ACT On Principles

Submitted by Andrew

The “Hate Crimes” bill is an aspirin to the LGBT Equality headache. A little something for the symptom, but nothing for the problem.  It does not create or contribute to our equality.

HRC and other professional LGBT advocacy groups operate with a mindset that seeks to delay equality for as long as possible. They have no incentive to do anything quickly. Because of this – most of our donations are wasted on salaries, not strategies.

Equality is something we – as a movement – will have to do. We are not much closer to equality than we were 40 years ago and WE DO NOT HAVE A MOVEMENT.  If we did,  more than 10% of our Community would actually be involved.

The Hate Crimes Bill may have a placebo effect and lessen our pain and frustration for a moment – but, it should not be celebrated as a “victory.” It does not contribute to our equality – it only punishes bad behavior.

Our equality relies on changing minds (like these young men were doing in Maine, door-to-door: http://www.queerty.com/2-minutes-of-your-time-a-maine-marriage-equality-canvassing-diary-20091030/) and not on changing laws. Laws do not create equality – people do.

Collectively we seem to keep obscuring the real goal – equality.  “Equal Rights” are not equality.  Making us a “special class,” “protected class” or a “minority” only perpetuate our differences – instead of confirming our “sameness.”  As a gay white man I do not want to be “tolerated” or “protected.” I would rather not gain “minority” or “victim” status, either.  I think it is counterproductive.  We will be equal when people believe we are.  Unfortunately, the scattered efforts within the LGBT Community seem completely fixated on “equal rights” and not equality.  They are very different.

I am not dismissing any efforts or their sincerity, but I am asking that we reconsider our goal.  If we truly want equality we must have conversations with our fellow citizens – friends, family, neighbors and even strangers.  Two thirds of our fellow citizens will support us, but we are not having those conversations.  We need to.  We need to ask for their help.

Perhaps, instead of spending all our resources on political and judicial solutions, we should focus on creating a viable strategy and plan for our equality.  One that will unite our community and ignite a real, sustainable “movement.”

I have organized a series of meetings in Dallas and other cities to give full consideration to ideas, tactics and strategies that lead to LGBT Equality.  These are very honest, objective discussions that have delivered many attractive proposals.

I have done this with an open invitation to everyone in our community – nobody needs permission or endorsement.  This has lead to some very encouraging possibility and promise.

Please join us for these important meetings Thursday evenings at 7pm at the iLume Complex, 4123 Cedar Springs Rd. Dallas, TX (Enter on Knight Street). Or email me for Updates: [email protected]

I’m sitting down to a late dinner and watching the news about the Bay Bridge remaining closed after years of this important piece of the commute in and out of San Francisco being allowed to be in various degrees of disrepair. It amazes me how 20 years after the 1989 earthquake that caused such damage to this bridge, the repairs are still trudging along. And now, with a piece of the bridge that was recently worked on has fallen down on evening commute traffic, this never ending drama is left to go on and on and on.

I can’t help but look at this as a metaphor for the state of human rights for LGBT people everywhere. Just like the bay bridge has been allowed to be repaired just enough to be operational, for over forty years since Stonewall our rights have been allowed to be only operational and in too many places not even that. We’ve been vocal and active enough only to get the minor repairs of a marriage right here and there, adoption rights in a handful of states, domestic partnerships and protections from work discriminations in only some of our states.

On the global level, our LGBT brothers and sisters are being jailed, tortured, beaten and often killed for the crime of being who they were born to be. In London earlier this month,  a 62 year old gay man, who was attacked in a homophobic assault died. Ian Baynham, 62, was walking through Trafalgar Square in central London with a friend when a woman began shouting homophobic abuse at him. He went to talk to her but she attacked him and a man and a second young woman joined in on beating him. Just for being himself..

In Bagdad, Gay activists have claimed that more than sixty gay men have been murdered in Iraq so far this year. They also assert the U.S. has ignored the murders because the government doesn’t want to upset the religious authorities in Iraq.

On the morning of February 12, 2008, 14 year old Brandon McInerney was witnessed repeatedly looking at 15 year old Lawrence “Larry” King during a class.  Bothered by Larry’s wearing women’s accessories and shoes, McInerney pulled out a 22 caliber pistol from his back pack and shot King twice in the head.
And as recent as July 2009, gay Navy Seaman August Provost was killed while on sentry duty at Camp Pendleton in SanDiego, not long after video clips of him tlaking about his lover were posted on the internet. Provost, 29, of Houston, was shot to death at the Navy’s landing-craft compound adjacent to Interstate 5. Navy officials still insist there is no evidence that Provost was killed because he was gay.
And while we now have the Hate Crimes Bill signed in the US, that’s no guarantee that there will be no more Matthew Shepherds or Gwen Araujos or Lawrence “Larry” Kings.

We cannot settle for quick fixes to be applied on the damaged, unequal human rights of this or any country. We have to stand up and speak out about Hate Crimes everywhere. We need to protest with civil disobedience after civil disobedience for human rights for everyone everywhere.

A patchwork repair has shown it will not work for the bridge from Oakland to San Francisco and, in the same way, a patchwork of limited rights does not work for the bridge from discrimination to equality. But unlike the Bay Bridge where we are forced to wait for the professionals to eventually do the right thing, the Bridge to Equality is something that we all can and we all must work on to repair and rebuild.