“A Case For The Gay Civil Rights War”

There are many reasons why wars start, some political, some to preempt a larger problem and of course some for economical reasons. Let’s take a look at three and see how they relate to the global Gay war for civil rights equality;

Reason 1:

Wars are started or entered into to stop human atrocities. The torture and killing of groups of people have provoked wars throughout history and, of course World War II comes to mind. This too is one reason for our global war for Gay civil rights today. It is common to hear of bashings and murders of LGBTQ people. It seems to be a monthly occurrence. Gay teen suicide rates are of epidemic proportion due to non acceptance and discrimination. Governments fail to provide rights, protection, and in some cases are the promoters of violence against our population. These acts of violence, these suicides, and these murders must be viewed as acts of atrocity against the Gay community.

Reason 2:

Wars happen when the way of life of a group of people is attacked without provocation. September 11th and the war in Afghanistan is a recent example of this. The way of life of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered has and is being attacked globally. Along with physical violence, we are fired from jobs and thrown out of housing. Our children are not allowed to bring their same sex dates to their school proms and our relationships in the United States are over taxed as they are not recognized by our federal government. Minding our own business, our clubs are raided and their patrons abused by law enforcement. It is all an attempt to diminish our humanity, force us back into hiding, and end our way of life, a way of life we were created to live.

Reason 3:

Wars happen when countries are invaded and valuable territory is taken from the weaker nation by the stronger one. The first Gulf war and the invasion of Kuwait come to mind. Our Gay nation has been invaded and our hard fought territory has been taken. In states where equal marriage has become law, religious institutions such as the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church have poured money, lies and bodies into those states to overturn equal marriage. Their tactics are consistent, spread lies, incite fear, and bring a minority’s right of equal marriage to a vote by the majority. In each case where this has happened they have been successful in taking our rights from us. Their campaign continues across the country using methods that are meant to incite hatred against our community. Methods such as the Catholic Church in D.C. is using by denying healthcare benefits to all spouses of its new employees so it does not have to provide them to same sex married couple. Through this, our President, our staunch ally, has stood by not using the influence of his office, merely spewing empty words and broken promises. None of our rights are safe and our territory can and will be attacked wherever we have made gains.


Our reasons for a civil rights war are clear. Our battle plan needs to change from reacting to attacking, attacking with protests, direct action and non violent civil disobedience. We need to go after those entities that are threatening our way of life and those governments that are refusing our equality. We need to be feared, and by becoming feared we will weaken the enemies’ resolve to attack us at will. It is called deterrence. They need to consider the consequences before coming at us again. Every battle is important whether it is a one person action or an organizational one. It is OK to make people angry and upset with us as we disrupt for our rights. We need to be minutemen, ready for a call to battle at a moments notice to impact homophobia and discrimination. We need to readily join each other’s battles against ignorance, discrimination and hate without waiting for a formal invitation. When soldiers hear shots, they grab their weapon and run toward the battle. The time is here when we can no longer leave it up to others to fight for our rights. We need everybody to enlist.

MT