Gay Messiah

Disclaimer
The recent passage of Proposition 8 has put gay rights front and center in my brain. Though some might find this weird or even offensive seeing as I am a breeder, I have always felt like a friend of the family. Though I am not one of the chosen, I take the struggle for gay rights very seriously and it is with that in mind that I write this blog.


Why is gay marriage still an issue? This coming June will mark the 40 year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. If you use the Civil Rights Movement as a model, we should have had gay marriage in this country over a quarter century ago.

Many people consider the 1955 murder of 14 year old Emmet Till as the primary catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. By 1964 racial segregation was struck down and in 1967 anti-miscegenation laws were struck down. This is not to say that racism is over (I mean look how long it took us to get a black President) but on a purely legal level, shit got done.

So why hasn’t the Gay Rights Movement been able to follow suit? My theory is that this is because the movement has lacked a charismatic leader. While groups like GLAAD and PFLAG do great work, a highly visible public face for the movement could do even more. A leader helps to keep your eye on the prize. When Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X spoke, people listened.

Now I’m aware that it is much easier to say all of this than to do it. Great leaders are not born every day and you can’t really hold auditions for something like that. Also the diversity of the LGBT(I) community is an issue. Would gay men want a lesbian representing them and vice versa? Some yes and some no probably.

So what’s the point of this blog? I don’t really know. It’s not like someone reading this will all of a sudden change the world. I mean the suggestion it makes isn’t even something you can just go out and do. So why did I write this?

I wrote this because it hurts me deep down in my soul to see people who love each other unable to be joined in MARRIAGE. Don’t even start on, "domestic partnership". How is that any different than separate but equal? God I have so many different swirling emotions and it frustrates me that there is nothing to do about it.

Sure there are marches going on almost daily throughout the southland. But I can’t fight the feeling of, “What good will it do?” 52% of California’s population doesn’t seem to see this as a matter of Civil Rights. How can we make them see? I wish I had an answer. Maybe someone out there does.

I guess I’m holding out for a hero.