California - SHAME.
I grew up and lived most of my life in California. I'm 49 years old and in this short lifetime I've seen my community hounded, demeaned, and allowed to die.
A bit of history for those who don't understand our reaction today.
I came of age with Anita Bryant screaming that I was perverted, mentally ill, a threat to recruit and molest children and unfit for a decent society. A nice message to send to a 17 year old still struggling to understand sexuality. The money she raised caught the attention of the fundamentalist churches and our community quickly became the ATM for pastors to raise huge sums of money and live the high life - while they tried to destroy ours. It's no wonder the suicide rate is so high amongst gay teens. The messages sent to them are so incredibly destructive.
I saw Harvey Milk elected and murdered. I saw his murderer given a pass and the West Coast version of Stonewall that followed - finally, we'd had enough. Or we thought we did. We were on the cusp of the AIDS crisis.
I remember San Francisco in the years when our brothers were dying and the Reagan administration remained silent and refused funding for even basic research. We all have stories from those days but today I need to tell two. I need to tell these stories because today I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.
I worked for an international airline. In 1995 I went to visit a long-time employee in Los Angeles who was in the last stages of AIDS. When I walked into his home, the first thing I noticed were the model planes from our airline everywhere, old travel posters, etc. He loved our airline and his home showed it. After I left he called his mom and was really proud that someone senior in our company came to see him. He died about a month later. Shortly thereafter, I attended a regional meeting and the Vice President who started the session off began with a 'joke' about a cap that he'd seen that week that read, "AIDS. Kills Fags Dead" Everyone laughed and I thought of my employee and his model airplanes and wanted to vomit. I'll never forget that day because our deaths are a cause for laughter to so many.
I remember sitting at the hospital bedside of a friend in San Francisco. He wanted to talk about God that afternoon because so many so-called "religious" leaders were saying this was God's revenge. I simply answered that God would never bring such suffering to one of his children. He died the next day, with the canards of the hatred of the religious right in his head. Goddamn them. Goddamn their hatred.
And the mass dying continued for almost two decades.
I've had friends in the military who lived in terror of the purges of the Reagan years. Years later our brothers and sisters are still purged. I'll repeat - the biggest employer in the United States requires us to lie, to hide, to deceive in order to keep our jobs. "Good order and discipline' is codespeak for 'sexual predator', as though we want everything that walks. Please. Rather than being viewed as people we're viewed simply as sexual beings who can't control our impulses. How many straight people would accept this stereotyping? Why are we supposed to?
And now, when we get a shred of dignity, of our basic human rights, the people of California decide that they can casually cast a VOTE on our marriages. I can't imagine anything more demeaning. I can't imagine anything more injust than allowing mob rule on a right so fundamental. We're separate and NOT equal. How can this be? Are we supposed to light candles in the Castro tonight and sing songs and look sad, or are we supposed to be PISSED? Honestly, I don't know how we're supposed to react after a snootful of crap that like this that never seems to end. I've seen enough of it to last ten lifetimes.
In the 30+ years I've been adult, I've seen our community treated like children who are subject to the whims of abusive parents. And the silence that's sure to come from the White House today will only aggravate me further. Change, for us, is same shit, different President.
So, let us vent. Let us express our rage in endless diaries today. This isn't one issue, it's part of a long history of being targeted, slandered and harassed. It's part of our experience of being half-citizens, taxed fully but being denied a full menu of civil rights. And please, finally - help us achieve true equality. This country belongs to ALL of us.
UPDATE: I'd like to thank the Kos community for your support. We WILL overcome.