To the editors:
An observation: With public pressure calling for him to resign from the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, the subsequent defeat of Kirk Humphreys – former mayor of Oklahoma City and Senate candidate in 2004 – was an unquestioned example of a man who has outlived the principles he was taught as a child. Chiefly, that minorities can be excluded from legal protections. It’s only a small flaw, however, in the big picture of the homo-haters.
With arguments heard in December 2017, should the Supreme Court rule in favor of the Colorado baker who claimed deeply held religious principles forbade him from supplying his public services to a same-gender couple – not to be confused with the Oregon state court case that found against a baker – it will be similar to the Hardwick v. Bowers (1986) ruling that said private, consenting adult sexual activity was not protected by privacy concerns. It was later overturned by Lawrence v. Texas (2003) that outlawed all such laws nationwide, regardless of gender.
I’ve lived long enough to see that the USA rarely, in a timely manner, lives up to its rose-colored glasses ideals of equality, the rule of law, and certainly not justice. We older people don’t have 17 years to wait for another reversal of a case that should have been open-and-shut from the beginning. We citizens are required to live by the “rule of law,” but the elected elite members of Congress and life-term federal judges operate with their own interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
James Nimmo
Oklahoma City
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