babbling blue

Religious, racial, sexual — hate is hate :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Neil Steinberg.

Last week, Constance McMillen, 18, a senior in Mississippi, drew nationwide attention because her school district canceled the prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School rather than allow McMillen, a lesbian, to attend with her date.

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In the 1960s, as federal courts ordered racial integration, communities in Mississippi and other Southern states closed their municipal swimming pools, filling them with dirt rather than allow black children to share the water with white children.

You have to marvel at the determination of that kind of prejudice — so strong that you would deny your own children the pleasure of a swimming pool during hot summers in the Deep South rather than risk the intermingling that so horrifies you.

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Anti-gay bigotry is part of a continuum of senseless prejudices. It will someday be as inexplicable as anti-Catholic bias, as reviled as racism. I do not feel I am predicting the future here because the change has already occurred. It’s just that some people haven’t gotten the news, yet.

Long time readers of my blog (all two of you) may recall my rant on how stupid it is to have to dial 9-1 to get to make a call to another area code (and now any area code in Chicago, thanks to 872) from office phones, since it’s so easy to dial 911 by mistake.

You may also recall that a couple months later I actually did call 911 by mistake.

Well it looks like someone finally came to their senses and said enough is enough! We got an email this morning that our phone system is being changed to require the use of the pound (#) to get an outside line instead of 9. About damn time! And the reason stated for this change? “[T]o eliminate inadvertent 911 calls.” I’m such a forward thinker.