Inspiration
On October 6th of 1998 two young straight men walked into a bar that was known for catering to homosexuals. They picked a random twenty-one year old boy and convinced him they were gay. They lured this boy to their truck and beat him. After this they drove a mile into private property, where they knew they would not be disturbed. They beat him with a foot long pistol until he was covered in blood. They tied him to a fence… They left him to die… This boy was Matthew Shepard.
This was the last event in our people’s history that caused this nation to actually look at the policies and practices that affected our community. In an instant we had the attention of the entire world turned to us. This was our 9/11. Since then we have forgotten Matthew Shepard and the gay rights movement has died down. We are once more pushed to the margins of society to be ignored.
How did we come to this place? How did our society go from Socrates and Alexander the Great, to the death of a brilliant young man like Matthew?
How is it that we once sparked entire waves of culture through ancient societies and yet now we are removed from the scene entirely? When did we turn this corner?
Gays are the most frowned upon and discriminated against people in the world. We are hated more than Blacks, Hispanics, or Muslims. Our nation, in particular, is the great pretender. America herself allows us a few certain rights while denying us to have others which are of great importance… Yet that which we have been given serves only to distract us from the bigger picture, that which we need!
Yet we have stopped fighting, and those who remain to fight do so in silence. The ACLU fights in the American courts, but who do they really fight for? They defended Shirley Phelps-Roper! The HRC fights big business and politicians, but why don’t we hear them fighting? They are silent!
At one time in American history, a mere forty years ago to be exact, it was punishable by law to be gay. Gay men could be locked away in mental institutions, they were forced to undergo electroshock therapy and pharmaceutical treatment, they were locked in prisons for anywhere from five years to ten or twenty or even life, They were harassed by police, fined, and even castrated! This was the time when people spoke up, when we absolutely had to be heard! Riots broke out in the US, groups like the Mattachine spoke out, men and women protested the unfair treatment of people in our society, and over the course of twenty years we changed a nation!
So why, in the middle of success and mass reform, did we stop? When did we decide that half way was good enough? We are still denied equality in housing and employment. Same-Sex marriages go unrecognized by our own government… who we pay taxes to! The military issues dishonorable discharges to gay men and lesbians who want to serve their nation. Sodomy is still illegal in 18 states, including Missouri, making it unlawful for two men who love each other to be intimate. No federal hate crime laws exist to protect us and even our children are denied safety in their schools!
While all this goes on in an ever perpetuating cycle, our people have become light hearted. They have forgotten their history and they don’t know about the present, nor do they care about the future. Our community has left the fight in favor of going to clubs and bars. They go to Pride fest and they don’t even know the meaning of the word and no matter how many little rainbows they wave they will never understand the story behind our flag!
The G/L/B/T community has left the struggle behind. They assume that life suddenly became easy and neglect the thing that our people once fought for. They assume that everything will work itself out. Yet they do not realize that in America everything is given to those who speak out, and the loudest voice is the one that is heard.
Our enemies are everywhere. They are the WBC, the KKK, the Skin Heads, and the radicals. They are the Segregators, and the uninformed, and those who don’t know that knowledge is power! They are even within our own community, those who do not understand who they are or that their voice matters. They don’t know their own value in a time like this.
Our people need allies and numbers. We need heroes and heroines. We need strong hearts and free minds. And most of all we need a voice.