This is my first diary but I don't think I could have picked a better topic to right about. I am a gay 19 year old in Florida. As i celebrated the achievement of having helped elect a progressive African-American to office, finally hoping for some change, I was awe-struck when I saw ban after ban on rights of the LGBT comunnity. Florida, my home state, passed Amendment 2 with 62%. Arkansas, my birthplace, banning gay adoptions with 57%. Arizona banning gay marriage was next. Then seeing Prop 8 in California seemingly pass was devastating. Watching us finally accomplish equal marriage had brought so much hope, but to watch it being taken away was disheartening to say the least.
Now who is to blame? Fundamentalist Mormons and the Church of LDS of course. But many in my community have been outraged at the black community for their 70% vote for yes on Prop 8. I feel their frustration. I think it's absolutely absurd and hypocritical that many minorities and previously (and still) disenfranchised groups would vote to further disenfranchise another minority. We should be working together to try to achieve equal rights for all us. And yes I am angry at the black community as well as the other minority communities for their overwhelming passage of Prop 8.
But you cannot squarely place the blame on an entire group for people for this. It's unfair. Just think about Larry Craig and Mark Foley. What if people judged the LGBT community after people like them? We cannot judge the entire black community for some of the homophobes and bigots they have. What we need to do is try to educate and inform and invest in trying to help other minority voters that we are facing a civil rights oppression as they have/are. We need outreach programs to try to attain support from other minority groups. We need their help in this struggle just as much as anyone. So instead of pointing fingers, let's do something about it in a mature fashion. Anger will get things done if we know how to use it right.
First we need to stop pointing fingers at the AA community and try to gain their support. Outreach programs, knocking on doors and talking with normal folks, robocalls, pamphlets, anything we can do to try to show them that we are people too, and we are in an equal rights struggle as they have been. We need to identify with them. That should be a priority.
Second we need to deal with the root of the problem: the people who are funding and pushing the anti-gay agenda. LDS Church needs to be boycotted, period. I know plenty of Mormons my age who are tolerant, but the leadership of LDS church needs to be punished and hard. Boycott Mormon funded projects/companies, hold protest rallies outside their temples (as they are doing in Los Angeles), make it known to the media WHO funds this hateful kind of agenda, so they can report it and let it be known to all who is helping to prevent equal rights.
Third we need to talk to all of our friends and families. We need to show them our passion about this issue. We have been dispassionate and sitting on the sidelines watching for far too long. Only a small percent of us actually have gone out of our way to help the equal rights effort of our community. We need to get our families and friends talking about this to their friends, etc. Show them our passion. My mom and dad and much of my family and friends either didn't care about gay rights or outright opposed it (especially family.) I got my friends on board fairly quickly by speaking out, our generation is much more open-minded. After the initial shock of my mom and dad finding out I was gay, they became comfortable with it and now they see the truth. They see me as a person who is gay and their son and they have realized it doesn't change who I am and more importantly it doesn't change what my standing is in the world. If I'm gay, I should still be able to get married like anyone else or adopt like anyone else. I got my mother, who had been previously opposed to gay marriage,etc. to vote no on Amendment 2 in Florida. That meant a lot to me. I called my dad in Arkansas to make sure he was voting no on Initiative 1, and he said he didn't plan on voting, but he would go to the polls for me. This is the kind of conversations we need to have with everyone in our family and all of friends.
Finally we need to get the rest of the LGBT community energized about this. We need to stand up and be loud and clear we won't take this kind of discrimination sitting down. There are so many organizations across the 50 states that have meetings and rallies for LGBT issues. Attend them. Try to make a difference. Help your community with ideas for how to help tolerance in America.
This is what we should do with our anger. Pointing fingers at other minorities won't get us anywhere, it will create more division. Trust me I'm angry and upset at other minorities. And with this anger I'm going to embrace them like I never have before to try to change their minds. That's the only way to do this.