In Defense of Dr. Laura

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the popular radio personality, is now in the crosshairs of gay rights activists who are loudly labeling her a homophobe.

But is she?

Dr. Laura tells her radio audience--20 million strong--that homosexual behavior is "deviant" and that homosexuals are "products of a biological disorder." (She also says they're "entitled to love and respect"--something that's gotten lost in the uproar.) For her crimes against political correctness, Schlessinger is being targeted by radical gays who are urging Paramount to cancel her planned syndicated television program. A website called Stopdrlaura.com urges people to join them in "a stand against hate."

I believe wholeheartedly in free speech, so I cheerfully support the right of gays to speak out against Dr. Laura's views. But I'm exasperated when I hear, in relation to Dr. Laura's comments, gay activists' use of the "h" words: hate and homophobe.

Homophobia, says Webster's, is "an irrational hatred or fear of homosexuals or homosexuality." It's a term I'm happy to see applied to people who deliberately set out to cause physical harm to homosexuals out of pure, vicious hatred. But if homophobia is "an irrational fear and hatred of homosexuals," what's the term for "rational objection to the gay political agenda or lifestyle?" I have news for you: There isn't one.

Dr. Laura doesn't hate gays. An Orthodox Jew, she believes--like millions of other Jews and Christians--that homosexual behavior is both unnatural and morally wrong.

Gay activist groups want not just acceptance of their lifestyle but full endorsement of it.

Clearly, there's a big difference between people who harm gays and those who believe
--on strong biblical or other grounds--that homosexual behavior is morally wrong and unhealthy. But there's no term that applies to folks who don't hate or fear gays and who would never raise a hand against them, but who don't view their behavior as normal or praiseworthy. Instead, gay activists deliberately slap the "homophobe" label on all their opponents, without distinction: The thug who assaults and murders gays is lumped together with the lace-covered and lavender-scented granny who believes what her Bible teaches: that God intends sexual behavior to be reserved for married couples--a man and a woman--only.

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