Things the New Year hasn't changed

Courtesy of my comrades at Official Reality Check comes another story of the sort that reactionaries think we savor. Except that we'd like nothing more than to see an end to them. I've written it before, but here's my stance-- if you're homosexual, I really couldn't care less. The law is the same for me as it is for you. The only problem is that a lot of other people don't think that's the case.*

(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) An executive committee member of the Southern Baptist Convention was arrested on a lewdness charge for propositioning a male plainclothes policeman outside a hotel, police said.

Lonnie Latham, senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church, was booked into Oklahoma County Jail Tuesday night on a misdemeanor charge of offering to engage in an act of lewdness, police Capt. Jeffrey Becker said. Latham was released on $500 bail Wednesday afternoon.

Latham, who has spoken out against homosexuality, asked the officer to join him in his hotel room for oral sex. Latham was arrested and his 2005 Mercedes automobile was impounded, Becker said.

For the record, I don't equate homophobia with homosexuality. It's just that stories like this remind me of something I learned as a Scandinavian proverb while I was a child: the bond that binds too tightly snaps itself.

*I've probably mentioned this before, but I'm inclined to agree with Al Franken on this point. Gay rights might be a hotly-contested issue today, but in another fifty years it will be something that we look back upon with a twinge of embarrassment, much as we do (and rightly so) in the case of equal rights for women and blacks. What's so shocking is that we actually have to fight over these things. That said, keep fighting.