By Geoffrey Gamble

June is Gay Pride month, and I want to take this opportunity to say a few words about tolerance. Right now, we are on our way to becoming a nation of haters: The Governor’s Mansion has been firebombed, Demonstrators in Colorado have been subjected to flamethrowers. Tesla dealerships have been blown up and cars defaced. There have been attempted assassinations of a presidential candidate. Jewish students are being intimidated and harassed just for going to class. As a nation, we have over two million people incarcerated in 6,500 prisons. The United States consists of 5 percent of the world’s population, but we have 25 percent of all the prisoners in the world in jail. 

Why is this so? Call me old-fashioned, but I suggest that it is because people don’t know how to behave, refuse to do so, or simply hate the society in which they live. You have often heard the claim that ‘driving is a privilege’ or that ‘flying is a concession.’ This is not true. I don’t recall that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania invented the automobile or that the federal government invented the airplane. They were invented by individuals in the private sector. 

Privileges are granted by entities that have the right to do so. The State - in the forms of the federal government, the Commonwealth, and local municipalities - has no rights. None. Anyone who claims that they do, you should regard as your enemy. This Divine Right claim is something we mostly got rid of in 1688 and finished the job in 1776 - almost 250 years ago. What our governing entities have, instead, is a continuing obligation - born of necessity - to protect citizens from themselves and from each other. 

A century ago, Pennsylvania did not license people to ride a horse or walk on the street. But today it licenses people to drive cars. Why? Because untrained drivers can harm themselves and others, who do such things as willfully exceeding speed limits - causing accidents. These rules and regulations are not imposed by right, but of necessity. If people behaved themselves, we would not need so many laws. 

Great strides have been made over the past two decades in bringing into line the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens. There are many who find this lifestyle not in keeping with their own belief systems. This is a perfect example of the instance of government intervention born of necessity. The Declaration of Independence - on the subject of entitlement - declares that every citizen - not the state, but every person - has a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It is often unsaid, but the “pursuit of happiness” includes the right to emotional and sexual satisfaction, so long as it does not impinge on the civic rights of others - not the moral sensibilities of others. 

Whether and how one exercises this right to happiness is a matter of personal choice. The opposite of love is usually thought to be hate, but I suggest to you that the opposite of love is often fear. Ignorance is the mother of fear. In our present electronic age, we are constantly bombarded with information, but relatively little of it gets distilled into the kind of knowledge that combats ignorance. In the end, it is this knowledge and understanding that can turn us from being a nation of great haters into a nation whose greatness shines forth from within.

Geoffrey Gamble is a member of the Kennett Township Board of Supervisors. His comments were shared at the Board’s June 4 meeting.