My Journal

GRRRR!!!

Right now, I'm both proud and ashamed to be a North Dakotan.  I'm proud to live in a state where people pull together and work hard to help their neighbors in need.  This cooperation and generosity recently saved the state's largest city from a flood.  It's hard to believe that a place full of kind, caring people would react so negatively to the Gay Rights bill introduced in the state legislature. 

Letters to the editor on this subject were sickening to read.  The really sad thing was that the most hate filled letters also contained the most Bible quotes and references to God. One person said that if we give constitutional protection to gay people, we might as well give to to rapists and child molesters.  I can't believe that anyone couldn't see the difference, but for those who don't, I'll explain it.  A rapist or child molestor forces a relationship on someone who is unwilling or unable to accept it.  How is that the same as two consenting adults who love each other? 

The legislator who chaired the committee that killed the bill said that constitutional protection should not be extended based on a practice that was "wrong" and "a choice". How is sexual orientation a choice?  If it is a choice for gay people, it is a choice for all of us.  I've made lots of important choices in my life: what to study in college, who to marry, how many kids to have, and where to live.  I don't remember ever thinking "I choose to be heterosexual". 

North Dakota is a beautiful place in many ways, but we are losing our most precious resource, our people. Good people leave the state every day because of the weather, isolation, and lack of economic opportunity.  It's too bad that a lot of other good people have been told they aren't welcome here.