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The OCA believes that it can eliminate a subculture its
homophobe members detest through sanctioned government
suppression with support of a majority of the citizenry, perhaps
initially more subtle than Adolf Hitlers attempt to exterminate a
large menu of society's "misfits," most prominently the children
of Judah (and including homosexuals), yet parallels are relevant
and possible Hitler began his suppression of German Jewry by
first isolating them as an undesirable subgroup, then by ordin
ances forbidding them this or that, until sure of his power and
success of his campaign of ostracism, he stripped the Jews of
citizenship and declared open violence upon them
The OCA demands homosexuals not receive "special
rights," but when, Daymon Edwards asks, "did equality become
a special nght for Americans? We live in a country that gives
men medals for killing other men in war, yet shun them for
loving one in a time of peace."
The right of the people to live in a manner of their own
choice is a crucial tenet of democracy and of constitutional law.
We don't have to like or even approve of our neighbors but
neither we nor they have the nght to trample upon or deny the
individual rights and liberties of each other (which also protects
the OCA and its virulent allies who attempt to use the law to
undermine all it stands for).
'The cold hard fact of the matter is that the OCA doesn’t
like the power and influence that gay groups wield in this state,"
Daymon Edwards wrote. 'They just do not like the fact that pro
homosexuals are in power in high places across Oregon."
The OCA is a direct heir to the klavems of the Ku Klux
Klan that were greatly popular in Oregon during the 1920s
Homosexuals were deep in the closet and escaped most of the
KKK's wrath This was focused on Jews, Catholics and aliens,
with little activity against blacks because they were fewer in
Oregon than furtive or fugitive gays. The Klan's political clout
was instrumental in passing a bill which prohibited Chinese and
Japanese immigrants from owning land in the state.
'The 1920s Klan provides an example of modem people
wrestling with the complex dilemmas of social change," David
Horowitz, history professor at Portland State University, wrote
for the July 1986 Times Eagle. Oregon "Klansmen seemed to be
defending religious loyalties, national patriotism, and traditional
morality from the threat of a newly emerging mass culture. At
the heart of their anguish was an increasing sense of powerless
ness before impersonal events and circumstances."
Horowitz provides a solid insight into the bitter motives
of the OCA. They mean to strike with the fury of their frustra
tions as weapons against a traditional target which they have
been taught to revile since childhood Even the loathsome term
queer is in a sense comparable with the KKK's antipathy toward
kikes, niggers and outsiders, though perhaps with more inbred
revulsion.
The OCA is not a unique phenomenon It is only one of
a rapidly proliferating movement of evangelical nativist fascism
that is exemplified by white supremacist hate groups. Jews,
blacks and gays are their major targets (also feminist ramen),
DAVID SUTER
which is not to say they don't bash anyone who is different from
themselves
A cartoon of a few years ago commented on an earlier
controversy about homosexuals teaching in schools. The
cartoon shows a child staring at Leonardo da Vinci, Socrates
and Plato who sit on a park bench reading newspaper want ads.
This might well be an imminent portrait of the loss of remarkable
minds and talents the OCA is demanding be removed from open
society and revoked of their rights as citizens. AIDS has deficit-
ed much of the nation's cultural treasury by killing many of its
most gifted writers, actors, dancers, musicians and artists.
DEMOCRACY BEGINS A T HOME
.. Whilst the parties of man cram their tenets down
all men's throats whom they can get into their power, without
permitting them to examine their truth or falsehood, and will not
let truth have fair play in the world, nor men the liberty to search
after it; what improvement can be expected? What greater light
can be hoped for in the moral sciences?"
-JOHN LOCKE
Democracy began in 508 BC when the citizens
of Athens overthrew a Tyrant and set up a government of
the people. Democracy is a Greek word meaning 'rule of the
people'.
Unfortunately the Tyrant came back with an army and
executed the more prominent democrats who ousted him. He
took back the government and ruled as a tyrant until he died.
This was a setback to political freedom at its dawn, yet as our
revolutionary ancestors demonstrated two centuries ago, the
idea of democracy is persistent and frequently prevails over
tyrants and outlives them.
Democracy is a pragmatic compromise between
the yearning for freedom and the urge to frustrate it. It is an
elaborate though inherently fragile system of concessions
between diverse and disparate ambitions and ideologies
represented by a variety of economic and political classes,
despite an enshrined myth that a democracy is a classless
society The irony is that democracy is better able to tolerate
class differences than any other system of government.
The only possible survival for a democracy is to estab
lish and sustain a balance between its conflicting factions and
allow none of them to gain such power as to be capable of
suppressing or ravaging the rest.
So long as no particular interest is powerful enough
to fully and finally overwhelm its varied rivals, nor any alliance
capable of singleness of purpose long enough to accomplish
that end, a tacit respect for the laws and terms of constitutional
democracy is maintained. At rare moments an idea that might
accidentally resemble social justice is sometimes enacted as
law of the land, although opposing forces waste little time in
their attempts to overturn whatever might be to their disadvan
tage
Democracies are themselves compromises between
dreamlike edens of anarchy, socialist collectives of workers'
paradises in which individual liberties are usually forfeit as are
most worldly possessions including food and shoes, and aristo
cracies of one shape or another that rule through tradition and
privilege for the single purpose of their own comfort, which is
historically at the expense of large masses of impovenshed
citizens who are obliged to toil and obey Democratic govern
ments are most often inspired by rising classes of bourgeoisie
whose general outlook is liberal and progressive yet seldom
naive about the affairs of business and government The politi
cal suffrage of the democratic public is channeled by powerful
political/economic interests to stifle possibly contagious out
breaks of populism
Democracies face periodic crisis when ideological
concerns lose patience with legislative or judicial processes
Powerful, often retrogressive and reactionary forces rise at
times of rapid social transformation, which also generally
include more than usual excesses of corruption as well as
strained economies When ideologies rigidity into implacable
positions that despise workable compromise the likely result
is civil violence, vtfiich might erupt on a skinhead scale yet
quickly escalate into savage extremes such as an earlier
American experience (1861-65) or the recent Balkan and
Rwandan butcheries (A distinction should be made between
violent reprisals by an uncompromising government and
uncompromising violence by a rapacious minority determined
to undermine and overthrow government )
The current political climate in the USA is incendiary,
which is reflected by condescending political parties and politi
cians that attempt to placate extreme rightwing ideologues and
religious zealots who manipulate the democratic process to
ultimately depose it. Proto/fascists who are determined to wrest
power have tapped into the old leftist/liberal/populist tactics of
grassroots organizing and ballot initiatives to promote laws that
deny basic citizens' rights to anyone disagreeable or threatening
to them.Their grim and vengeful vision of apocalyptic subordina
tion excludes diversity, intelligence and imagination, and blames
the nation's problems on such interesting and rather progressive
citizens as feminists, gays and lesbians, blacks. Hispanics and
recently arrived world immigrants who hope for the future rather
than cling to noxious images of the past These dismal-souled
Millenarians intend that those who have never enjoyed the fruits
of liberty and prosperity, few and bitter as they are. shall never
reach the tree It might be argued that such reactionary and
grossly unjust attitudes are based on fear, but the fear, prejudice
and absolutism they inculcate should not be lightly dismissed if
democracy is to continue as the country's fundamental structure
and ideal
Democracy evolves Like nationalism, capitalism,
socialism and communism, it is no more than part of a process
of human development that is always evolving into something
else. Ideas, which are usually expressions of concern that
people have about the welfare of others, develop into ideologies
that separate them as enemies Ideologies do not usually
translate well into reality except they often make it appalling
by the fervor with which they are promoted Governments
generally violate their charters, and no matter how they wsh
to be considered, are most often oppressive to their populations
and aggressive with their neighbors. Political nghts or liberties
hardwon by one generation are usually eroded by successors
who take them for granted without realizing how rare, necessary
and fragile they are
The history of an age is not about solutions to problems
but of the struggle between several possible solutions and the
manner in which seekers for certain answers are deflected by
others working for other answers Capitalism, communism,
fascism, any and all isms. are constantly reforming, overlapping
and separating, and inherent wthin al! of them are the human
factors of power avarice, corruption, violence and asininity No
system is foolproof, and like every other organism each moves
toward decay The farther in time a form of rule or ideology
moves from its founders the less recognizable its foundations
Murray Kempton once wrote that the bearers of political myth of
every era seem to carry in their hands the ax and the spade to
execute and inter the myth of every previous era
Human beings cannot escape history is the Marxist
idea; but human beings make their own history Freedom and
equality, like love, begin at home
We might remember Judge Learned Hand "Liberty lies
in the hearts of men and v\x>men; when it dies there, no consti
tution. no law, no court can save it."
-M ichael M c C usker
The OCA's draconian mandates would remove from Oregon the
remaining best and brightest who practice sexual freedom from
the most basic protections of civilization "We must scrupulously
guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever
their background," Franklin Delano Roosevelt said. "We must
remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a
wedge designed to attack our civilization."
And we must also remember Oregon's Bill of Rights,
which says that "no law shall be passed granting to any citizen
or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which upon the
same terms, shall not belong to all citizens." Stated thus, it is the
OCA that is petitioning for special rights — the right to discrimin-
ate against other citizens.
Sacnficial genocide has never resolved the crises and
upheavals of history. Adolf Hitler aroused the passions of war
defeated Germany with myths of supenonty and hatred of Jews.
The OCA is raising the swastika of persecution of homosexuals,
attempting to implement ethnic cleansing through popular vote.
It is speculative if the 20th century will be remembered because
Gandhi lived in it or that Hitler was its worst citizen, his dark
legacy exemplified by genocidal fascism implicit in such
supremacist cults as the OCA Gandhi himself might not have
approved of homosexuality; there is reasonable evidence he
would have disapproved of its persecution.
This is our choice. And it swings on the proposition that
it makes no difference whether you like someone or approve of
a person's habits and attitudes You are not entitled to interfere
into the rights of others
If this is a fair interpretation of a few constitutional
amendments, how is it that the OCA claims to be upholding
traditional American values? To the contrary, dispossessing a
courageous group of people who have long struggled to emerge
as a respected and equal part of society would be a large move
in the direction Hitler trod more than half a century ago The
hatred he called up from the human psyche continues its
pervasive sickness among us. and if we succumb to purging
unpopular or convenient scapegoats for our troubles, it should
not be surprising that other undesirables will also be removed
Perhaps as has been suggested elsewhere, eventually even
ourselves
This is a rewrite of articles that appeared in the April
1992/October 1994 NOTE, which were the years OCA got its
antigay measures on the Oregon ballot
R iver S ea
----- CALLERY
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