I should not be writing this diary right now, and I may rightly be flamed for it.
I am going to write it anyway and let you flame me if you want.
But let's get one thing straight here, once and for all:
The fact that gays have a closet is not a positive, and it is not something I need to be thankful for. It is quite the fucking opposite.
I've been fighting against the whole meme of who has had what worse, and I don't believe we should be be granting rights to each other based on who has suffered more and for a longer period of time.
No one who plays that game wins.
But when you bring the fact that gays "get" to live in the closet and therefore have it better than all other minorities, I have to ask:
Have you stood in a fucking closet?
Have you lived in that darkness? Have you felt that cold air of isolation? Have you been in that suffocating room, alone, afraid, desperate, and knowing that it is safer for you in there, wrapped in utter desolation, than it is outside?
And this is a positive in your eyes?
Doesn't the fact that such a closet is necessary for so many of us strike a chord with you? Doesn't it make you stop to wonder what is so terrible that would make one choose to live in the dark and alone over what the alternative is?
Would you seriously subject yourself to a life like that and think you were better off for it? Do you really think it is a luxury and something we should be thankful for?
You think we stay in the closet because it's a nice, cozy, and comfortable place? Have you wondered why we might not dare to step out of it?
How in FSM's name can you justify living like that as luxury and something we should be thankful for?
THe closet is not there for comfort.
It is there because if we step outside, our family disowns us.
Or we get fired from our job.
Or we get beaten up on the street.
Or we are told that we are not worthy of equal rights.
We are told that we choose to live "alternatively" and therefore deserve what we have coming to us.
We are shunned, maligned, degraded, and belittled.
We are compared to pedophiles and rapists.
We are spit upon.
We are physically threatened.
We are compared to animal fuckers.
And you think we are somehow just a bunch of whiners because we are lucky enough to escape all of that and go live in a small, dark, lonely room where no one can hurt us.
And where no one can wrap their arms around us. No one can see our pain. No one can know the fear we feel and no one can sit and hold our hands and walk beside as we walk along this terrible, scary, lonely path.
And you think this is a luxury?
We're not in the closet because we are lucky.
We're there because we have no other safe place to be.
And you think this is a positive?