Another step toward full equality for all human beings

Letter to the editor - Dear Editor:

When are certain segments of our society going to learn that their little half-hearted patronizing attitudes toward our fellow human beings who happened to be gay will no longer be tolerated.

For years I've heard the patronizing, dehumanizing fundamentalists in Newfoundland say "hate the "sin" (homosexuality) but love the sinner," as if they were somehow superior to our gay brothers and sisters.

My advice to gays, when they encounter the platitude re the sinner is to inform our puritanical brothers and sisters that "they as gays hate Christianity, but love Christians" and wait for a reaction.

Anyway, the purpose of this letter is not to reform sanctimonious cretins, especially those who use the Christian Church as a closet to mask their own insecurities but to comment on a far more important issue, that of human rights

Just recently in California, two Christian fertility doctors refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian who desired to have a child. Yet the doctors did go so far.

In the lawsuit that led to the ruling, Guadalupe Benitez, 36, of Oceanside said that the doctors treated her with fertility drugs and instructed her how to inseminate herself at home but told her their beliefs prevented them from assisting her further (CBC news online).

Can you believe that ? I would call it an outrageous case of splitting hairs but the doctors didn't get that far (Yes, a pun is intended). The whole thing is comparable to that weird American Shaker Sect, which didn't believe in sexual intercourse and so died off. Can't you just visualize the groom performing his masculine role up to the last moment on his wedding night and then confessing to his overheated, blushing bride that he can't continue because it's against his religion and she'll have to go it alone? Grounds for divorce at least and justifiable homicide at most. At first, the Christian doctors (not Christian plumbers now, but doctors) were supported by the courts, but once various support groups came to the rescue of the lady, California's High Court reversed the lower court, and rightly so. If not, I can visualize some Christian fundamentalist teacher refusing to teach Mary the Pythagoras theorem on the basis that it could lead to Mary wanting to become a carpenter. Imagine, a female carpenter! What next will they think of? God only knows and sometimes He's not fully omniscient because if He were He would instruct his misguided flock to accept such sensible and inevitable societal changes.

Aubrey Smith

Grand Falls-Windsor