By Marianne Moody Jennings*

January 1997 – A few months ago I mistakenly wrote an article opposing same-sex marriages. I wish my column had never been published. I found a three-inch screw driven into the side of a car tire shortly after it appeared.

The man who fixed my tire was curious. I told him about my column, the hate mail and threats. He blurted out, “You wouldn’t tell who fixed your tire, would you?”

I promised and crossed my heart that I wouldn’t. I left out the “hope to die” part because my demise seemed a possibility.

Nothing in my five-year stint as a columnist prepared me for the responses from the gay community and their heterosexual defenders. I believe I have found the U.S. counterpart to European soccer. People who have tea and crumpets at Ascot turn into the cast of a Kung Fu movie at soccer games.

Here, people who quietly dip biscotti at Starbucks one minute turn into John Malkovich characters if same-sex marriages are even questioned.

I’ve been called words I don’t know, and so I shan’t print them here so as not to offend unwittingly.

Name-calling comes with the pundit territory. But many letters on this article notified my employer. A liberal would call this McCarthyism. I call it cowardice.

Some letters were copied to the Board of Regents. Some were copied to Lattie Coor. One was sent to the family that has endowed the center I direct at Arizona State University. There were several letters sent to one Barry Meltzer, mistakenly identified as my department chair. We have yet to find Mr. Meltzer.

These folks want me sacked. Their litmus test for intellectual capability and a position at a university is how one views same-sex marriages. A former student dropped by to tell administrators that I was the best teacher he had but that I should be fired.

One fellow wrote (using the word “homophobic” 19 times in one page), “Thank God I have a constitution to protect me from people like you. You should be fired and not be permitted to write.”

I believe I need constitutional protections more than he.

In an article Professor Steve Happel and I published in the Christian Science Monitor in February, we noted that the first victims of a tenureless system of higher education would be faculty members with conservative views. I would have been terminated years ago were it not for tenure.

In fact, there have been several nefarious plots over the years designed to boot me. With constitutional protections such as the First Amendment, religious freedom and due process still viable, I have retained my position. I’m not sure I can survive this time.

When it comes to the topic of same-sex marriages, no questions are allowed and debate is silenced. In Denmark and Sweden, where same-sex couples can register as domestic partnerships, adoption and custody are still not permitted. A valid question is why this protection is given for children there especially since it would not be available here.

Many letters I received from men described their desire to be “able to walk down the street hand-in-hand with the man I love.” There is a bit more to the consequences of same-sex marriages than public displays of affection.

Most letters questioned my tolerance and even my Christianity. Responding to letters like these is like trying to have a deep discussion with Barney the dinosaur.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Romer vs. Evans, along with the personal attacks and outcry that result each time a question or a voice of opposition is raised, means that it is only a matter of time before samesex marriages are given legal, universal recognition. That the battle is over is less disturbing than how the battle was won. It’s been a long time since I’ve surrendered to playground bullies.

Tonight as I checked my children during one of the many sleepless nights I’ve had over that article, I cried. I mourned for a world that once respected others’ values. I grieved for a world that was once tolerant of opposing views.

My tears were those of a mother fearful for her children. If we have reached the point now where I am threatened because I raise questions, what will their world be like? What ridicule and punishment will they endure because of their values?

The world has silenced me on the issue of same-sex marriages. But in the privacy of my home I asked many questions as the tears dropped gently and my children slumbered, oblivious to the unopposed forces that have curbed the freedoms of speech and religion I once thought were inviolate. I was wrong.  

© 1996 Marianne Moody Jennings. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Mrs. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. She is a columnist for the Arizona Republic.