Agreeing With Ms. Horton’s Gay Rights Article

Dear New Dawn Editor(s),

I recently read Stephanie Horton’s January 25, 2012 article on gay rights in your publication, and in my view it is outstanding. Ms. Horton’s thoughts are fully in line with universal principles of morality and fairness. Additionally, as a professor of history at Coppin State University, here in the United States, I must say her article’s historical content is indisputably accurate. (For historical records clearly demonstrate that homosexuality has been a part of the human experience—on a worldwide scale—throughout the whole of man’s existence; and no reasonable person would ever attempt to assert that, for some inexplicable reason, Africa is the only area on the planet that has been exempt from this very natural human phenomenon!)

As an African American, and one who has held President Johnson Sirleaf in high esteem, I find it distressing that the President would plan to“veto any legislation associated with gay rights or same sex marriage.” After having to battle against prejudices against women and irrational notions of female inferiority in her quest to be elected your country’s first female president, one would think Ms. Johnson Sirleaf would be in the very forefront of the push for human rights and equality—rather than assisting in denying others the same rights she has had to struggle to attain. In my view, those who have historically been the very focal point of discrimination, oppression and marginalization (e.g., women and people of African descent), and therefore have personal knowledge of the devastating effects of being denied one’s rights, should be the very lastto be the inflictors of such treatment upon others.

I salute, and completely concur with Ms. Horton’s article, and I commend you on your courageousness and willingness to publish it at a time when, unfortunately, various segments of your country are so steeped in homophobia. As an African American male who is well acquainted with the oppressive heel of discrimination, I was thoroughly appalled by the vicious treatment the student activist and his supporters received on January 13th of this year, but I am convinced that it is the heroic voices of people like Ms. Horton that ultimately help stamp out the destructive fires of homophobia, racism, sexism and the like.

Sincerely,

Michael C. Thomas, tthomasmike77@gmail.com
Please feel free to forward this correspondence to Ms. Horton