National Coming Out Day: Why it's important

Today is National Coming Out Day.  There really aren't any festivities or anything and there isn't a lot of recognition of the holiday (I doubt anyone takes the day off).  However, the day is important to me and I'm sure many other gays and lesbians as well.  And what better way to observe the holiday than to submit a Daily Kos diary entry.  In light of all the Foley scandal and all these top Republicans being outed as gay men, I think it's important that we observe National Coming Out Day and those of us who are out remind ourselves of why we decided to come out.  It's also important to encourage others to come out and provide support to those struggling with their sexual orientation or decision of whether to stay in.  Although I've used the occassion to launch nasty tirades against gay Republicans, I almost feel sorry for them.  They spend their lives living in the closet and with this whole Foley scandal, they're slowly being outed.  They are being forced out of the closet rather than choosing for themselves.  

To come out of the closet is one of the hardest things a person can do.  It doesn't matter what your background is, your political ideology, how many friends you have, where you were raised, it's an extremely difficult and personal decision.  Now, I decided to come out of the closet in December of 2002, a senior in high school.  I had finally realized and recognized that I was gay in the 10th grade.  But even after realizing, I decided to keep myself closeted for almost two years.  Now I was raised in a privileged background, I have very liberal parents (my dad likes Nancy Pelosi because he thinks she's a "centrist"), and I grew up in one of the most liberal parts of the country (my congressional district, then CA-29 was one of two districts in Southern California to vote No on Prop 22 and voted it down by margins almost as great as San Francisco's).  That said, it was not easy for me to come out.  I knew that once I made the decision to do so that my life would change and that a lot of things I had taken for granted could change.  Many gays and lesbians face this prospect when they decide to come out.  They can lose their jobs, lose their friends, be scorned by their communities, and be rejected by their families.  Now Jake Shears may have come out to his mother by taking her to a gay club.  I decided to come out to my mother in her car and then a few days later I came out to my dad in a resort jacuzzi.  I think by being casual, I helped alleviate some of my fears, made it kind of comical in a way.  I was very lucky in the fact that I was accepted by my friends, my sibblings, and my parents (although they didn't quite beleive me at first).  Although I now officially belong to a hated and discriminated against minority, railed at by President Bush, the Republicans in Congress, and fundamentalist Christians, my life did not change for the worse.  I actually felt liberated.  And that is what coming out really is.  When gays and lesbians choose to come out of the closet, they are acknowledging who they are.  Most are not as lucky as I was.  They do face rejection from their families, loss of employment, loss of friendships, and community scorn.  It's incredibly unfair in this way.  Either you choose to pretend to be someone who you're not or you lose much of what you considered important to you in life.  

When I was in high school, I had a teacher who was a lesbian and in a way she was a hero to me.  She was this wonderful lady, a smart, successful, and proud lesbian.  Life was not always so good to her.  Born and raised in the Soviet Union, where she was a perfect little communist youth (she was an AK-47 shooting champion in high school) but she once admitted that she attempted suicide when she was 16.  She explained to me that she didn't recognize she was a lesbian at the time but simply knew that she was different and felt terrible.  Of course while she was very proud of her Russian heritage, living in the United States clearly benefited her.  In the U.S. she could be out and proud and help students who were struggling with their sexualities.  Gays and Lesbians have been fighting for equality long before I was even born.  I once met this old leading gay activist who was protesting for gay rights in the 1960's pre Stonewall.  

Now today we deal with the Mark Foley scandal.  Now lots of Republicans are angry because he had sexual relations with young men.  That's not wrong.  What was wrong was that he slept with minors, used a position of power to lure vulnerable youth, and sexually stalked and harassed these poor pages over the internet.  And what is worse that the Republican leadership covered up for him.  With Foley coming out of the closet for convenience's sake, there is this huge revelation that there are gay Republicans working in the upper eschelons of the GOP.  Now, I can sit here and once again castigate them and attack them for basically selling out homosexuals.  But that would be pointless.  The base of the GOP is out there trying to attack and get rid of their in house homosexuals anyway.  And I don't fault a gay for being conservative (though I do fault gays for supporting Bush and the GOP), after all I hate stereotyping and quite honestly, I knew I was a liberal long before I knew I was gay.  I do judge them for supporting the GOP, an organization that seeks to strip us gays of our god given rights.  They believe in staying in the closet, staying hidden from view.  I think that those of us who are not Republicans feel otherwise.  

In this time it's important to observe National Coming Out Day, regardless of whether you're gay or straight.  It's important that we use this day to recognize the brave men and women who have been willing to risk themselves just to be who they honestly are.  On Kos, it's important that heterosexual Kossacks reaffirm their support for gay rights and gay people and it's important that gay Kossacks reaffirm who we are.