The ACLU Is A Homophobic Hate Organization

Filed under: Why We Fight

It was a warm night on Susan’s front porch. She was an organizer for the National Organization for Women and probably a lesbian, though I never asked. My parents were inside hobnobbing with the other adults. I was with the kids, which is to say I was the youngest at 15, with the other people on that porch being cigarette smokers of various ages. I was not smoking a cigarette though. I was watching Byron smoke cigarettes and hold his own court.

Ronald Reagan was president. The party had gathered to create a membership chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. That storied civil society organization seemed more necessary than ever, even in a small southern town.

Byron owned the comic book store. He was an artist by education, and in later years, I would imagine him as Ignatius J. Reilly while I read John Kennedy O’Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Byron never quite fit the world. He was too well-read, too enlightened, too sissy, too fat. He loved his family but could never have thei…