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November 1, 1984

Dear Neighbor,

We’re writing to you because, frankly, we’re scared–for ourselves, for you, for our country and its basic beliefs. Martin Niemoller wrote in 1945, just after World War II:

In Germany the Nazis came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me. By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.

The campaign of hatred and fear and misstatement of fact that Phil Gramm and the Texas Republican Party has been running on the gay issue is all too reminiscent of Germany in 1932, the year in which being Jewish was outlawed. In June, at the Republican State Convention in Fort Worth, the following resolution was passed; in September is was made part of the official state platform:

WHEREAS, the practice of homosexuality is an abomination before God and a perversion of the natural law and is indicative of society’s moral decadence, and leads to the spread of severe diseases, and;

WHEREAS, the legislation of the practice of homosexuality would confer public acceptibility to this activity and would lead inexorably to the breakdown of the traditional family unit and subsequently to the destruction of our nation, no therefore;

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican Party call upon the federal and state governments to maintain and strickly [sic] enforce laws prohibiting homosexuality [sic] conduct…[and] no persons shall receive special legal entitlements or privileges based upon their sexual deviancy.

What this means to gay people is that the Texas Republican Party thinks it is okay for them to be fired without cause or beaten up with no legal recourse, or denied the chance to see their children–as happens all the time, right here in Denton County. In the last month all of these three situations have been reported to us on our local gay helpline, and we have had to tell the victims that nothing can be done–that we are a minority that it’s okay to attack.