It goes against all my liberal instincts to defend a politician caught spewing some of the more disgusting homophobia you can find. This is especially the case when it comes the day after I argue that you can't let David Ahenakew off the hook for his anti-Semitism no matter how many times he apologizes. But I'm going to do it anyway.
Well, sort of. I don't know Tom Lukiwski personally. For all I know, he may remain the exact same guy who regaled his buddies with witticisms about "homosexual faggots with dirt in their fingernails that transmit diseases." But I'm prepared to accept that he might not be.
Why does the "once a bigot, always a bigot" theory I applied to Ahenakew not apply equally to Lukiwski? Because that would ignore an awful lot of anecdotal evidence I've accumulated over the last 17 years, as I suspect you have.
If we're going to be honest, we all heard these kinds of things back then - from friends or family or whoever else. It wasn't right, but it was common. And while you hopefully weren't saying them yourself, the odds are that you were willing to turn a blind eye, or at least not to judge the person who said it the way you'd judge a racist or an anti-Semite.
Today, you're less likely to hear those things. Maybe it's because your friends or family members have learned to keep their mouths shut. But just as likely, it's because gays have come much further into the mainstream than they were then, and have changed a lot of attitudes in the process.
A virulent racist in early 1950s America might not have been one by the late '60s. That's not in any way to draw parallels between what blacks went through in the pre-civil rights U.S. and what gays went through here. It's just to say that at certain times, events and shifting cultural attitudes conspire to genuinely change someone.
I have no idea if Tom Lukiwski is that sort of person. But if I wrote off the possibility, I'd be writing off a lot of good people who've seen the light.
