I hope that one day I can be brave.

I hope that one day I can be brave

As I realize that I’m in the last half of my life; I also realize that there are people around me day to day who are happy to work with me, collect monies from me, get great jobs because of me and break bread with me, but who, when it came time, to defend me…didn’t.  These friends, coworkers and acquaintances voted to pass an amendment in North Carolina making it a matter of state constitution for same sex couples to be denied the right to marry. They codified discrimination in the 21^st century, what great friends these are!

After John’s death and the disaster that was my relationship with Chris, I’m pretty sure that I’m never gonna get married again.  There are no prospects currently and the horizon is looking a lot like the Sahara desert.  Still, should one day I find someone that I love, maybe I’d want to get married.  I view it all as a matter of respect and right. 

My worry is in how I do I handle how I feel?  If I fly off the handle, get in folks faces and behave as a homo radical, it’ll be impossible to change attitudes.  I imagine that this feels a lot like racism.  The attitudes I'm up against are so covert, closeted if you will, they are impossible to parse out.   Perhaps now I understand why many of my black friends say, that they would rather have an in your face a racist as opposed to a closet racist.  When someone is in your face at least you know where they are coming from and what to expect.

I am faced with a paradox. My Christian beliefs teach me that I should love my enemies.  My heart tells me that I should hate them.  I don’t speak with my brother and his wife because of the way they openly profess how they feel about gay marriage.  They put bumper stickers on their car and signs in their yard for crying out loud.  EVEN WHEN I USED TO VISIT AND THEY KNEW I WAS COMING!  I appreciate these actions because it lets me know exactly where they stand.  Now I give them a very wide berth. 

I keep coming back to this question; how do I deal with those folks who don't put the bumper sticker on their car or sign in the yard? I know that each day that there are people in my life that feel exactly as my brother and his wife do, they however remain hidden from public view.  These people disguise their feelings with a smile on their face but would stick a knife in my back while standing in the anonymity of the voting booth, metaphorically speaking of course.

My question to myself is; why am I playing nice?

Did you? Do you?

Do you?

Do you bristle at the thought of more government?  Is one of your philosophies a worry that Big Brother, Uncle Sam and all his little Uncle Samettes are slowly and surely invading your space, zapping your will, stealing your thunder and absconding with your rights and personal liberties? That they are generally meddling too much in your life?

Did you vote yes to Amendment one on Tuesday May 8, 2012 in North Carolina? If you answered affirmatively to the above questions, then my query for you is; how do you reconcile your actions?

By voting yes to Amendment one you’ve invited keen over site into an institution that you hold dear. You’ve diminished that institution that you value as one between you, a spouse and God, because you’ve invited a fourth party into the relationship, that being the State of North Carolina. Sure they’ve been there for a long time but now they, the state, are much more invested in what your relationship looks like, how it’s formed and what God’s role is.  God, by your action has now been moved out of the center, where God should be, to the sidelines and the new resident at the center of your marriage is the State.

To me, why that smacks of, dare I say it? Socialism or worst, Communism!  In those states God has no place in the relationship; God is supplanted by Big Brother at the center of all.   That yes vote for Amendment one in North Carolina had unforeseen consequences that the special interest groups and the authors of the bill and the yes voters never contemplated or envisioned. Those groups by their short sited actions in an attempt to strengthen what they hold dear and protect, their marriage, have indeed diminished it.

So, that’s the warning in knee jerk, reactionary legislation; it has dire and unexpected outcomes and by denying others a right, one often abridges one’s own rights and conditions.  Sadly messes like this one are terribly difficult to clean up.

I Feel...

I feel oppressed

For the first time in my life, I truly feel oppressed.  I've felt discrimination, I've felt hate, I've been targeted; had my home egged, shot at and paint balled. I had someone threaten to kill me and my partner John; had them threaten to burn our home down on Easter Sunday, I've had to clean up the glass from broken windows.  As disturbing as all of those acts were while we lived on Mineral Springs Rd. here in Durham NC; they don't compare to how this week's vote on Amendment 1 in North Carolina has made me feel. 

For the first time in my live I feel pressured by institutional oppression.  Interestingly enough, I'm single and unattached with no hint of romantic prospects and not even a glimmer on the horizon.  So marriage or civil union for me isn't possible right now. Even after several assaults and bumps and bruises in the past; here in North Carolina and once in Louisiana, I don't recall ever feeling as demoralized and damaged as I feel this week.  I am perplexed and disturbed by the fact that, in facing my neighbors, co-workers, family members and friends; that six in ten of them voted to make me a second class citizen with far fewer rights than they enjoy.  

I suppose that when there were physical confrontations at the Our House diner on Glenwood Ave. in Raleigh or when a sheriff's deputy with Durham County cornered my date and me at Waffle House on Hillsborough Rd. in Durham because in his words, "Something just didn't look right." I coped rather well because the bigotry was overt.  The sheriff's deputy didn't like two buff, late thirties, men in somewhat flamboyant bar wear visiting Waffle House at three am on a Sunday morning. What to him didn't look right was we were who we are and we weren't drunk, so he had NOTHING on us. But he held us for twenty minutes of incessant questioning until one of his comrades said, "Let them go."

This vote on Amendment one was covert.  You see so many with whom I work, have stayed silent and by their silence have spoken volumes.  They've said hello and asked how I am, but they haven't mentioned Tuesday.  Those around me who have voiced compassion and expressed dismay; well that tells me how they voted and where they came down  on the issue.

The masses who turned out to vote for this Amendment were mostly coached into their vote by their preachers and lay people in their churches, by the idiot brigade on AM talk radio and by deep seeded bigotry; away from the public eye and in a secret society. A society where there is no debate or rebuttal but rather edict and hierarchy. A secret society in which this is the way that it has always been and yes, shall remain. Those masses who voted yes, at heart view me as less than equal; as if something is wrong with me; as if I made some sort of decision to gladly live at the point of their bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and sometimes violence.

Yes, I feel oppressed, but let me give you oppressors fair warning here and now.  The gloves are off.  I'm NOT leaving, I'm here for a reason and I will remain here. I will fight too. Not with my fists but with my whit, my pen, my money and my brain. I will when I deem it necessary disrupt you in your secret places.  I will when essential call you out in print by your name. I will, when needed punish you financially by directing my money and my business referrals away from you. I will participate in the broader and greater struggles to free any and all peoples who might feel the yoke of oppression. 

Finally, I will work to my dying breath to educate my enemies that I did not make a choice to be what and who I am anymore than they made a choice to be what and who they are.  I did however and will continue to make a choice to live an open, honest and affirming life; the life that God has called me and all of his beloved to live.