place.

The saddest thing – even sadder than what these “Christians” are trying to do to the gay kids at Sullivan High School – is that I really don’t think they can see what evil they’re doing.  Though there is no rational reason for their actions and they can’t make a single logical argument to support them, they believe they are on solid ground.  The media have come down hard on Ms. Medley – and they should.  But I expect she will only be very hurt and confused and say “But it’s what I believe.”  How do you reason with that?

Lord have mercy.