Who are those haters anyway? Gay rights is a human rights issue

I have long maintained that gay marriage is a civil rights issue. It is as important a civil rights issue as women's suffrage or the civil rights movement. Had men not stood up with women to have the vote, they would still be deemed property and not have the right to vote. Had whites not stood up with blacks, they would still not have the right to vote.

I often hear people speak of gays and pedophiles in the same light. One is an abhorrent, hurtful and deviant lifestyle, and the other is a sexual orientation. We cannot and should not lump them together.

Why can't we have more men teaching preschool? Why doesn't the government pay for all men who want to teach school to complete their undergraduate work and graduate work so that for all those young men and women growing up in fatherless homes, they have a role model in the classroom, on a daily basis. How serious are we about education reform really?

I digress. We often hear of parents expressing dismay over male preschool and Sunday school teachers. Why the outrage? They are convinced that these men will molest their children. Statistically speaking, most pedophiles (some 65%) are self proclaimed heterosexuals.

Some years ago, one of my sons was manhandled quite violently at a church-sponsored Boy Scout camp. I was chagrined and horrified when he explained to me what had transpired: he had been sleeping in a tent with a kid who threw up and he and the other tentmates wandered around, trying to find a clean place to crash. As fate would have it, they ended up in the tent of a boy whose dad was one of the counselors at camp.

When he saw the boys up and about, he flew into a rage, slamming my son into a tent wall, ripping his shirt and sending his friend into the fire, still glowing with embers. My son never went back to scouts after that - he was so close to getting his Eagle Scout - I talked to the local police and they assured me that this man was a decent man and attended church services regularly and pretty much talked me out of pressing charges.

My point is that I would much rather have my sons be with good, decent, well rounded men, straight or gay, than with scary overbearing men with anger and rage issues, straight or gay.