Fear, Itself

Today, May 17th, is the International Day Against Homophobia. It is a time for us to acknowledge that even as many groups in this world have thrown off the shackles of oppression, or fought to gain the rights and freedoms they so richly deserve, there is a group of individuals that still faces rampant discrimination, abuse, and bigotry: homosexuals, and along with them, their trans-gendered and bisexual compatriots. Lumped together, the LGBT community suffers under the crushing weight of an abject and unsupportable hatred that threatens to break humanity; today, let us acknowledge this and do something about it.

Don't Ever Don't Ask Don't Tell

The day has come, our will was done -- "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the execrable Clinton-era legislation that turned homosexual soldiers into closeted criminals is no more. Today, December 18th, 2010, a blow was struck for the equality of all Americans, in fact and not just in principle. A lame duck Congress proved it still had more fight left in it, and did the honorable thing, by voting for repeal.

While some time will be required yet for full implementation, at this moment, the bill's passage is a seminal statement for our time. For any American who believes in freedom and democracy, and is willing to lay down their life to defend it, there is no criterion that can prevent them now save physical or mental inability to perform the duties of a soldier in the American armed forces. There shall no longer be discrimination based on gender, race, religion, orientation; those days are over.

There is still work to be done to allow our LGBT brothers and sisters to take their full place in American society, but that time is fast approaching. The forces of intolerance have been dealt a serious blow, and now more shall rain down upon them, as the words of our Founding Fathers reach full realization. From this day forth, let freedom ring for each and every American -- allow all their inalienable rights.

Who Will Stand With Me?

I return to you once more, Good Reader, and ask if you will do the courtesy of standing with me to a purpose: the end of the intolerable and inexcusable policy known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which denies our gay brothers and sisters their just due in defending a nation that they love, but does not seem to love them. The current session of Congress could be far from "lame," if it were to address the end of a piece of Clinton-era legislation that is a larger stain on his Presidency than that of a blue dress of some note.

While the court system grinds away at an inevitable overturn of DADT on the premise of its un-Constitutional nature, Congress can do away with it far more efficiently and effectively. It has been President Obama's fervent hope for a while now that Congress would act; Congress has responded by dithering and delaying, especially the Senate, where the inordinate power of Senator John McCain seems to hold sway over the process. What must happen now, is that pressure must be applied to where it will do the most good. It is not enough to enjoin those who would repeal it to do so, for that is preaching to the choir. Instead, we must raise our voices outside the windows of those who oppose repeal, and make them see that they do the nation a dishonor and disservice by continuing to back this shameful policy.

So, I ask you once again, friends and countrymen, to take pen in hand, or keyboard beneath finger tips, or grasp the nearest phone, and make your voice heard. Specifically, I want us to concentrate on the two greatest roadblocks to success: Senator John McCain, and his cohort Senator Lindsey Graham. These men could, with but a word, end the deadlock and allow DADT repeal legislation to pass in the Senate. They must, however, be shown that the majority of Americans want this integration of the military to take place.

Here are links to the contact form for each Senator:

Lindsey Graham, R-SC: http://lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.EmailSenatorGraham

John McCain, R-AZ: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

Please, write them or call them or use whatever medium you find easiest to use, and let them know that America will no longer stand for a military that is not reflective of its people, and that we demand LGBT individuals be given the same courtesy of being allowed to defend their country as any other citizen of our glorious nation.

The Color Purple

Today, people across the nation will be wearing various shades of purple, to show their solidarity with the LGBT community and to remember the recent deaths of six gay teens, who committed suicide due to bullying and/or through denigration by peers. We do this, not as a one-off moment, but as a resolution, that no teenager, gay or straight, deserves to be bullied for who and what they are. Hatred and fear can no longer be allowed to carry the day; Americans of good conscience must stand up, as one, and proclaim from every corner of the nation: "No person born to freedom and liberty shall have theirs infringed by anyone."

Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are

Today, October 11th, 2010, is National Coming Out Day. It is intended as an encouragement for those in the LGBT community; it is a way of saying that being who they are is more important than remaining in the shadows, and that there is a wide and varied community that supports them.

They definitely need the support.

It Gets Better... Far Too Slowly

Of late, the number of LGBT teens who have committed suicide seems to be staggering, though this may be an artifact of increased news coverage of issues involving the gay community. The fact is, these children are not the first, and, sadly, will not be the last casualties of a culture war that has been brewing for centuries. While homosexuality may have been a run-of-the-mill occurrence in ancient Greece or Rome, the advent of Christianity, the Protestant Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition, and other such events led to the persecution of homosexuals. Is it any wonder that the common slur used for homosexuals, "faggot," is derived from a Medieval word for a bundle of sticks used to start a fire, a fire no doubt started at the base of a pole that an unfortunate gay person would find themselves tied to, to be burned before God in hopes of redemption?

What is most troubling, aside from the waste of potential good in those who have left this world by their own hand, is how these incidents came about, through the bullying of others, who found it convenient to hurl epithets and treat them as if being gay were a crime, making them out to be social lepers, or worse, God's trash. This goes beyond the bullying that has been prevalent in schools for a seeming eternity; it is vicious and virulent, a blatant attempt to torment teens who may be having trouble with their sexual identity, trying to convince them that this somehow makes them pariahs.

This bullying, and the accompanying social unrest that follows it, is, in no small measure, amplified by the vitriol and invective that floods the airwaves daily, from social, political, and spiritual leaders across this nation.  To give just a few examples:

• Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who declared that if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn't be teaching in the classroom
• Boyd K. Packer, the second-highest leader in the Mormon Church, said in a sermon broadcast to millions yesterday that same-sex attraction is "impure and unnatural" and can be overcome, and that same-sex unions are morally wrong. [Courtesy, the Human Rights Campaign]
• Focus on the Family has accused gay-rights groups of using tolerance and anti-bullying programs to introduce curricula and books into schools that promote political aims such as same-sex marriage. [Courtesy, ABC News]
• Fred Phelps, pastor of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, regularly organizes demonstrations at military funerals with anti-homosexual rhetoric displayed prominently on their picket signs

With intolerant and bigoted people and groups dominating the news cycles, it should not shock us that such homophobia works its way down into our schools. Far too many parents either agree with these sentiments, or are loathe to talk about controversial subjects, perhaps because of personal discomfort or mere reticence to discuss actual issues of the day with their children.

However, a groundswell is beginning to occur, as famous personalities begin to speak out about the horrors being perpetrated and the difficulties of being a member of the LGBT community when you are young. From Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project, to heartfelt pleas from the likes of Ellen DeGeneres, Kathy Griffin, or Tim Gunn, people are beginning to speak up in a meaningful way, trying to steer the conversation away from rhetoric and toward the realization that these are, above all, human beings, people with feelings, people who may be scared, people who simply want to live their lives in peace.

Centuries in the making, the battle over the true place of homosexuality in the human race is starting to come to a head in this century. It is by no means a matter of a short amount of time; this topic and the intractable dogma surrounding it, are not so easily dispatched. There is, however, hope, for time has caused us to see more clearly the world we inhabit and our place in the scheme of things. No longer tied to the fear and fervor religion used to control humankind, our reason has shown us that homosexuality is just another human trait, another variation of the theme. It does not necessarily confer any kind of advantage, but it also does not confer any harm on the human race. Any harm that homosexuality presents to us is self-inflicted, the product of the ravings of madmen and the ignorance of the petty and tyrannical.

This would seem to be our moment, when humanity would take the next step forward toward unity, or cast all civilization asunder in a flash of global inhumanity. For those who must continue to suffer, to fend off day-after-day the assault on their psyche and body by ignorance and intolerance, it can be said that it will get better, but perhaps not soon enough to abate the terror. Many may still have to suffer, may still have to hide their true selves in fear for their sanity and their life. They are the current soldiers, those who must steadfastly stand up, with our help, to put an end to the depredation and denigration of their kind. It is their fight, but it our war, and only together can we hope to strike down the last bastions of bigotry.

Cause And Effect

His name was Tyler Clementi. I say "was", because the smart and quiet 18-year-old Rutgers University student committed suicide. It is not unusual for high school and college students to kill themselves; the stresses of growing up through puberty and the pressure to excel in school often lead to children finding themselves isolated and unable to cope. Though not everyone succumbs to the creeping fears, doubts, and self-loathing, occasionally one will decide that death is preferable to the "torture" of living.

What makes this death more heart-breaking and mind-numbing than the usual, is the why. Two fellow 18-year-old students, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, perpetrated what can only be described as the most reprehensible and disgusting "prank" on Tyler -- they allegedly placed a video camera in his dorm room, and captured a video of one of his sexual encounters, then apparently broadcast it over the Internet. What was undoubtedly horrifying to Tyler, was that it was a sexual encounter with another man.

Let me be clear: that it was an encounter with a member of the same sex is nothing new, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. The body is a container, a shell, a power supply and protection for the human brain and the genetic material that created it. That we come in two genders is obvious physically, but gender is more than a function of genitalia. The profusion of LGBT individuals in the world shows us that "gender" goes deeper, is more a function of hormones and neural wiring that what sexual organs you happen to have. Love, the tenderest of human emotions, is figuratively a function of the heart, not the head, and there is no reason to think that two people of the same gender cannot love each other. Love is about feelings, emotions, and psychological compatibility, not which tab fits into which slot.

Still, our society has, for the most part, a hard time accepting this. As with anything that science brings to light, the beliefs of many override reason, and they see the human body as some divine arbiter of who you are, and believe that things can only work one way, where that way is merely the design, not the demarcation. A spiritual fear of same sex love over centuries has led to many homosexuals becoming easy fodder for the self-righteous and bigoted. Even now, with the virulent and voracious attacks on attempts to equalize the playing field for LGBT community, we see that innate fear being stamped with the approval of religious zealots, who are more afraid of the truth that stares them in the face, that perhaps their view of how the creator built his creation is not as simple as their ancestors once believed.

Given this, a society where homosexuality is a battleground, an easy target for the bigot and the bully, can we not feel the weight of this discovery of the transgression by Tyler as similar to a weight we have felt on our own hearts? How crushing, to know that his experimentation, in an earnest attempt to learn more about his feelings and desires, would be turned into fodder for the rabid packs of hate-mongers and ignorance-peddlers. More horrifying still, to know that this information would make it out to the world through the auspices of the Internet, bringing down misguided and vitriolic homophobia on a simple 18-year-old college student. How does one fight a world? How can one absorb the blows of dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, perchance even millions? What can you do, when something you thought few would ever know about, is now front-and-center on the greatest communications network of our time?

So, Tyler Clementi killed himself, his life snuffed out by the weight of a world of rabid hatred and fear that would rain down on him mercilessly. And now, two classmates stand accused, but only of an invasion of privacy; heinous enough, given what they did, but far from the only charge they should suffer. For as surely as the planner of a murder also receives a charge of capital murder, even though they have not pulled the trigger or plunged in the knife, so, too, must these two amoral cretins face their actions with a charge of manslaughter. No doubt, they thought nothing of what they did, for this "prank" was not a hallmark of true rational thought and social conscience, but the act of moronic, misanthropic, and mean-spirited individuals, with no consideration or clue as to what decency is. They may not have pushed him off the bridge, but they pushed the poor man's mind into a place where that seemed like the best resolution to a problem they caused.

These two are not alone in their indecency. This week has seen too many stories of LGBT individuals committing suicide, harangued and hectored by small-minded and socially inept peers, who no doubt pick up the threads of their abject hatred from their homes and from other members of their community. How can we be surprised, when the nightly news is filled with scenes of screaming and shrieking sycophants, claiming homosexuality an "abomination," and treating LGBT individuals as if they were lepers, or worse, subhuman? Why should we be shocked, when words spill down from pulpits for supposedly "Christian" ministers, condemning gays and their lifestyle, spreading homophobia in place of messages of mutual understanding and fellowship?

No more. We, of good heart and great conscience, cannot stand for this sort of behavior in our country, or in the world. You cannot look at an LGBT human being and not see them as any less, human, and certainly no less deserving of the freedom and liberty of everyone else. If we are to be true to the founding credo of our nation, that all are created equal, then to condemn these people simply because of what they are is morally reprehensible and hypocritical of us. They want nothing from us, they take nothing from us, and in the end, only seek that which they should have by fiat: the right to live their life as they will, free of ignorant persecution. If we cannot give them this, then our nation is broken, and we mark democracy as a failure.