It Gets Better.

I am heartbroken every time I hear of another child taking their life because they were bullied for being different. I like to hope that the world is constantly spinning forward, becoming a kinder, more compassionate, more tolerant place, but I know that this isn't true. I have known too many people who have lived in despair because of their sexuality and what they have been led to believe it means for their life and soul. I have lost a sweet friend to suicide because he had no hope for the lifting of this despair. So yes, I know my hope is only that.

I was listening to Dan Savage's podcast yesterday, and heard about a project that he has started, encouraging GLBT adults to make videos posted on YouTube for the viewing of gay teenagers who may be in despair due to bullying or bigoted actions of others in their community. The theme is simple. It gets better. This point that you are at right now, where you feel so alone and so hopeless for the future, is likely the hardest your life will ever be. In a few years, you will be free to leave that town/school/church/home that is making you so sad, and to live a wonderful, joyful life. The videos so far are wonderful to see, and hopefully will provide some hope to young people who feel so isolated and desperate.

As I am only an ally of the GLBT community, and I don't relish the thought of putting a video of myself on the Internet, there will be no video from me. But I want to offer something up. My high school years were not bad. They could've been much, much worse. I was for the most part invisible to the bullies and mean girls at my school. And I made friends with important people (i.e. football players, the girlfriends of football players, principals) and so was protected. (Also I was really intense, so people may have been afraid of setting me off.) But there were still points of despair, where I felt so out of place and like there was a boulder on my head, keeping me from being anything other than what I was then--someone who knew how to fly below the radar, who would do your homework so you wouldn't make fun of her or maybe would leave her friends alone, someone who lived everyday hoping that this was not it. And now here I am. I live a life unlike anything I thought possible for myself. I live in a beautiful city. I know the most interesting people. I do amazing work. I have a truly great life.

And so I offer this to you, anyone who may stumble upon me through a random Google search. It gets better. The day you leave home for college might be the best day of your life. It was for me. You can see it in the smile on my face on my University of Texas ID. I keep that card to look at whenever I get bogged down in the pains of the past. It is a photo of optimism personified. The wide smile and bad haircut of a new beginning.

[And to take the road of schadenfreude for a moment, all those kids who make your life hell today will never be anything other than who they are now. They will continue to live in that small town that smells of sulfur/pig poop/industrial run-off. They will work at gas stations and auto part stores and trendy mall shops, dressing far too young for their 30 y.o. body. They will spend their days remembering their teens and knowing that that was the best their life will ever be. And they will get bald, and fat, and at least one of the jocks that called you homophobic names will be gay himself. And you will be hotter than him.]

From FDR.

Tonight I went to see Michael Moore's newest liberal propaganda piece. I heart liberal propaganda...for real. Toward the end of the film, he talks about the success of the labor movement during the Great Depression, and the supportive response of President Roosevelt. In his last State of the Union Address, he spoke about the American government's responsibility to support its citizens in their pursuit of happiness and the right to equality in all aspects of their lives. It is a simple statement, but something that is sadly so, so far removed from where we currently reside. But we have Hope for tomorrow. Read on....

Excerpt from President Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

Wider Still.

I spent the last five days in Austin with Nathan and his partner Abel. It was a lovely, relaxing vacation in my favorite (non-New York) city, spent with my dearest friend. Good times were had by all.

The timing of my trip just happened to coincide with Austin Gay Pride weekend. Since moving back to Austin, Nathan has started to go to the University Baptist Church. This is a place I always wanted to go while I lived in Austin. While we were in school at UT, UBC became notorious because it had chosen to disaffiliate itself with the Southern Baptist Convention and decided to become a welcoming and affirming church, something very bold even in a liberal mecca such as Austin. On Thursday night, while I was there, the church hosted a Gay Pride Unity Service. This service brought together people from many different faith traditions to show unity and solidarity as a community, and to worship together. The experience of being in a room full of people who have taken refuge in this church, many of whom have been rejected by their families and faith communities because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, was simply profound. People being able to rest there and fully feel a part of a community of faith, knowing that there is safety and acceptance for them and their partners and their children and families.

And so I feel renewed. There are so many grave injustices that we encounter everyday that seem insurmountable. But this is not one of them. Every one of us who is part of a community of faith has the power to undo this. The power to extend a hand, open a door, open a heart and see justice done.

At the end of the service, one of the choruses sang a song called, Draw the Circle Wide. This is what we must seek to do...draw the circle wide, wide enough for everyone to stand inside. Everyone. Everyone, EVERYONE. No one stands outside.

Draw the circle wide. Draw it wider still.
Let this be our song, no one stands alone, standing side by side,
Draw the circle wide.

God the still point of the circle Round whom all creation turns;
Nothing lost, but held forever, in God’s gracious arms.

Let our hearts touch far horizons. So encompass great and small;
Let our loving know no borders, faithful to God’s call.

Let the dreams we dream be larger. Than we've ever dreamed before;
Let the dream of Christ be in us, open every door.

In Defense of Marriage.

I have over the past week received several e-mails from the HRC detailing new campaigns against gay marriage. I am obviously for equal marriage rights for LGBT people, so I have been trying to understand why it is that one would stand against this so fervently. Really, if we're that concerned about protecting the institution of marriage, I don't think it's LGBT people we need to fear, or the marriage of any particular combination of consenting willing adults we need to outlaw. If we're really so concerned about marriage then maybe we should begin by outlawing divorce, or infidelity, or flirtation, or fantasy. Or Britney Spears, or Maxim, or X-box, Playstation, etc. Or disatisfaction, or wandering eyes, or long hours, or business trips. Or MySpace (not Facebook...we love you). Or, I guess, the whole Internet. Or football, baseball, basketball season. Or Las Vegas. Or any and all REAL housewives. Or massive lay-offs and economic collapse. Or rushing in to, or rushing out of marriage too quickly. Not the union to two souls who wish to be together, who have fought long and hard for their relationship to be recognized, who love each other, and deserve to be treated as equals.

Let me know if I missed anything.

P.S.--Feel free to leave me explanations, but please don't leave me bigotry or misused Bible verses in the comments. I will delete them and you will have wasted your time, and then I will be forced to go to your blog and leave extensive discourse on why 90s Madonna was great, but nothing compares to 80s Madonna, and we won't even talk about millenial Madonna. You've been warned.

It's All About Love.

I received an e-mail today from one of my activism groups, the Human Rights Campaign, about the response received by an article in this week's Newsweek called The Religious Case for Gay Marriage. Read it (all of it), and come back to me.

I have been really, really disappointed in the holiday season this year. I had hoped, however naively, that the current economy would lead people to put a different meaning on Christmas. "We can't really afford that Xbox this year, so we're just gonna love each other alot." But instead it has only increased our national greed and desperation for more, and more, and more, holding on with every fiber of our being to everything we can get our hands on. This was illustrated to me profoundly by the death of the poor man who was trampled by shoppers at a Wal-Mart in New York State. We are so thirsty for bargains that we do not notice that we are stepping on a person. Stop to think about that for a moment.

I try very hard to illustrate generosity to my clients, and to encourage them to be involved and do things for people who are even less fortunate than they, but I am mostly (not all the time) met with blank stares before the mad rush for whatever morsel I have placed before them. And I do understand the psychology of this. People who have lived in a state of constant deprivation have a fundamental drive to grab and hoard whatever they can find, as it may happen again that they are left without. And especially in a capitalist society, the poor are given very little room to be charitable. But this doesn't mean that it doesn't destroy me every time it happens. Recently, the participants in my program decided that if there was any food left over at the end of the day from the breakfasts, lunches and dinners that are provided to them free of charge, they would claim it to take it home and then throw the rest away, rather than taking it downstairs to the homeless people that live on our steps. I want to know how we got to this. I alternate between this making me profoundly sad, and making me profoundly angry, which leads me to want to withhold some of the resources I have been given for my clients as a means to show them what need is like. But then I know that they know (or have known) what desperation is like, and I wonder how they have so quickly forgotten.

So in reading this article (I know it's taken me a while to get back to it), the thing that struck me the most is strength of our collective inclination to deny other people something that has brought us profound joy, and to make enemies of people we do not understand. I believe that for most people who are married, this is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to them. And there is something so, so deeply wrong about turning this into a privilege for only a few, or into a weapon used to deprive about 10 percent of the population of their fundamental rights. There is inherent complication in the fact that an institution that is supposed to be based on partnership and love has become the basis for legal rights and privileges. And by denying certain people to right to marry, or by tying so many fundamental rights and privileges up in the institution of marriage, we are creating an underclass of people based on sexual orientation, or based simply on the fact that not everyone is cut out for marriage. And in so doing, we are missing the point, made even worse by tying all of this up in our religious beliefs, and denying people these rights based on what we believe our translation of the Bible is saying. But it also says that God is love. And it says that "love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." Never ends.

Standing together.

This weekend, in all 50 states, there will be simultaneous protests against Proposition 8 and all of the other anti-gay legislation that has been passed and that will certainly come. See you Saturday. Join the impact.

Act Up.

I daily get a million or so e-mails from political organizations and organizers. So a few important ones for you today...

First, from my friend, Aydrea in L.A....I had a conversation with a client of mine last week about things he did in his life as an activist working with the Black Panthers and the Weatherman (those words just ruined my hopes of ever being president). We discussed the fact that he had never thought he would be sitting there, sharing so much information, in such a vulnerable spot, with a young, White woman. I, after a while, tried to reassure him by letting him know that I have read about his fight in the 60s and am dismayed that any of it ever had to occur and that it continues to occur, and that he underwent such trauma because of the color of his skin. And it made me think of this letter.

Second, from my friend Paul in San Francisco...Vote No on 8! Despite the fact that the California Supreme Court declared a ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional last Spring, there is now a referendum up for vote in November to change the California constitution to make marriage exclusive to heterosexual couples. I have a difficult time really explaining why this is so important to me. But after my dear friend's wedding this summer, it became known to me how important it is that he and is partner being allowed to be and stay married. State by state things are changing...just last week, Connecticut changed their policies. New York, due to the conservative pockets outside of New York City, will not change anytime soon, but our governor enacted a policy that recognizes marriages made legal in any state...a step in the right direction. So, it's important that California not go back. Most of you don't live in California, so you can't vote on it, but you can read about it and donate money to the fight.

And then a last one, received in a e-mail today. There is a campaign to develop a National AIDS Strategy. This is necessary for the U.S. government to appropriately address the problem of AIDS as it effects people in the U.S. Read about it here, and take the opportunity to lend your support.

Another Question.

So yesterday when I read the headline that the gay marriage ban in California had been lifted, I was super excited. And then I got an e-mail from a dear friend, who because the ban has been lifted will actually get to marry this summer, rather than his ceremony being merely symbolic. Again, so exciting. But then this morning, perusing the news, it begins again that people are now gearing up to fight the ban to protect marriage from such corruption. So my question is, why does marriage need to be protected from people who love each other committing their lives to each other?

I read this morning, much to my chagrin, that all three candidates are opposed to gay marriage. I understand this as a political decision, but do not understand it as a human decision. Maybe it's because I am not married that I cannot understand why the institution needs to be protected. But under the same vein, if we need to protect marriage from same-sex couples, don't we also need to protect it from divorcing couples, or from people who marry for money or publicity, or from people with tacky wedding dresses? All equally insidious. For real...can someone explain this to me?

For the Bible Tells Me So.

A few weeks ago, in one of my activism e-mails, I received word of a documentary, called For the Bible Tells Me So, coming out about the relationship between the Church and the GLBT community. Aside from having what my best friend and I agreed is the creepiest trailer ever (Watch here. Just imagine the little girl sitting in the dark in a clapboard house playing with a scary doll.), the film looked very interesting.

I went to see it yesterday at a theatre in Chelsea. With films like this, one of the most intriguing things about it is the audience. The film is a collection of stories of religious families who have children who are gay or lesbian. One of these families is the family of Senator Dick Gephardt, and one is the family of Gene Robinson, who was elected the first gay bishop of the Episcopal church in 2003. The others are everyday people who have dealt with this extraordinary conflict in their lives with extraordinary love for their children.

Another part of the film is theologians speaking to the question of what the Bible truly says about homosexuality. Though they do not speak in the film, we hear the words of James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell, and Jimmy Swaggart. Awful, awful stuff not to be repeated here. But then you hear from Bishop Desmond Tutu. He says in so many words that we, when we focus so much on condemning people for the perceived sin of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, are going against the fundamental message of Christ. That God never condemned someone for being oppressed. That God did not condemn African Americans for being enslaved, or women for being subjugated, or Blacks in Africa for being crushed by Apartheid. And just the same, He does not condemn our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters either.

"Jesus did not say, 'If I be lifted up I will draw some'." Jesus said, 'If I be lifted up I will draw all, all, all, all, all. Black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful. It's one of the most radical things. All, all, all, all, all, all, all, all. All belong. Gay, lesbian, so-called straight. All, all are meant to be held in this incredible embrace that will not let us go. All."--Desmond Tutu