‘Dignity Ordinance’

In his opposition to the “Human Dignity Ordinance” of San Diego, which would forbid discrimination against homosexual citizens, the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition stoops to rhetoric that is, at best, wrong and, at worst, deliberately inflammatory (“Emotions High at Hearing on Gay Rights,” Jan. 18).

Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, may or may not be immutable behavior. What is clear, however, is that a person’s sexual orientation is determined by a variety of factors, the presence and weight of which seem to vary greatly among individuals.

Asking if a person who commits incest ought to be insulated from discrimination, he says that “once one begins to give protection to sexually deviant behavior, one is on a slippery slope.”

In the first place, homosexuality is not “deviant,” but normal, human behavior. In the second place, in no way is a homosexual relationship between consenting adults the equivalent of any form of rape. And to compare a homosexual relationship between consenting adults to incest, surely the worst possible crime, is extraordinarily provocative, as well as inaccurate.

Rev. Sheldon seeks to deny to these men and women--who are our beloved family and friends, our very selves--not special privileges, but the rights and responsibilities society allows most of us to take for granted.

This ordinance ought not to be needed; the Constitution, interpreted without prejudice or bias, ought to be all the protection any of us needs from discrimination. But it is very much needed.

ERIN SOLARO

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