GAY DISPLAY IN CAPE COUNTY PARK: IT'S REALLY MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Finally I just had to see it, so I drove out to North County Park in my small Chevrolet tin can, braced for the jolt that awaited me.

I drove through the park feeling as if I was preparing to gaze upon the cursed form of Medusa or the condemned ground of a witch burning. What else should I have thought? People had spoken so horribly of the little Christmas display that just didn't belong in the county park with the rest.

Now what's this? I had driven past all the displays, and nearly back to the park's entrance, yet I had seen nothing horrendous.

Once more I drove through the park, this time more slowly and with a watchful eye. What could have happened, I asked myself? Maybe the display was so vile some righteous vandals had finally hauled it away and destroyed it.

Wait a minute. There's something up ahead, on the left. A small Christmas tree-like figure, maybe 3-feet high and colored violet or lavender.

Yes, that's it. But the only thing that told me it was the display I was looking for was the small white sign nearby that said, in red letters, "Gay-Lesbian Student Assn. (Association)."

So there I stood, gazing down upon the display that had everyone talking. With all the concern surrounding it, it seemed the display would have been something flagrant or drastically bold, such as a photo display of three homosexual men, markedly identified in some way, dressed as the three wise men. Anywhere but in middle America, that's what it would have taken to get a controversy over this display brewing.

Instead, here it was, a display that any other organization could have made. It didn't look out of place, but with its lighted outline, perfectly in place. The sign only served as the homosexual version of the scarlet letter.

My, my, I thought; seems as if a lot of people have too much time on their hands to be fretting over a trivial thing like this. The concern over the display appeared to sum up perfectly the phrase "much ado about nothing."

The words of a song by singer/songwriter John Cougar, a Midwest native himself hailing from Indiana, suddenly seemed embarrassingly true: "And they call this the Great Midwest, where the corn fields grow and flow. They're all five years ahead of their time, or 25 behind, I just don't know."

A co-worker and friend kindly pointed out that the concern wasn't over what the display looked like, but over what those who put up the display stood for. So be it, but what comes next? Does it stop with just wanting to keep the homosexuals' display out of the county park, or do we bar homosexuals from participating in any religion-based holidays? And while we're at it, should we fence off those holidays from other groups society finds unsettling and who would only discolor its "wholesome" Christmas picture, including the homeless, AIDS victims or drug addicts.

Driving from the park, I just couldn't help thinking that Christmastime should be one time of the year when people could try to set aside their differences.