..::Nebraska Democratic GLBT Caucus

Recently I read in the news about a student at George Mason University who was arrested for trespassing, disturbing the peace because he was protesting the presence of military recruiters on his campus. Tariq Kahn, a 27-year-old American citizen, a US veteran who served four years in the Air Force, found that freedom of speech did not, apparently, extend to him as a Muslim American, nor to his views on war. Though Tariq's professors and fellow students are fighting to restore his ability to express his opinions, they face an uphill battle.

This is not a new phenomenon in America, it is a page right out of the old Cold War play book that was penned in large part by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his compatriot, Nebraska Senator Kenneth Wherry to silence political opposition. Certainly some of the catch phrases have changed. Communists are now replaced with terrorists, Muslims have replaced "Godless Russians" and the Middle East has replaced Southeast Asia, but one drum continues to bang the tired old message of Kenneth Wherry. Namely, that homosexuals are a threat to America and are the cause of all bad things that happen to our country.

Today we listen, agog at all these old, hateful messages dressed up in new clothes about "these people," evildoers bent on America's utter destruction and, in our fright, forget the painful lessons of McCarthy's Red, and Wherry's Lavender Scares. In the dark days following 9/11, the American public was informed by Jerry Falwell that homosexuals had brought about this catastrophe and that we must "purge" ourselves of this evil. Sadly, many people swallowed this lie as easily as they swallowed it in 1950 when Wherry proclaimed from the Senate floor, "Can [you] think of a person who could be more dangerous to the United States of America than a pervert" (The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson, University of Chicago Press).

These are dangerous times and bear many similarities to the era following the end of World War II. What can we do to avoid the serious blows to our country's greatest asset, the rich diversity of our people's contributions, that we experienced in the Cold War? We must learn our history, what it means when we disenfranchise entire groups of Americans. Stifling the free speech of minority groups, the goal of Wherry and McCarthy, created an environment of fear so thick nobody dared question any government actions. Americans kept silent for fear of being labeled, ironically, as un-American. Thousands lost jobs, families, some their lives for being labeled homosexual or Communist. Refuting allegations that one's sexual orientation or political views somehow threatened America's security was almost impossible. Instead of proving one's guilt, people were forced to defend their innocence, the antithesis of American jurisprudence. This flew in the face of the hallmark of American democracy, equality before the law.
Now we are confronted with the descendants of these poisonous policies in the form of the Patriot Act designed to root out anti-American activities and in the form of legislation to keep homosexual Americans from relationship rights afforded to heterosexuals. Though at first it may seem absurd to think Nebraska is at the epicenter of a national battle for our democracy, our history has positioned us clearly so. We have witnessed war protesters removed from before the gates of Stratcom at Omaha's Offut Air Force Base, which was located in this state courtesy of, you guessed, Senator Wherry. We have also seen a resurgence of Wherry's politically motivated homophobia with the institution of the nation's most regressive effort to disenfranchise gay citizens, Nebraska's Defense of Marriage Amendment (DOMA).

However slight, progress toward restoring true civil discourse allowing all Nebraskans a voice in the democratic process has been made. Nebraska's DOMA has been found unconstitutional by the US Court of Appeals on grounds it prevents a certain group of people from accessing government or lobbying legislators regarding their interests. While the overturn is under appeal, the court's finding offers a ray of rationality in a landscape otherwise devoid of a basic recognition of equality before the law. The nomination of Wherry to the Nebraska Hall of Fame, a clear affront to those groups he worked so hard to destroy, has been stymied and efforts to name a Nebraska highway for him have also been thwarted. Although these are hopeful signs we can restore the voices of all citizens in our democracy, we must not feel that we have overcome the fear and hatred sown against political minorities. We must educate ourselves about the past so that we do not continue to weaken our democracy by endlessly repeating the same mistakes. On October 25, author of The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson, will speak in Lincoln about the legacy of Senator Wherry and the ramifications of this legacy for the future of American freedom. The event will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Great Plains Art Collection, 1155 Q Street, sponsored by the UNL Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Trangendered Concerns and the UNL Women's Studies Program, is free and open to the public.

This article first appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star, October 14, 2005.