I’m having some feelings.
Earlier this week we heard that not so far away, the board of Smithtown voted to remove the library’s Pride displays. Now, this pales in comparison to the bar raids I remember seeing on TV as a child, and anti-marriage movement that dominated my young adulthood. But it scared me.
Amy and I are together almost 24 years now. Our oldest is about to be a Bar Mitzvah. The outwardly racist, ableist, misogynistic cretin, Donald Trump, was voted President of the United States (well, the first time he was). It’s scary to think about what other crazy things are possible in the modern universe.
And I have friends and family who are Republican. We all do, and we all debate but people don’t tend to stray far from where they’re planted. I have well-meaning people in my life who read the “Don’t Say Gay” Law in Florida as ironic. They claim to have sought the primary source and come away noting only that “Gay” is not specified. But they cannot see that the early gender and sexual indoctrination is not a liberal agenda. It is, in fact, the conservative one.
And then this hits you. A Pride display scoffed at and judged by people who never experienced Pride. These people did not even seek out understanding until children peacefully protested their outrage. Millions discussed their actions and thousands attended the meeting to reverse the call. As much as I am proud that an intelligent assessment made after thoughtful and inclusive discussion was rightfully apologetic and remorseful, I’m still scared at how easy I can still be so quickly judged on a life that was not easy to procure, but that I and my wife have built step by step on love.
My right to live my life should not be dependent on another’s generously extended understanding. It should be the other way around! I understand that we’re still dealing with the very real dilemmas of economic distribution, appropriate conservation of resources, the problematic decision of when initiation of life is to be defined. And I understand that the world is increasingly specialized. Education does not always reach or connect with people wrongfully charged to make decisive choices so far outside their experience and understanding. So many do not know or have the stamina to explore the complexities of adorning a body-dependent entity with rights superseding its host. They often can’t see the foundational misogyny embedded in our religions and our culture. Just as many did not understand why we needed marriage for more than a thousand reasons above heterosexual unified counterparts. Or why we even celebrate coming “out” in the first place.
We should change education to include an early awareness of one’s social location. White people need to comprehend and adjust to the effects of their skin on others just like black people. They need to hear the intonations of their speech as much as foreign language speakers. They need to comprehend their gender and sexuality and earn their pride as much as queers. We’ve come a long way. We must not slide backwards now. Everyone needs to question their actions, and react only from quiet, measured, researched places inside themselves. If you don’t have the energy to put in, then stay out.
