I've been reading a lot of diaries here about how the "black vote" failed the gays by voting Yes on Proposition 8. Some of the diarists have been up in arms about it, and have vowed not to vote for "black interests" again because of it. And this does trouble me.
This particular ballot measure had been as of equal importance to me as getting Obama elected. It's hard for me to articulate why, except that I have always believed in equal rights for all, and that there are several people whom I love dearly who would be (and now are) gravely affected by the passage of Proposition 8. Its passage tells me that perhaps I assume too much about people in California: I assume that most people in this state, like me, know that they have friends and loved ones who are gay, and to whom "gay" or bisexual is not a big deal at all, just another version of love which isn't all that different from any sort of love any of us who are not gay experience, since I guess most of us tend to fall in love with human beings, right?
Well, maybe I might be wrong about assuming that people in California feel the way I do. And what it tells me is that what's needed now is outreach, and connection.
Some diarists here have written, correctly, that gay people are to be found in every cross-section of this country. They are white, black, Latino, Asian, rich, poor, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Jewish, pagan, atheist, Muslim. They live in California, and Arkansas, and Wyoming; they live in the big cities, and in rural areas. They are doctors, lawyers, journalists, cowboys, secretaries, politicians, scientists, construction workers, house painters, on welfare, retired, in the military, or have any job you can name. All the same, I believe that there are many of us who think they don't know anyone who is gay, and so to them gay means "other," means "Those people, not mine." They couldn't be more wrong.
I'm going to use the African-American demographic as an example, simply because this is the theme I started out with, and because this is the theme that others have written about in the last couple of days. But this example can be applied to many other demographics.
It's my understanding that for some of us who are African-Americans, if you are gay you must keep it on the "down-low," almost sort of a "Don't-ask-don't-tell" situation. If this is the case, then I imagine that any black person who is gay or bisexual would never reveal such information to other blacks, and so in a way it might be easy for African Americans in some areas to think that gay is "Other." If this is the case, then you can imagine how hard that must be for a gay African American, and how particularly bitter the passage of Proposition 8 must be to them.
It also means that because of the "down-low" edict that a lot of us who are African American simply don't know that many of our neighbors and friends and yes even relatives are gay. Just like most of us of any stripe may not know that about their own neighbors and friends and relatives. The very foundation of discrimination comes from the idea of "Us versus them," and if we think that we can safely say that there is no one among us who is "That way," then we perhaps won't consider things in light of what their needs might be.
This is where I think outreach is so important. It's important to demonstrate that yes, those of us who are gay folks are your neighbors, your friends, and even your family. And they are just like anyone else: they work, they raise families, they have their good days and their bad days, they suffer the same hurts and triumphs that we all do. That they are really no different from anyone else, except for the fact that they love people who share the same gender as they.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, for me, gay is normal, something which, I realize now, I take for granted. And perhaps what needs to be done is to demonstrate to those who think gay is "Other" that it's not really other. I don't know exactly how this can be done, but it must begin at the grass-roots. I wonder if it's possible to begin an advertising campaign of some sort introducing to the public at large what most gay households are like, which is really no different from any non-gay household. To demonstrate how many of us in this country are gay, how many different kinds of people are gay, people that we are friends with, people we even love, but we don't know that they're gay because they might have a host of good reasons not to tell us.
I do not want this whole Proposition 8 situation to become something that is gay vs African American. This would be a tragedy if so, because all of us who have voted for Obama have so much more in common, have so much that is at stake, together. It was together that we won this election, and it is together we must stand. And so I say those of us who are African American or gay or bisexual or straight or transgender or white or Latino or Asian or Muslim or Christian or atheist or conservative or liberal, "They" are Us.
But something needs to be done, and now. I don't believe in waiting. As I commented on someone else's diary, if the suffragists had waited, then maybe I STILL wouldn't have had the opportunity to vote in this election. If Martin Luther King had waited, then maybe Obama wouldn't have been even allowed to run for dog-catcher, much less the President of the United States. If Gandhi had waited, then maybe India would still be under the rule of the British. We must begin now to ensure that gays have full and equal protection under the law. All of us must ensure this. You don't have to like gay people. You don't even have to like African Americans, or like anybody. But we must believe that ALL of us have equal rights under the law no matter our own personal prejudices, otherwise our Constitution isn't worth anything. We are so much better than that. Didn't we demonstrate that, with this election? Look what we can do. Look at what we did. We proved it. Now we must go forward, and ensure that equal rights means for everybody.
Please forgive me if this diary seems ignorant or uninformed. I'm just offering a perspective on things based on the knowledge that I have, and so if I'm missing something or am wrong about some assumptions, I welcome any constructive criticism on the matter.
Thanks for reading.