Where we went wrong... and where we can go right
I've attended quite a few rallies in the past few days, and seen an energy and a spirit that certainly would have been useful before Prop 8's passage. We should have been out there before the vote took place, a visible presence EVERYWHERE just like we will be tomorrow in the huge nationwide protest. In fact, we should have taken measures to prevent such an initiative from being put on the ballot in the first place. But we were complacent. We figured it would just get voted down. It didn't.
Like most of us, the passage of Prop 8 caught me by surprise. It seemed inconceivable that more than half of California would vote to take away someone else's rights, on an issue that couldn't affect them less and couldn't mean more to those who had just celebrated gaining these rights. We underestimated the amount of money religious groups would throw into their agenda blurring the line between Church and state to the most frightening degree that I've seen since the decision to allow teaching of "Intelligent Design" in schools. And we underestimated how afraid people really were of us. Because we didn't know any such people. In our world, in the "safe" circles we travel among, it was inconceivable.
But it was the very fact that it seemed so inconceivable that allowed it to happen. As gays, by and large, we gravitate toward areas where we are welcome. And if we don't, we stay out of the way. We try to be good neighbors by not "flaunting" our lifestyle. And we have learned to peacefully coexist with polite neighbors who we would never expect to vote against our civil rights. And yet...
By congregating in our safe communities, there is safety in numbers. We know what happened to blacks in the south who challenged the pervading "separate but equal" wisdom. We know what happened to Matthew Sheperd. And as a result we let fear keep us invisible.
We've compared our struggle to that of blacks or other minorities, and in many ways, it's a very apt comparison. But it's met with resistance from some who say "you can't CHOOSE to be black. It's not the same thing." Of course, we know full well that we can't choose to be gay. We are who we are. And why would we choose to be part of the last group facing legally sanctioned discrimination? It's not a choice any more than it's a choice to be black...Or is it?
Of course being gay is not a choice. But when Rosa Parks boarded her legendary bus, she couldn't simply pretend to be white. Imagine if blacks had had the opportunity to magically appear white any time they were in unsafe territory. Would the civil rights movement have happened at all? On the other hand, we take full advantage of our ability to "pass." When I stop to use the bathroom at a truck stop in South Carolina with confederate flags everywhere, do I tell the cashier my wife is at pump number six? As a general rule, as gays, whenever we're in uncomfortable situations, we effectively render ourselves invisible, telling the hotel clerk, "my friend and I would like a room. Oh, we don't mind one bed, it's okay." We don't kiss in public, or hold hands, outside of western Los Angeles. When someone admires our wedding rings, we thank them and when they ask what our "husbands" do, we don't correct them. Not in Bakersfield. Or Kern County. For the most part, we don't go to Church, or we seek out "gay friendly" churches and abandon the churches we feel abandoned us instead of giving them a reason to accept us. At our parents' requests, we don't tell Uncle Jimmy or Grandma Jane. "Just for thanksgiving," we take off our matching rings and agree to be introduced as "the roommate." No wonder they say we can "choose" to be gay. They know full well we can't choose our sexuality. But we can certainly choose invisibility in a way most minorities never can. But it's that choice that keeps people from knowing who we are, leaving them as afraid of us as we are of them.
So I propose from now on we stop allowing fear, or what is easier, to dictate our actions. If we are to compare our struggle to that of those that came before us, we have to face that struggle as bravely as they did. We have to stop hiding who we are, and stop worrying what people will think of us. The only way to change the minds and hearts of the good people of California, is to let them get to know us. I hope the nationwide protest tomorrow will be the first step in this movement towards acceptance, making the nation aware of our presence everywhere. Because we need to let those who might imagine us way scarier than we actually are to see that we're just regular folks with famillies and diverse backgrounds and personalities. We need to make them understand that our sexuality isn't something we can just turn off when to be polite or to make them more comfortable. That we're gay all the time, even at a South Carolina truck stop.
