I am supposed to be sensitive and measured. I was, until members of each group took the witness stand. I shortly found their pleadings persuasive. A gay man named Johnny was introduced as the on-site manager of a classy apartment complex. His adversary was an unctuous, full-throated woman from New York . Her screeching voice, liberally sprinkled with unadulterated vulgarisms, probably carried over the Rockies and into a slum section of the Bronx . She indicated a belief that teetotaling is for wimps. The apartment manager was seeking a restraining order. He alleged that on occasion, when the woman successfully has challenged her capacity for liquor containment, she has abused him and members of the staff.

I’ll Have a Shipment, Mr. Bartender

This is where the story becomes rich, and poignant. The hubby of Dolly the Dipsy-Doodle Drinker  served as her relentless cross-examining attorney. Presumably repeating her anatomically correct curse words, the manager claimed that Dolly the D.D.D. physically threatened him with a heretofore historically unknown physical act. The tall, rangy husband towered over the complainant probably by a foot. The lawyer’s unattractively shaved head bobbled from side to side — as if he were a bobblehead prize at Dodger Stadium — when the manager answered his personalized questions — reflectively, efficiently, succinctly. Each time, the lawyer was incredulous. “Are you afraid of her?” the lawyer asked, as if the question were ludicrous. The apparently gay manager, obviously an enemy of physical violence, paused to ponder before responding. “Yes,” rang across the courtroom. “Do you think she would harm you?” “Yes.”

The lawyer’s intent appeared to be intimidate the manager. He attached a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding approach, I believe, to emphasize the gayness of the witness. For all of the attorney’s jelly-like smarminess that he sought to spread all over the apartment manager, justice triumphed. The restraining order against the woman was granted. My point in relating the story was to illustrate how candy store-easily gays are under fire in their everyday lives. For actions you and I never may think about. That is the tragedy of their plight. We who only encounter stories of gay victimization when we come to work, rather than living through the daily nightmare, need to become more sensitive and empathetic. My argument with the leaders of the gay community is their coldly calculated tactic of bringing unrelated volatile strands into the gay marriage debate to throw disagreers off the scent. Ever since the civil rights movement awakened souls in the 1960s, it has been fashionable and profitable to charge with bigotry anyone who resists your innovative cultural proposition.

Are You My Son?

Another case involved a gentle, nervous, soft-spoken young man, a Jew living with his mother, seeking a restraining order against an older Arab man who allegedly had threatened him with a gun. The young man cited several instances where the prospect of harm was dangled before him. Employing flawed English, the Arab gentleman replied, at least four times, that he loved the young man as he would one of his own four sons. The judged believed the young man. The final case involved two Hispanic men, one middle-aged, the other older, both linguistically overwhelmed. Shlepping four plastic bags to the witness stand, possibly full of documentation, the older man charged his rival with harassing him and damaging his car, which may have been the accuser’s age. His evidence was too thin, though, to gain a restraining order. He walked away, head down, plastic bags dragging, as were his spirits, nearly touching the floor.

Postscript

 

In each instant, the slightly weaker person rose up against the slightly stronger, and the results were mixed. But when I walked out of good, ol’

shortly before lunchtime, I carried a refreshed appreciation for the frailties and for the daily trials of under-siege minorities.