Stigma and Civilization

Stigma and Civilization

This week I gave a talk at Morgan State University on gay marriage.

At the end of our panel, Kieffer Mitchell, a Maryland state legislator who voted for gay marriage, said he was grateful for the civility of the panel, that he knew good people who were on both sides of the issue, even people in his own family.

That's one America. That's the America both he and I want to live in.

But after the debate was over, an audience member was not satisfied with that ending. She stood up and pronounced an anathema on me.

A gay reporter who identified the woman as...