Gay rights call to action!

[yardwork]

On Tuesday, four states passed hateful legislation denying civil rights to people just because they're gay. Voters in Arizona, California, and Florida changed their state constitution to ensure that marriage and the rights of marriage would be denied to same sex couples. These states do not have civil unions or anything approximating marriage rights for gay people.

In Arkansas, voters made it illegal for unmarried people - gay or straight - to adopt children. Since same-sex marriage is already banned in Arkansas, Tuesday's decision by the voters made it impossible for gay people to ever adopt children.

As a lesbian, it's not clear to me why so many people hate my very existence and choose to spend a lot of money and effort making sure that I will never have the same rights afforded to every other American citizen. However, the evidence of this hatred is plain to see.

There have been threads here on DU talking about this issue over the past couple of days. Several of these threads seek answers to the question why. I ask a further question. We may never know why. Instead, I ask the question What can we do about it?

By we I mean every single person in the world who believes that gay rights are human rights, and is willing to help achieve those rights.

Some approaches, while understandable, are clearly counter-productive. Burning down buildings isn't going to win us many friends. Accusing various groups of bigotry, while cathartic, is also counter-productive. This insults and alienates individuals who are on our side and inevitably becomes a shouting match. It's not particularly helpful to remind people of how abused gay people feel. This is undignified, makes us look like victims, and encourages bullies to keep beating on us. I don't really think that public demonstrations help much, either. While it feels good to shout angrily outside buildings occupied by bigots (oops there I go again), at the end of the day it hasn't changed any laws.

Something else happened on Tuesday that can provide us with a blueprint for success, however. An African American man was elected president of the United States for the first time in history. How did Barack Obama do that? It seems to me that he did this by very careful, disciplined, strategic planning and follow-through. Obama built on the successes of everyone who has ever fought for civil rights. He talked to people. He listened. He did not show anger. He did not make inflammatory statements. He maximized his resources. He gave people something positive to believe in, and showed them how they could join his movement. He built a coalition, starting small in Illinois and growing it until it went nationwide.

Gay people are doing the same thing, every day in every community of this country. We can all help by following the same approach. Here are some suggestions. Please add more!

Give money and time to the organizations that fight for gay rights and human rights - Lambda Legal Action, Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG, and others.

If you are gay, live openly as a gay person. Tell your neighbors, your co-workers, your fellow church congregants that you are gay. When you patronize businesses, let the owners and managers know that you, their valued customer, is gay. Be an example of what it is to be lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered, and every kind of queer to the rest of the world. Show your community that gay people come in all colors, income levels, religions, sexes, and backgrounds. Show up at gay parades and gay events. Be a shining beacon of GAY to the world.

Volunteer in your community and do so openly as a GLBTQ person. Go into neighborhoods and communities away from your comfort zone. Meet older people, and younger people, and people of different colors and religions than you. Be a positive force for good in their communities, helping them attain the things that they need. Do all this while being openly gay.

None of this is easy. As gay people, we all know the risks we run when we open ourselves up to the censure of a homophobic society. We all know people who have been fired simply for being gay. We know people who have been made unwelcome in volunteer organizations and churches simply because they are gay. There are few laws that protect us, and a world of people who have been taught to hate and fear us simply because we love people of the same sex. However, we have no choice. The only way to get human rights is to demand them, with dignity and quiet insistence.

[Maat]

1. Let's ensure that there is a great legal fight against the implementation of Prop. 8.

Let's find some spare change and donate to one of the organizations in my sig line.

Let's read up and educate others regarding this legal fight.

Thanks for the post.

In Solidarity with the GLBTQ Community,

[yardwork]

3. Thank you for putting those organizations in your sig line!

[Maat]

5. Thanks for noticing!

We need to DO SOMETHING that will be effective NOW; and, donating is it!

[Curtland1015]

2. The reasons are simple. Religious propaganda and inherited bigotry.

The solutions are hard. While being openly gay and proud is a BIG part of trying to establish yourselves as a group, the bigger problem of trying to cure others of their hate is a giant hill to climb.

An organized effort to prove that religion and homosexuality are not mutually exclusive would (IMO) go a long way towards that goal.

[yardwork]

4. Yes, I agree. There have been books written about the actual meaning of biblical passages.

As we all know, many people point to a couple of passages in the Bible as "proof" that God hates fags. Aside from the fact that much of the rest of the Bible is totally ignored by the same people, the passages themselves probably aren't even talking about homosexuality.

The "sin" of Sodom and Gomorrah was inhospitality to guests, not sodomy. The passage about not lying with a man "as one would lie with a woman" is not a reference to gay sex. It's a reference to treating women with the same respect as men.