Henrietta Hay's Column

If I were editor of the Daily Sentinel I would run the comic strip "For Better or For Worse" series on homosexuality, and make it required reading for everyone. It has something to say that we need to hear.

We are becoming a single-issue nation and it is tearing us apart. We square off at each other about religion and abortion and homosexuality and prayer in the schools and AIDS and a lot of other things, with very little middle ground and even less listening to each other. No matter what a newspaper prints, it is going to offend or annoy somebody.

In this case, as editor pro tem I know that I will be yelled at either by the religious right or the gay/lesbian political activists, so I'm going to go with a solution that might help somebody sort out the issues involved. And that certainly means running the series.

I cut my comic strip teeth on Mutt and Jeff and the Katzenjammer Kids. Looking back, I don't think they were funny, but I suppose I laughed at them then. If they were concerned with social issues, I did not know it. Today we have, on the comics page under the space where we used to see "For Better or For Worse," a womanizing General, an obnoxious kid who has been a pain in the neck for twenty years, a gaggle of teen teenagers who will never grow up, a career woman showing all the weaknesses and none of the strengths of the modern woman and a drunken soccer player. And there is pressure to pull a strip with real human type people who care for each other and are dealing with contemporary issues, just because one character is a homosexual? Come on, give me a break.

The strip, "For Better or For Worse" is one of my favorites because of its humor and the warmth and love and understanding that its characters show each other. The artist has a track record of handling sensitive issues well.

For those of you who do not come to the Sentinel office to see the strips, the current sequence involves Lawrence, 17 years old, a nice, ordinary kid, who confides to his pal Mike that he is gay. Mike goes through some adjustments, and remains his friend, but when Lawrence gets up the courage to tell his parents, they go ballistic. His father kicks him out of the house. The parents soon have second thoughts, or perhaps first thoughts because they love him, and ask Mike to find their son. The mixed up relationships are brought down to earth when Mike finds Lawrence in an all night diner. Lawrence says, "Leave me alone. You can't help me. I'm sick." Mike says, "You're not sick, man. Trust me. I'm more open minded than you think." "Believe me," says Lawrence, "after 11 jelly doughnuts and 6 coffees I'm sick." His parents welcome him home and finally his father says, "I'm not going to judge you. As long as you're a good man and a kind man I'll respect you. As for the rest, what will be will be, que sera sera." And they name their new puppy "Sera."

Now there is nothing in that sequence which poses a critical danger to national security or the survival of the American family. Quite the contrary. It shows how members of a family can pull together in tough times and learn to accept even when they don't understand. It is spread out over four weeks, and the warmth of the families of the two boys shows through the whole thing. It is not judgmental and does not advocate homosexuality. What it does advocate is tolerance trust and decency in our relations with each other. If we can learn a little bit from it, that's good. If it offends some people, they don't have to read it. And for Heaven's sake, it's only a comic strip.

The experts cannot agree on what causes sexual differences. The preponderance of evidence says that homosexuals are born that way. Recent experiments have suggested a possible physical difference in the brain. One thing we do know is that lots of young people like Lawrence are struggling with their sexuality and their fear. Unlike Lawrence, many of them have no one to talk to, no role models, no help, no place to go. They have to face society's rejection all alone. One-third of teen-age suicides are committed by young people who suspect they are gay.

Our sexual values have gotten all mixed up. We worry more about homosexuality than we do about the sexual abuse of children. We pass Amendment 2 in Colorado, but don't worry too much about the Tailhook affair. At least it has politicized the issue by forcing both gays and straights to think more about civil rights. Lynn Johnston, the creator of "For Better or For Worse," lives in a remote area of northern Ontario. She is married and has two small children.

She says, "Boy, oh boy. It was never my intention to be political. I think it's a tender story." I do too. As editor pro tem, I say run it.