Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving, Thank God for being gay!!!

Thank God I am gay!!!!  If I were not, I would not have met and fallen in love with Lorrie.  It's a big reason to be thankful, but it sure isn't the only one. I simply am thankful, because now that I have accepted it, I am finally whole. I finally am able to love, not just Lorrie, but my boys, and my friends. I am also thankful to belong to a truly gifted set of people.  We make up a full third of all writers, more than 25% of all musicians and artists.  We are entrepreneurs, adventurers and ground breakers, news makers and news reporters.  I am thankful that there are other gays who are out there making the world more interesting and exciting if not just plain better for all.

Now while I myself am not much of a business person, nor would I be called artistic, I sure love to write.  Would I still, if I were not gay? I don't know.  How can I know?  I can't, none of us can.  Because I can't separate out any part of me without losing the whole of me.  I can't stop being gay.  If I couldn't when I was in denial, how can I do it now?  If when I was in denial, I was still gay, though I didn't act upon it, then how can I stop now?  I was created gay.  No human caused me to be gay, no human forced it upon me, nothing that happened to me in my life made me gay.  More happened in my life to have guaranteed that I was straight, but I didn't.  All of society told me growing up there was only one way to be, and that was straight, get married to a nice boy, have children, all else was wrong.  But what was wrong, was that believing misconceptions made me deny it in myself.  Had I never been lead out of those misconceptions by "that still small voice" and I was still denying my gayness, I would still be gay.  My wishing it away, my praying and fasting it away, my hoping it away did not change it.  What changed instead was my whole belief system, in a flash, in an epiphany, so to speak.  No, I don't forget that the still small voice had been speaking for 30 years, lol, see, I am thick headed sometimes.......but still, that moment, when finally I quit believing what "man" said was true about me, the moment I began to believe what God was telling me about myself, was the moment I began to live as a human, and not a shadow, not a liar, not a secret, not in a closet, but as a human, out in the open, among other humans. The truth set me free. And for that, I am eternally thankful. 

Um, Rebecca, are you outta your mind?  Let's see, the FBI just announced that gays are the most victimized of all minority persons.  There are  organizations who's sole purpose is to see that our love is re-criminalized.  They nearly succeeded in Uganda after holding a summit there, thank God that proposal was finally withdrawn after international backlash  threatened their ties to the rest of the world.  The military says that we can only serve if we are really, really good at covering up our personal lives and lying about it when asked, and if we ask our friends and lovers to lie for us.  The Feds say they won't recognize our marriages, even if the state we live in does. We are called all sorts of unsavory names, accused of many crimes against nature and children and politicians worry that if they vote for our civil rights they will lose elections, and and and and......I am thankful that there are those who don't believe the lies, I am thankful that there are those who are openly gay and are mayors, state legislators and US Congressmen.  I am thankful they didn't believe the lies and had the courage to run for office, even the one's who didn't win.  


You know what? Some of the best people I know of are out there fighting, day and night for our government to finally acknowledge that we are indeed included as "All men" when the Declaration of Independence says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  I am thankful for the portion of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibits discrimination by state government institutions. The clause grants all people "equal protection of the laws," which means that the states must apply the law equally and cannot give preference to one person or class of persons over another.  I am thankful that it is there, because soon, the courts are going to have to realize that it already applies to us.

I am thankful because we already have the rights, we are already equal.  In the same way I was still gay, even when I denied it to myself and others around me, in the same way that Blacks were equal, even before the courts and then the people said they were, in that same way, we have the rights and we are equal, and someday, the courts, and then the people will realize it, because of the tireless work of our advocates, our straight allies, those online and offline, and the work we do in ourselves.  For them, for us, I am most thankful this Thanksgiving.

Thank you Jude, Jay, Autumn, Lt. Dan Choi, thank you Equality PA, The New Civil Rights Movement and David Badash, thank you Pam. Thank you Wendy, and all the others out there who I am just not thinking of right now, who make our voices heard, when we ourselves cannot always speak.  Happy Thanksgiving.
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