I'm Alabamy bound. Well, actually I'm going to South Carolina. I have been asked to give the keynote address next month in Charleston for an organization called We Are Family. They're sort of a regional PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Check them out at their web site, www.waf.org.

One of their members called me about a year ago. She had read an article of mine in Educational Leadership on gay and lesbian educational issues. Her daughter had just come out. They are a loving family and embraced their daughter and her revelation.

Over the months we talked occasionally. Her daughter dropped out of the school she was attending because of who she is. Then there was the new school, the temporary relief, the depression, and finally the attempted suicide. Even a strong family can't always protect a child from bigotry.

You can imagine how tolerant people in general are in South Carolina toward young gays and lesbians. This is the state where the attorney general announced in August that schools could display the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. This is the state where the law restricts all discussion of homosexuality in the schools to health classes, and then only in the context of sexually transmitted diseases.

Many loving parents are struggling to support their gay and lesbian kids. Many caring people are working for justice in an oppressive environment. I am concerned about my ability to provide these caregivers the encouragement they so desperately need.

Still, as I prepare for the Charleston conference, I have discovered their state motto: Dum spiro spero. While I breathe I have hope.

We all need hope and maybe one of the best ways to nourish it is to remember the big picture. View things in their larger context.

Racism & Homophobia in the Church

Sounds like the 19th century, doesn't it? It was 1959. They were found guilty and the judge went on record saying that God put the different races on separate continents for a reason. He didn't mean for them to intermarry.

Virginia wasn't the only state with this law. There were 16 states worried about maintaining the purity of the white race. You see, it was OK for blacks and Indians and Hispanics to intermarry. The issue was white supremacy.

After the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the court decision, the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled in 1967 that the law was unconstitutional. That was just 31 years ago. I was a graduate student in Washington, D.C.

I mention the Loving case because it is so recent. The couple was guilty because of an appeal to God's geographical distribution of the Earth's population. Once again in 1998 God is being cited, this time to denigrate and devalue loving relationships between gays or lesbians.

I find hope in this. Before too many years we will look back at our present struggle with the same amazement with which we now view Loving vs. Virginia.

The weight of history is on our side. The consensus of the mental health profession is on our side. The force of social justice and morality is on our side.

The preservation of society demands it. Stable families and stable relationships between loving adults are the foundation of a stable society.

Gays and lesbians pay first-class taxes. It's about time they become first-class citizens.

Along with the big picture, alliances are a factor in nourishing hope. Gay-straight alliances are powerful, whether as organizations in our schools or as personal alliances between people who know and respect one another. Knowledge dispels fear. People need to get to know us.

The Catholic bishop in Rochester, N.Y., is shutting down Masses for Dignity, the gay Catholic organization. I don't think this need be bad news. A ghettoized group of gay and lesbian Catholics is a stagnant phenomenon.

Picture them worshiping together, perhaps with pink triangles, at various Catholic churches throughout Rochester, respectfully and observantly. Imagine 30 gay and lesbian Catholics going to communion and staying to chat at coffee after Mass.

First-class taxes, first-class citizens.

(John D. Anderson lives in Woodbridge. Readers may write to him care of the Register, 40 Sargent Drive, New Haven 06511.)