“Safely Closeted And Openly Apathetic”

There are some differences between the Gay civil rights movement and the Black civil rights movement of the nineteen sixties. Two significant ones come to mind. Desegregation had the public support of the President and his Justice Department. Law enforcement was present to ensure the end of segregation and the success of desegregation. Other then hollow promises, these things are not present in the Obama Presidency and Justice Department.

I think the more important difference is found in the people fighting for civil rights then and now. In the nineteen sixties Black Americans were beaten, slurred, killed, and literally forced to take a back seat to Caucasian Americans in life and in less than equal civil rights. If you wanted to, you could substitute the word Gay for Black,and Heterosexual for Caucasian as those same things are happening to Gay people today. So what is the difference? The difference is in the Black American’s inability to hide their skin color, and Gay Americans ability to make a choice to hide their sexual orientation.

I think that being Black and unable to hide it, helped unify the Black community. I think that being unable to hide their skin color created a sense of urgency to their civil rights movement. I view it similar to the fight or flight principle, unable to flee from their own skin, they had to join the fight for their civil rights and for their very survival.

The Gay civil rights movement lacks this sense of urgency. Among many Gay people, there is more apathy than urgency. There is more derision then unity, and there is the damage of being able to make a choice to stay in the closet. I understand that coming out of the closet can and does have discriminating, damaging, and sometimes dangerous consequences to a Gay person. God do I understand. However, life is risky at best, particularly for those paving the way for others to have a better one. The more of us who choose to come out and live openly despite the blows, the easier it gets for others coming after us. This is our generation’s obligation. Unfortunately, the reverse is true as well. When you my closeted reader, choose to stay in the closet, you make life harder and more dangerous for those of us living open lives and for Gay people in future generations. You also create disunity among Gay people and cause confusion as to who our opponents really are.

Last week a Gay man chastised me for strong opinions about coming out of the closet and urging people to do so. I was told I did not understand how hard and dangerous it could be because I was living on one of the coasts in the United States where Gay people have it easy and can live open and freely. He went on to blame the brief legalization of equal marriage in California and the subsequent fight against Proposition 8 for his state passing a constitutional amendment banning equal marriage. The reason any state has a constitutional amendment is discrimination by bigots, not because Gay people in another state are fighting for their equal civil rights.

For him to be unclear about that was disheartening. For him to think that living on either the east coast or west coast makes coming out and living openly as a Gay person easy, was just plain stupid. I refer you to the recent repeal of equal marriage in Maine, the defeat of equal marriage in New York and New Jersey, and the efforts underway now to repeal equal marriage in New Hampshire. I could also point to the current legal battle in the on going court case to try to repeal Proposition 8 in California.

As for the apathetic, this brief warning, your sense of security is false and will not be true until Gay people have equality and protection under the law. It is your right to remain on the sidelines of the most important civil rights battle of your time, but ask yourself this, who will fight for me, when I chose to fight for no one?

As for the closeted, it is your choice. If you are an independent adult capable of supporting yourself and live in a community, where you have to remain closeted to survive and stay safe, ask yourself why do I live like this? Why would you choose to live the one life you have in a place that does not accept you? Why would you choose to be around people who call you family and friend, but who would reject you if they knew you were Gay? Why do you feel obligated to stay in the closet to keep them comfortable? How does it feel when you hear Gay slurs at work and have to stay quiet? Is this the life you want, and the life you want for future generations? What is it you hate about yourself that keeps you in that situation? Are you ashamed when you see Gay kids take the risks and consequences, come out, and live openly?

I am sorry if you are Gay, and Gay people who are vocal, living openly, and fighting for your civil rights and ours, makes you uncomfortable, but we are not your enemy. Your choice to live in the closet is our enemy as is the apathy in the Gay community. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. were not the enemies of the Black people and neither are we your enemy.

We are the people who put our family relationships, careers, and safety on the line everyday by living a truthful life, by pointing out bigotry and discrimination as our true enemy, and by trying to change the present so Gay people might have a better future. Many past and present Gay civil rights leaders, who understand the real battle, including the late Harvey Milk, know that the fight would be greatly shortened, and perhaps ended, if we all just came out of the closet and lived in the open. There is false safety in the closet but real safety will be found in our numbers.

MT