In the past fews days I have been keeping my eyes on the media more than ever - the gay marriage debate has sparked one town/county in Tennessee to TRY TO BAN gay people from living in their county. While I can understand their apprehension to have a Starbucks, upscale clothing, good music, and nicely decorated homes, what I cannot abide is the total arrogance and ignorance with which these people PUBLICALY display their own ignorance of gay men and women. Like it's some kind of trophy to be that stupid and intolerant in this day and age.

We are not living in the times of the Quakers - we cannot let the duly elected people of our towns turn the gay communities into the next concentration camp victims! I said it....that is next on the agenda of some religious communities. First you force them out....then you round them up...and then what? Deportation or Death Camps?

For when we even THINK of banning a section of people from LIVING in a town, we have stepped back in time to the days when the religious communities ran the local politics. Salem had the witch trials, and we all know how that ended, with the deaths of innocent women, accusations of all kinds to everyone, and a general fear and loathing of anything different from the "norm." A "norm" that is set as a moral standard for everyone else to uphold and live by.

At the town meeting was a 12 YEAR OLD girl who professed her own ignorance, and intolerance to gay people that she didn't even know! Stating that "it isn't Christian" but then professing that she was a Baptist. It's so nice to see that the youth of this small town are being taught hatred instead of reading, math, music, art, sports...in a community that THRIVES and CELEBRATES on its own past mistakes (SCOPES TRIAL), it is no wonder that they would take to the world of politics to support their own hatred by trying to pass some personally religious motivated law.

While this law would be targeted to gay men and women exclusively, it could backfire on themselves in the light that all sex acts performed between a man and woman would have to be defined out as well. Just in case someone wanted to say that certain sexual acts between a man an wife were against nature and God, and then try to have them arrested and prosecuted as well.

The system does work both ways, and if a law had stayed on the books, I wonder now, just how many gay people would be arrested? How would the nation react to that event happening in front of national television audiences. If this was truly a mistake on the commission's part, then they need to in public, apologize to the gay people of the community, or resign immediately for allowing their personal feelings to play the part of their political views. A county commission should have the COUNTY vote on an issue such as this! Not just the will of eight people in a room who didn't even have this issue on their agenda that night!

But, if I was living in that town, I would have filed a civil rights violation law suit against the county commission so fast they would have not had time to think. I would see to it that they were put on public trial for their personal and religious beliefs, and to hold them accountable for the sexual acts that they perform while in the PRIVACY of their own home, with their husband/wife/partner - let's make their personal life public property for all to hear and bear witness to.

If any town in America arrests one person for being gay, then we have become a nation that is no better than the NAZI state that wrongfully imprisoned the Jewish community and subsequently sentenced them to death because of hatred and ignorance! America needs to not repeat the hate crimes of the past by letting the religious views of those elected officials taint the legal system! Separation of church and state must be adhered to in all circumstances! We are a nation built on the rights of Freedom, but to use the law in such a manner is a travesty of what the founding fathers had in mind.

Michael McCLain
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
amberbaer@comcast.net