ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601290075
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: New River Journal
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
Diversity.
Webster's defines it simply as "the condition of being different."
It shouldn't be a threatening word. This is a country, after all, that was founded on differences.
Yet this week, some people in the New River Valley found two words, "diversity enriches," so threatening, they passed on threats of their own.
They threatened to damage property if a billboard celebrating those words was not taken down immediately.
The company that had put up the sign took those threats seriously. On Tuesday, the sign came down.
The billboard was paid for by "Gay & Straight Citizens of Southwest Va.''
No doubt the real objections to the billboard came because of the group that sponsored it, a group that paid good money for freedom of speech and still lost its voice.
Somehow, because the sign was sponsored by people who were - or who supported - homosexuals, the words changed meaning for a lot of people.
Had the same sign been put up by Asian students at Virginia Tech, by the NAACP, or the Jewish Community Center in Blacksburg, it is likely it would still be standing today.
That was not always the case. But over the years, we've learned to accept differences in color, religion, even ability.
A difference in sexual orientation is the last frontier. And it's one that Southwest Virginians, it appears, are not yet ready to cross.
Consider: There were more calls to the newspaper complaining about the billboard than there were about the fact that there's only one school nurse for all of Montgomery County.
Christiansburg resident Mary Arnold said this week that she liked the billboard because she could drive by and discuss it with her 12-year-old child.
It was something that could get her child talking and thinking.
It was a simple sign explaining that the differences in people make life more interesting.
Last spring when I was in Vietnam, we spent some time in the schools teaching eager students about the English language and the American culture.
In one of the classrooms for both children and adults, a poem was nailed to the wall, opposite a picture of a rainbow.
It was the only poster in the room. We stared at it, memorized it, put music to it.
It was up the whole time we were there:
"People are different, they don't look the same.
"People are different, they all have a name...
"People are different in the things that they do
"But they laugh and they cry, just like me and like you."
If it weren't so long, it would probably make a good billboard.
As it stands, it makes a good lesson.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB