My husband and I recently celebrated our wedding anniversary at a lovely rural inn. As we browsed through the guest book, one letter struck me. It was from a mother whose son and his partner had visited the inn for their tenth anniversary as a couple.

She wrote, "our entire family by now knows the many subtle nuances of bigotry and prayed this most special occasion would not be marred by some tiny slight." She went on to say, "They were openly acknowledged as a couple and for that we thank you. Money can get anyone heated towel racks and fabulous décor; it cannot always afford human decency."

That mother's letter made me think how far we have come and how far we have to go to advance human decency. The Civil Rights Movement made great strides forward. Yet, as long as any person in America is denied a job or housing or simple courtesy because of her or his personal characteristics, whether they be disabilities or skin color or beliefs or sexuality, we have not affirmed the basic equal opportunity promised by our Constitution.

Human rights has no caveats. Either we grant dignity to everyone or it is denied in some measure to us all. During the horrifying days leading up to World War II, German anti-Semitism dehumanized Jews. Old Jewish men were forced to crawl naked in the streets and to clean toilets with their bare hands. Does anyone think only those being tormented lost their dignity in those terrible times? Certainly, those who perpetrated these cruelties and those who merely looked on and did nothing also lost their humanity and their decency.

Treating people who are different from us as outcasts may make some of us feel superior. We see that every day in schoolyards, club rooms and even places of worship across America. But, where is the human decency in making others feel less than human?

Denying opportunity to those who are different from us may make some of us feel "righteous" or "godly". We hear that every day from those who seek to cloak their prejudices in religious terms. But, where is the decency in smug self-righteousness that degrades others?

Human rights apply to all of us, no matter what we believe, how we look, what we do or with whom we choose to live. We constantly hear rhetoric denouncing human rights abuses in China or Tibet or Kosovo. Yet, that rhetoric seems rather hollow when the speaker would deny those same rights to other Americans who may be different from him or her.

Remember the song from the Broadway musical, South Pacific, "You've Got to be Taught"? "You've got to be taught to hate and fear. You've got to be taught from year to year. . . You've got to be taught before it's too late, before you are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate."

As most of us grew up, we were taught to hate or fear or simply distrust some human difference or another. Most of us still struggle to get past these deeply ingrained prejudices. I know I do. They are huge hurdles to granting everyone a life of dignity and respect. They all too often erupt, seemingly from nowhere, to hurt or degrade or even kill someone who is different from us.

I'm proud to be an American. I'm proud to live in a country that strives to live by the basic human rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to live life as you choose. I'm distressed when those twin pillars of bigotry, fear and hate, are used to undermine those basic principles. That chips away at our values and what has become, with a great deal of difficulty, our way of life.

As the letter from the gay man's mother pointed out, we can buy many luxuries in prosperous America, but we cannot buy human decency. That is something that comes only from within ourselves and our society.