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A Welcomed Palimpsest

The past year has taught me a lot about dealing with indescribable stress and frustration.

But in many ways, I’m grateful for it.

I’m not going to lie and write that I didn’t think that ye olde SCOTUS wouldn’t follow yesterday’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act with more driveling, archaic, nonsensical rulings today. I hoped I’d be able to strike through all of this. But that’s not the way things will go. Because today isn’t about the rulings or the SCOTUS or the White House or Congress.

Today is about the people you see every single day, and what they’re feeling. It’s about empathizing and cutting people a break, about letting them mourn in their own way, so that they can process everything that’s happened. Plenty of conservative pundits will say that liberals are bleeding out their little hearts. But this was a slight of epic proportions; one that’ll take some time to overcome. Because there’s a lot to bemoan, and not just the gutting of a crucial piece of civil rights legislation and the continued relegation of LGBT citizens to second-class status.

What’s most disturbing to me about all of this is that such critical issues were left up to nine people to decide. Not nine justices; nine people as fallible and biased as you and I, each of whom is charged with determining the course of American political history. And yet, some of them wield the power of their position to make a point–to cross the “T” and dot the “I” on their legacy, rather than the legacy of our country.

Thirteen other countries have recognized the importance of acknowledging each of their citizens, and extending to them the rights and privileges we in the US desire: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Sweden. And, quite courageously, same-sex marriage is recognized by twelve states in the US–Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington–the District of Columbia, and five Native American tribes: Coquille Tribe of Oregon, the Suquamish tribe of Washington, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians of Michigan, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians of Michigan, and the Santa Ysabel Tribe of California. Do I believe it is only a matter of time before same-sex marriage and LGBT rights issues are no longer viewed in such a…

We win!We win. America wins.

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Right Side Up, Upside Down

We’re all in Monday mode. Some of us just need coffee to snap out of it. Or something stronger. Really, though, most just need a wake up call.

And I got mine this morning, when I read this article about the anniversary of a horrific event I had no knowledge of.

Forty years ago today, the UpStairs Lounge fire in New Orleans claimed the lives of 32 people who gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Thirty-two people.

Each of whom died brutally and, in death, was a punchline of bigoted disc jokey jokes. Out of hatred and embarrassment, some of their bodies were never claimed. Their lives were relegated to historical obscurity, their charred bodies to a potter’s field.

***

The murder of a single person is horrific, yet there’s the promise of justice, of some promise for balance–that the guilty party will be made to answer for their crime. But the “otherness” of those who perished in the UpStairs Lounge didn’t justify a thorough investigation. Their lives, their stories, their families, their friends, their contributions meant nothing to the law enforcement personnel who waded through the wreckage, who left the body of Rev. Bill Larson fused to iron window bars overnight.

Very little separates people who view those different from themselves in such a casual, dismissive way from people in swastika-adorned uniforms surveying a barbed wire enclosed camp. In the same disturbing ways, they justify their behavior. Because there has to be a scapegoat, right? And it can’t be us. So it has to be them.

But the alarming point is that many people choose to think this way–whether it’s some perverse malignancy of thought or contorted survival mechanism, they embrace it. They don’t ever think that the microscope can ever be turned on them–that they will one day find themselves the target, not the eye through the scope. Regardless of upbringing and education, nationality or creed, there’s always a tipping-point at which a person has to take a deep, hard look in the mirror and either register their reflection as that monster lurking within their consciousness, or an empathetic advocate.

And if you’re brave enough to become an advocate, to speak your mind, to defend those who ask for help, then you’re stronger than any adversary. Because strength isn’t measured by how many Molotov cocktails one can throw from afar, but by how many people you can help, to whom you can lend a hand.

By the number of people you can educate.

Because what can be said of us when we can go about our days unfazed by such horrific images? How can we buy clothes from retailers whose problematic, unethical employment practices force Bangladeshi garment factory workers to choose between their safety and their paychecks? Why has our moral compass become so terribly confused by cheap polyester and the “more is better” mentality?

Where has our goodness gone?

Goodness resides in education. It’s there, waiting to be unlocked and shared.

And has been, and will continue to be.

By Inez Warren, the mother of Eddie and Jim Warren–two gay brothers–who died in the blaze with her sons.

By pastors of the Metropolitan Community Church, one of whom died trying to rescue his partner, their bodies found clinging to one another.

By Rev. William Richardson, who held a prayer service for the dead and received a formal rebuke from the Episcopalian bishop and a flood of hate mail.

By my parents, whose strides to build and support an LGBT ministry with other advocates in the heart of the Deep South are awe-inspiring.

By my sister, who has always been my fiercest advocate.

By my friends and chosen family at the LGBT Center of Raleigh and across the country.

***

So as manifold reforms hinge upon the Supreme Court’s decisions this week, I cannot help but cast a retrospective glance, acknowledging the inherent strength and power that we possess to effect change.

Regardless of the outcome, let’s not couch our efforts in whether we “win” or “lose.” Because the world is a topsy-turvy place.

And, right side up or upside down, we’ll always have to clear a hurdle or two.

But it’s always easier when you have a team cheering for you.

A team you can count on.