Are you gay? Have you driven a Ford lately?

So the American Family Association, which claims a membership of 2.2 million, has set its God-fearing sights on Ford for -- according to its website -- "redefining family to include homosexual marriage," "giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda," and "sponsoring Gay Pride Parades". "Ford leads the way," it claims. To Gomorrah, apparently. Thankfully, Ford isn't backing down. Yet. We'll have to wait and see. Previously, the AFA (beware of any organization with the word "family" in its name) went after Disney, but it ended that nine-year boycott last week. Maybe Mickey Mouse isn't as gay as he used to be.

This is sheer idiocy, obviously. Anyone who's read The Reaction for any extended period (see the archives, right) knows my views on gay rights, not to mention my loathing for those fanatical right-wing religious organizations that claim to represent the so-called "family" and to defend it against what they contemptuously call "the homosexual agenda". Now, I don't even know what that agenda is. I know enough gays and lesbians to know that there isn't any such thing. But homosexuality is the new communism, the new "Other". It's different, and it's vaguely threatening, yet strangely enticing, so it must be inherently wrong. It's the politics of fear -- fear of the "Other," fear of the "Other" within oneself -- and yet to millions it's still somehow acceptable, because their regressive religion tells them it is, to lash out at sexual "difference" as the great evil of our time, if not of all time. Forget some anonymous "Other". Homosexuals are the new Jews, the new blacks, the new... well, the new whatever persecuted group you want to name. No, they're not being rounded up and slaughtered, that much is true, but many out there want to deny them their basic rights as human beings and citizens. In today's America, that's the form mass persecution has taken. They, and America, deserve better.