"You're a liberal, if . . ."

Bob Tribble, editor of The Sandersville Progress, the weekly newspaper in my home town, recently quoted in an editorial that derogatory screed, "You're a liberal, if . . ." You've probably seen it or something like it. In fairness, there are similar "You're a conservative, if . . ." ones too.

But there was one line that particularly stung for me: "If you think that you know more than God and find it perfectly acceptable for two perverts to marry each other, you're a liberal."

I wrote the following letter to the editor. I feel sure he won't publish it, so I want to share it here. FYI: Sandersville is a town of about 7,000 people in Middle Georgia, more than twice what the population was when I was growing up there. It's relatively prosperous for what was once rural farming country; now it is the center of the kaolin mining industry, which brings in a group of engineers and technicians and geologists from around the world, some with advanced degrees in their fields and more sophisticated outlooks. The current editor, however, seems to be catering to the lowest common denominator (at least according to my political bias).

"Dear Mr. Tribble,

"I grew up in Sandersville, but I have not lived there for over 50 years. Through those years, I have often bragged to friends that my home town was better than other small towns in Georgia -- better educated, more cultural, more progressive economically, more accepting of diversity -- yes, more liberal.

"I'm referring to what we used to mean by "liberal," before conservatives successfully turned it into a dirty word by their distortions. I mean liberal in the sense that the good people of Sandersville, black and white, worked harder than other towns at improving race relations during the 1960s and 70s. I mean liberal in the sense that Jesus' social gospel is undeniably liberal. I mean liberal in the sense of FDR's New Deal, JFK’s “Ask Not,” and LBJ's Civil Rights Legislation.

"So I was very disheartened to see your editorial of July 19, 2011, in which you chose to reprint a distorted definition of what it means to be a liberal. I could counter with an equally derogatory distortion of what it means to be a conservative. But that would merely extend the playground cruelty of name-calling.

"I must, however, challenge one assertion: that you are a liberal if you believe it is perfectly acceptable for two perverts to marry each other.

"My Atlanta friends, Mark and Chuck, both of whom are psychiatrists, will be going to Cape Cod this very weekend to celebrate their 25 years together in a committed relationship -- and to mark the occasion by getting married, which has been legal in Massachusetts for the past seven years. To my knowledge, no one has offered a shred of evidence that the institution of marriage in the state has been harmed.

"As to your derogatory reference to my friends as "perverts," let me point out that a contemporary psychiatric definition of "pervert" makes no reference to the gender of the sex partner but only to the quality of the relationship. A pervert is one who ignores the humanness and the feelings of the other, avoids any sense of mutual pleasure, and simply exploits another for his own compulsive gratification.

"I suspect, if you stop to think about it, you probably know some people in heterosexual marriages who fit that description.

"Please, stop the name-calling. Sandersville is better than that. At least it used to be."

Ralph Roughton, MD