Okay, let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: I am a homophobe and I’m proud to say it.

I was not always that way – homophobes are made, not born. And what has made me a member of the nation’s growing homophobic community is this shameful spectacle of gay marriages being pushed in our faces by the homosexual community and the pro-gay media.

Yesterday Pete Knight’s son got married to another man. The day before, Jackie Goldberg, a lesbian member of the state Assembly got married to her lady friend Sharon Stricker in a ceremony presided over by Dobie Gillis’ ex-girlfriend Zelda, State Senator Sheila Kuehl who with Goldberg is one of the twin gay towers of Sacramento.

Just to make sure we all got the in-your-face message, Kuehl, California’s first openly gay state legislator, pronounced close friends and political colleagues married in a six pack of ceremonies on the steps of the City Hall rotunda, accompanied by tears and shouts of jubilation.

If you give gays their due, and say OK let’s agree with you for a moment and say that you are born that way, and even though you are not, we’ll give you that for the sake of argument. But what you are trying to do is put gay marriage on the same footing as heterosexual marriages by having mayors and other officials openly break the law.

So today, because homosexuals claim they are born gay and have the right to be married just as those who were born heterosexuals, my children and my grandchildren and the rest of the nation’s children in the future will be raised in a society where there will be a choice between gay and straight marriage, both of which will be put on an equal plane.

What that says is that one will not have to be “born” gay in order to be married into a gay lifestyle. Listen, you can take this to the bank – in the future there will be people who will tease our children by asking them that before they marry their girlfriends or boyfriends if they have every tried gay sex? Have they ever tried to see what it was like, just one time?

The moment that a child goes along and tries gay sex, he or she has been changed forever. From that moment forward they are owned lock, stock and barrel by the homosexual community.

Even today, in schools across the nation, our children are being assured that homosexuality is as normal as heterosexuality and the message the children get is that gay sex therefore is also normal. Given children’s natural curiosity this is the same as telling them, “Try it, you might like it.”

I am homophobic because gays are scaring the hell out of me with what they are doing to this nation and what they will be doing to our children who though not born gay will be made to feel guilty unless they try gay sex at least one time.

Permitting gay marriage is the first step onto the slippery slope as Brooklyn’s Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio demonstrated when he spoke of the absurdity of permitting two people of the same sex to marry. What’s next, he asked, allowing three people to marry? He then set off a firestorm by adding, “Why can’t we have marriages between people and pets?”

Why not, indeed, said the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue: “If love is the sole basis for marriage, then what gives society the right to deny a marriage license to Fred and Fido? Or, for that matter, to Sam and Sally, a brother – sister couple … Surely it is irrational to forbid incest! After all, we once made it illegal for whites to marry blacks, didn’t we? So isn’t it the same to deny Fred and Fido; Tom, Dick and Harry; and Sam and Sally? Wouldn’t it be intolerant to say no to this happy trio of lovers? Isn’t this what makes America great—equal rights for those who commit bestiality, polygamy, sodomy and incest?”

Talk about slippery slopes.

©2004 Mike Reagan. You must contact us if you would like to print this column in your publication or post on the internet. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Cari Dawson Bartley Cari@cagle.com, (800) 696-7561