How can we tell our children that the way they were created was a mistake, that they are evil and must change?

I am normal. I write with my right hand. Normal people write with their right hand. Our right side is called our “dexter” side, from which we get the words “dexterous” and “dexterity.”

For years, decades, centuries, children who wrote with their left hand were told they were abnormal and evil, and they must change.

Childhood flashback: My fourth-grade classroom at Notre Dame Grammar School, New Hyde Park, N.Y.; 40 students are silent, breathless, motionless, seated at desks lined up exactly along the joints in the oak floorboards. Sister sweeps down the aisle, oak ruler aloft. A skinny child dressed in uniform plaid skirt and regulation white blouse is standing beside her desk holding out her left hand. One, two, three, four, five times the ruler whacks across a hand now as red as her tear-streamed face. Slowly she sits, enfolding her crushed hand into crushed spirit into crushed shoulders which heave with sobbing. There. Perhaps she will think twice before she writes with her left hand again. Today, decades later, that child spirit likely remembers the incident even more vividly than I do.

Our left side is called our “sinister” side, from which we get the words “sin” and “sinner.” For years, decades, centuries, we raised crippled children.

As adults, if we are honest, if we seek to live with integrity, we cannot say to our children on the one hand, “Go out into the world, be yourself. Be proud of who you are,” and on the other hand, tell them that they are abnormal and evil, that they must change. We cannot say to them that the way they were created was a mistake and that they must deny what they are and live the way we want. We cannot encourage them to be honest, and then train them to live a lie. Our hypocrisy makes us and our children liars.

In November’s election, the people of this state will send a message to all Maine children, gay and straight. We will tell them what is important about being a human being. What will we say?

Will we tell them that we will withhold freedoms from gay and lesbian children until they live the way we demand? Will the message be that if they are not our idea of normal, they should pretend and fake it? Hide forever? Will we tell them that they do not deserve the same education as the other children, and when they grow up, they do not deserve a job or a home? What message will we give to the kids hoping to find a place in this universe to be happy? What message we will give to the kids looking for someone to beat up?

The Vatican, some 350 years after the church’s Inquistion that condemned and imprisoned Galileo, finally admitted its error and accepted the scientific fact that the earth is not the center of the universe. Today, mired in millennia-old ignorance and prejudice, the pontifical position is that gays are “evil” and “intrinsically disordered.” Denying the entire body of scientific evidence and official statement from every respected psychological organization in the world, the church embarks on an inquisition to remove all gay men studying to be priests, even celibate priests.

In the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, an oft-reprinted photograph was that of the limp body of Father Mychal Judge being carried off by firefighters minutes after he had given last rites to one of their own.

“The Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the gay Fire Department chaplain who died in the rubble of 9/11, was, and still is, one of the most widely loved Roman Catholic priests. For 40 years, Father Judge tirelessly ministered to firefighters, their grieving widows, AIDS patients, homeless people, and countless others. At his funeral, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani called him a saint, a sentiment that admirers have followed up by campaigning for his canonization. Pope John Paul II accepted the gift of his helmet.” (The NewYork Times, Sept. 25, 2005)

Was Father Judge unsuitable for the priesthood? How incredibly sad, how incredibly cruel that today’s pontiff (the word means “bridge builder”) continues the church’s denial of human worth.

We here in Maine do have a voice. We can vote, even though our children cannot. In November, when we cast our ballot, when we speak for our children, we will, as well, be speaking to our children.

On Nov. 8, those of us who make the effort to vote will have a chance at our own Desiderata, a chance to say to our children what is being said to every girl and boy in every state in New England except Maine:

“Go out into the world. Be honest, work hard, and be proud of who you are. Don’t be afraid. You are not evil. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees or the stars or any other child. And whether or not it is clear to you or anyone else, you have a right to be here, you have a right to be happy. I want you to be happy. Here, take my hand … right hand or left hand.”

Lew Alessio is a speaker with Maine SpeakOut.