WHAT'S DONE IN THE DARK :

What I learned at the Minneapolis Metrodome about liberals and homosexuality (Dennis Prager, Sept. 4, 2002, Jewish World Review)

Broadcasting from the Minneapolis affiliate of my radio show last week, I was treated to a Minnesota Twins game. [...]

A couple of times between innings, a stadium camera focused on couples, who, when they saw themselves on the large stadium monitor inside a big red heart, gave each other a kiss. It was all quite innocent. I know because I did not feel at all uncomfortable with my 9-year-old son, and I am zealous about guarding his innocence in the jaded culture America gives its children. Indeed, as often as not, the couples were in their later years, and when they kissed each other, we all felt good. Who isn't happy to see romance flourish in older couples?

And then a thought occurred to me: Wasn't the Metrodome engaging in discrimination? Surely, there were some same-sex couples at the ball game. Why weren't any of them shown kissing on the "kiss cam"? How could it be that in the state of libertarian Gov. Jesse Ventura and Sen. Paul Wellstone, perhaps the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, such discrimination could take place?

I raised this question on my radio show, and Minneapolis callers were unanimous in responding that whether Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, the vast majority of people attending a Twins game would not accept a "kiss cam" depicting two men or two women kissing each other.

If these callers were right -- and I suspect they were -- it means that even liberal and libertarian Minnesotans do not want to be confronted by public displays of homosexual affection, especially when children are present. But how can that be?

Increased public acceptance of such previously unacceptable social "innovations" as homosexuality, drug use, abortion, euthanasia, cloning, etc. depends in large measure on an implicit agreement never to discuss the actual mechanics of these practices. This calls to mind the words of the great jurist Benjamin Cardozo: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant". Posted by Orrin Judd at September 4, 2002 9:02 AM