When I was growing up, I was illegal in 37 states. Not anything I did. No. Me. My existence was illegal in 37 states.
It’s not like that anymore. Thanks to Anthony Kennedy, we can exist in the public sphere with largely the same civil rights as other people.
That is what is under attack across the country. Not our existence: our right to be ourselves in public, with largely the same civil rights as everyone else.
There’s a rather inflammatory post up now saying that it is illegal to be gay in this town or that county.
It is not.
There is a fine distinction.
We can love whom we love, so long as it is in the quiet of our own homes, and so long as we don’t ever mention it to anybody. Like, you know, our parents. Or, talk about it at work, or in school, or anywhere else where people expect to be able to be themselves and talk about things that are important to you.
And, yeah, you lose certain civil rights. But who needs those things anyway? Like, in town after town, and county after county, and state after state, you can’t hold hands across a flickering candle at a romantic restaurant; you can’t kiss your sweetheart on the beach; and it might be safer to keep loving gazes off of public transportation, and out of movie theaters.
But, sure, yeah, you can be homosexual all day long.
So long as you are invisible. Closeted. Silenced.
The day has not yet come where you can be arrested, prosecuted, or killed for actually existing while gay. There are a ton of countries that have that. The United States isn’t there. Yet.
www.humandignitytrust.org/…
What the various anti-lgbtqia legislation does is illegalize letting other people see gays in any kind of a positive light. Letting us exist in public places as ourselves.
Then, once we are invisible, and all of the “whats” of the gay experience are defined by the anti-lgbt bigots without being able to stand up and speak our truth, THEN, then, they will come and get us.
First, they need to roll back Lawrence v Texas. Once they do that, Obergefell and Windsor will fall, and 303 Creative will hold sway.
Until then, it won’t be illegal to be queer. Just ever-increasingly dangerous.