The Mark of the Citizen.

The three-star general, head of the US Airforce Academy, was clear. "This is our institution. We have certain principles and values. If you do not treat everyone with dignity and respect, get out!"

General Jay B Silvera had gathered the whole leadership, the whole faculty, the whole staff, and the whole student body, 5000 people, as soon as it happened. The "it" was that someone had written racial slurs on the bulletin board of the airfare academy prep school. He acted immediately. He wanted everyone to know about it. And he used it as an occasion to teach his people and the whole nation: the meaning of citizenship and the character of the patriot.

Dignity and respect for every person of what ever background, of what ever ethnicity, gender, lifestyle, orientation, religion, and culture. The general referred to the current atmosphere in the country where bigotry is tolerated, white supremacy is touted, and foreigners disparaged--including the march of the KKK and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and its aftermath.

But not in our institution he said.

I remember Martin Luther King Jr, in the height of his action for civil rights, refusing to accept hate and violence in his movement. If you were part of his institution, e.g. SCLC, SNCC, if you could not treat everyone with dignity and respect, you were not invited to the movement. I know a lead minister of a church, a principal of a school, and executive of a business who were clear that their institutions were not only free and open to all, but required dignity and respect for all.

In private, in your family or tribe or religion, you can be exclusive. The Mormons just rejected same- sex marriage as do Catholics and many Protestant churches which generally see homosexual and transgendered people as evil-doers. Catholics reject women as priests, bishops, and popes. And no one can be made to like certain customs, foods, beliefs, and rituals from different traditions. That's their privilege in a Republic whose unity is not founded on language, culture, or belief, but on the dignity and respect for all.

In the public realm, in the city, on the streets, in civic spaces, and in all public institutions including businesses that are publicly chartered and serve the general public, if you cannot treat everyone with dignity and respect even those with whom you disagree, you should pack up and get out. The democratic Republic for which we stand or kneel is the public institution, our institution as citizens.

Citizenship doesn't mean we have to like everyone or have them in our circle of personal friends. But it does mean that we must treat every one with dignity and respect. If we do not or cannot, we are not citizens. If a public leader does not, he is no citizen and no patriot and should get out.