Cory Booker: “Pointing the finger at gays”

This article was published in Volume 201, Number 33 of The Stanford Daily on Wednesday, April 8, 1992.

I was in my tolerance stage or the “I don’t give a damn if someone is gay, just as long as they don’t bother me” stage. I was well trained in my tolerance. I stopped telling my gay jokes. Fags, flamers and dykes became homosexuals and people of differing sexual orientation and, of course, I had my gay friend.

Yet, while I was highly adroit at maintaining an air of acceptance, I couldn’t betray my feelings. I was disgusted by gays. The thought of two men kissing each other was about as appealing as a frontal lobotomy.

Allow me to be more direct, escaping the euphemisms of my past – I hated gays. The disgust and latent hostility I felt toward gays were subcategories of hatred, plain and simple.

While hate is a four-letter word I never would have admitted to, the sentiment clandestinely pervaded my every interaction with homosexuals. I sheepishly shook hands with gays or completely shied away from physical contact. I still remember how my brow would often unconsciously furrow when I was with gays as thoughts would flash in my mind, “What sinners I am amongst” or “How unnatural these people are.”

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Booker illustrates the difference between “tolerance” and true acceptance.