I've been thinking a lot lately about grief and loss. Several old good friends of mine died last year and I'm still having trouble accepting it. Witnessing the frothing homophobia, racism and all-around xenophobic closed-minds who are shouting bible verses and shrieking about how all LGBTQ folks are going to burn in hell kicks up my old rage and grief over the generation of gay male friends, including a sweet family member, I lost during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. So many of them were in loving, long-term relationships that were exactly like marriages. Many of them dreamed of a day when gay marriage would no longer be put in a separate box as "gay marriage", but would instead just be MARRIAGES like any other person of any other color, faith, ethnicity, race, etc. It just kills me that so many people are filled with such vitriolic hate. I read Yahoo comments yesterday about president Obama's shift on this DoMA issue (yes...sometimes I'm a sadist -- it's hard NOT to look and get a pulse for where people's heads are, or, AREN'T, in the case of many of the hateful bigots who respond on Yahoo -- but I do try to take a pass on most days for the sake of my high blood pressure). Even though I've been highly frustrated with the feet-dragging and double-speak that have been going on over these past couple years with the administration, I have a glimmering shred of hope that this is a bit of daylight. So many of the Yahoo posters clearly displayed how short-sighted and narrow their points of view were. Saying gays aren't worthy of "special rights" and the rampant sort of "not-in-my-backyard" kinds of thinking totally parallels what my elder relatives struggled hard against during jim crow and the fight for desegregation and civil rights. The comparisons between the bigotry behind mixed race couples being banned from marrying and the issue of same-sex marriage are absolutely right-on.
I can't help but wonder if these homophobes realize LGBTQ people are probably in every facet of their lives. They're the doctors and scientists trying to save their lives. They're the firemen and policemen trying to protect them. And they're the soldiers and servicepeople putting their lives on the line in these wars for American empire. They absolutely deserve the same marriage and spousal rights afforded to all Americans -- especially when it comes to having the right to stay by your sick partner's side in the hospital and death benefits for surviving spouses and children. I can't help but think back to what it was like in the 80's and early 90's when the spouses of some of my friends tried desperately to gain access to their loved ones but were flatly refused, sometimes angrily...and often very judgmentally. Do you remember those days?? Nobody gave a damn (especially the uber-invoked "saint" -- Ronald Reagan). No one deserves to go through that. No one deserves to die alone without feeling the touch and love of the people closest to him/her. EVERYONE on this earth deserves equality, dignity and compassion, regardless of who-fucks-who, what color they are or what religion they believe in. It still hurts to think of that lost generation of amazing men. It's like someone punching a bruise that still hasn't quite healed. So many of them had hope that, all these decades later, things would change and become equal. I want to hold on to that hope. There is still so much work that needs to be done, but this IS a glimmer.
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