Civil rights milestone dwarfed by Sonics

Are you kidding me?

Fifteen inches of linear tabloid space, spanning from the “top of the fold” to the bottom: that’s what The Seattle Times’ front page allotted to the Sonics [“Back in the game,” page one, Jan. 22].

Three-and-a-half inches to the president’s inauguration [“ ‘We must act,’ ” page one, Jan. 22]. A historic event, where, among other things, a United States president, for the first time in history, used the word “gay” at an inauguration. Where President Obama courageously proclaimed an equivalence that brought forth tears of long-awaited joy:

“The most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still. Just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.”

This triad of civil-rights milestones is so important, it bears repeating — an equivalence of meaning, of importance, of humanity, never before publicly envisioned, much less by our nation’s leader, in the lives of gay people.

But of course, far less important than the Sonics.

--Mitzi Simmons, Seattle