ACT On Principles

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.

Remind me. Why am I up before the crack of dawn, sitting in a cold airport watching the sun rise and other grumpy, sleepy people wandering up and down so unoffensive they’re offensive carpets? Maybe for the same reason why I stand so often in front of City Hall and the State Building with a sign in my hand chanting badly rhymed lines. Maybe for the same reason I sit in at what seems like meeting after meeting discussing logistics and politics. I’m fighting for my life.

When I first heard of this latest March on Washington, I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do while so much time and resources are needing to be poured into marriage battles all over the country. At first, I thought that I could better utilize my time organizing locally one more time for one more campaign. Then I watched the continuance of the political pingpong ball bounce from state to state, from area to area for the same cause. And I heard yet again, the frantic pleas to give as much as you can, to come out and join in this big battle, and how this could be the victory that sets the precedence for future victories. And I wondered, are we really doing this the smart way? Are we really doing this the only effective way, as a number of our leaders like to say? Is there only one way to fight for our lives?

I found out last night that Ryan White CARE Act funds have been frozen. A dentist friend hadn’t been paid for any of his work on his HIV positive clients. And he doesn’t know when he will. Last week, I visited another friend who is quite possibly in his last days. This morning I found out that one more good friend had died. I’m surrounded by healthcare complications, health challenges, death and dying. I have to fight for our lives.

And, as someone living with the virus for over 15 years, I have to remember my own mortality and my own personal fight with death. I like to believe that what has kept me going is my dedication and stubbornness to seeing a cure; to seeing the end of this crazy, terrible, dark time in our history. I also want to believe that fighting for our lives will be seen as an equally important civil right because what good is ending workplace discrimination when you’re too sick to work? And what good is getting marriage rights when your loved one has died? Letting our brothers and sisters die from a disease that should have been eradicated by now and probably would have if it hadn’t proved to be so profitable to the drug companies and the health industry, is a true hate crime.

So fighting for our lives is very much a civil right and very much a reason for us to be marching yet again in DC.