Suppressed Sequence Just Scandalous

This past week, Lynn Johnston did it again. She used her family comic strip, “For Better or For Worse,” to remind readers that gay people are people, too.

Indeed, she has quite a draw. The strip appears in 1,700 locations, give or take two or three.

“Two or three” are how many newspapers canceled “For Better or For Worse” because of the gay character, according to Universal Press Syndicate, its distributor.

The last time, four years ago, the number of cancellations amounted to more than a dozen. Then as now, some 25-30 papers also requested substitute material in place of the controversial four-day sequence.

So in case you missed it, here’s the controversy, word for word in the concluding panel:

Lawrence, the gay character, and his boyhood pal, Mike, are talking over lunch at the kitchen table.

Lawrence: “I gotta say that you and your family have been great to me, Mike.”

Mike: “What are you talking about?”

Lawrence: “My being gay has never changed our friendship. You’ve never treated me like I was evil or weird or anything.”

Mike: “Heck, we’ve known you since we were little kids … But I have to tell you, Lawrence, there is one thing about your lifestyle that has bothered all of us for a long time.”

Lawrence: “Really? What’s that?!!”

Mike looks at the remains of a sandwich on Lawrence’s plate: “You don’t eat your crusts.”

If I have offended you, forgive me. I’m only repeating Lynn Johnston’s shocking story line. Obviously, you see through her diabolical scheme. She is humanizing gays!

Maybe you should write to her to complain.

Four years ago, when the Lawrence character, at age 17, came out of the closet in a monthlong sequence, the artist received some 3,500 letters, all of which she answered, except for the ones unanswerable and threatening. You don’t want to get into a dialogue with people like that.

For weeks afterward, the letters poured in. The very angry people wrote first. Later, it was readers who were grateful for what she had done.

In the end, 72 percent of the mail was positive. In the end, Johnston had lost 10 pounds and was a nervous wreck.

It was one of the best things she had done and one of the worst experiences she had ever had.

When I heard the gay issue was being raised again in “For Better or For Worse,” I had to wonder why. So I phoned her to ask.

Johnston makes her home in a community of 300 population in Northern Canada. Like the lead character in her comic, she is the wife of a dentist and a mother. She writes about what she knows.

It was Johnston’s gay brother-in-law who helped inspire the character of Lawrence. Also, there was a childhood friend of hers who was gay. Now he’s dead, the victim of a brutal knifing and robbery. The police attitude, she said, was a shrug - one more predator off the road.

If you are wondering what message Johnston is trying to convey in her comic strip, best that you hear it from her in her own words:

“People should fear their own misconceptions,” she says. “A lot of people are more tolerant of the word ‘gun’ than they are of ‘gay.’ Ours is an amazing world, and it gives a home to a variety of people. We’re all part of this planet and tolerance is important to every color, religion and nationality.”

She adds:

“I’m including gay people because I believe they are a natural part of our community, and that their private lives are of no importance.

“What’s important is their talents, gifts, personalities and the part they play - like anyone else - in our communities.”

Johnston told this story of her mother, a British lady of high society who had been brought up never to associate with those people beneath you - and particularly those people of another race.

But then, lo and behold, there came the day when her mother had been invited to a wedding of Chinese friends. Lynn Johnston had never seen her mother so excited and so eager.

She couldn’t help taking a dig at her mother.

“But, Mother,” she exclaimed, “they are Chinese!”

“It’s different, my dear,” her mother said in her most proper British accent. “We know them.”

The difference, Lynn Johnston will tell you, is knowing them.

xxxx