A
recent Associated Press story headlined “Gays in Oklahoma to stay
and fight” caught my attention. I briefly wondered if Oklahoma
was staging fights between gays —a really new twist on cockfighting.
No. The story was about gay Oklahomans responding to their state having
gone red as raw steak on election day, and passing a constitutional ban
on gay marriage by a jarring margin.
Tulsa’s gay community center reports
calls to its help line, some suicidal, have tripled since Nov. 2. Some
Oklahomans are contemplating
moving north to the land of hockey pucks and Celine Dion.
However, “there’s a larger group more invested in fighting
than they were before,” maintains activist Mark Bonney. “They’re
saying it’s time to come out to their families, to draw a line in
the sand.”
That’s what I want to hear, especially the part about coming out.
I believe there are plenty of people in this country who would rather open
their minds and hearts to Saddam Hussein than to us. But I also believe
there are many more who are ignorant, too comfortable, misinformed or scared,
who can be nudged — or jet-propelled —into seeing our humanity.
Since the election I’ve read references to the need for dialogue
between red and blue states, between people who think in rosy red and basic
blue. This makes it sound like we live in different worlds and Colin Powell
needs to be called in. We do, and he’s available.
On the specific matter of straights getting
a clue about us, dialogue surely helps, but I can’t see that
anything surpasses coming out. For starters, if we all did, the sheer
numbers would stupefy many a straight. That alone
would be worth seeing.
If all LGBT people came out, a pillar of
the religious right’s argument,
namely that people choose to be gay, would crumble. All these people chose
to be on the fringe of society? Right — and George Bush and Britney
Spears are in line for genius grants.
Coming out would make it clear to anti-gays
that their prejudice is hurting people who matter to them. If it’s fine to discriminate against other
people’s children, or parents, or friends, it’s not fine to
discriminate against their own. Or at least, not so blessed easy.
Our task is to put a human face on what
is still a mystery to many people. Some of these folks don’t think of a human face when they think “gay”;
they think of a human butt. Specifically one hanging out of chaps at a
Pride parade.
I’m not launching into a “Why-do-we-have-to-be-so-wild-at-Pride” speech.
The point that straight people can get a skewed idea of us at such events
is valid. But I say don’t muzzle Pride. Instead, boost everyday visibility.
Come out, come out as a dyke on a bike, a pediatric nurse, an aunt, a daughter,
a friend, and a single lesbian who wants a girlfriend so she wouldn’t
mind if her relatives kept an eye out, hint hint.
Putting a real human face to the matter
is, as you’re possibly yelling
at me now, dangerous. For some LGBT people, coming out is genuinely physically
risky. For most of us, it’s emotionally risky. Because I’m
in the gay journalism game and publicly out, in my darker moments I imagine
I’m on the list of first to be killed or dispatched to a “holiday” camp.
But I take the same view as many gays in
Oklahoma —stay and fight.
And one of our greatest weapons is coming out. People hate what they don’t
understand, so we need to make them understand we are real, imperfect,
human. We already know they are, too. |
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