 |
| Alan Turing, The Imitation Game is based on his life story |
After watching THE IMITATION GAME, I was rocked to my core by the fact that homosexuality was a crime in the U.K. I have a bias that Europeans are more open and accepting about sexuality than the puritanical heritage of the U.S. Here laws banning homosexuality were not removed by the Supreme Court until 2003. I wish I was kidding.
In high school, I enjoyed the friendship of many people. We had a few openly gay young men in school and, thankfully, they were not beat up or killed. I recall wondering often why people were so fearful and spiteful to gay, lesbian, or people who seemed different from them. Later, I began to wonder if some of these people were also self-identified with the groups that they seemed determined to hate.
"Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine" is a memorable quote from THE IMITATION GAME. People don't care what you do behind closed doors when you're a genius who can help them, but after this genius served his country they arrested him for homosexuality, he lost his job teaching at Cambridge, and was forced to take drugs to "cure" his homosexuality. He killed himself at age 41. What I find appalling beyond belief is that anyone can be interested in a person's sexual habits when they don't concern that person. If the reason is based in religion, our choices and actions are between us and our maker. Regardless of the basis of hate or contempt, I wish the world moved more quickly to establish equality of all, rights for all. Alas, my optimism often gets my heart hurt.
Copyright 2015 Dr. Heather Corwin
No comments:
Post a Comment