Okay, I want you all to listen to the song Circle of Life by Sir Elton John. It is a very moving song to me. The two lines, "theres more to be seen that can ever be seen, and more to do, that can ever be done" mean alot to me. It gets me thinking, and those lines are for us, gay people of the world. We have so much to do, and when I see us just sitting there and not getting out and working our asses off to get things done, then it burns my heart. So I ask each and everyone of you to do all that you can to make others understand us, so please, do what you can, and get us liberated to our freedom. And one day the sun will shine down on us and we will be smiling with joy and holding our loved one. Wedding vows and all, we will prevail. Until then, we have to go with the circle of life.
Priorities. Sure we are missing things, but as far as i know we have 2 problems: not having gay marriage, and individual people not accepting gays. The first is an issue that has become popular, but probably will stick around until gay marriage is legalized. The 2nd issue isnt one that anyone can easily fix. It's engrained into the culture of many people. You cant just change the culture of people, it has to be done over time. Probably the best way would be to teach kids in middle school (6-8 grade or so) about how they must accept others no matter what orientation, race, etc they are. In the Gay Straight Alliance at my school, we are trying to have an assembly done on homosexuality. thats about the most straightforward way you can change peoples ideas: by exposing them to what they dont accept. So if you aren't out yet, don't worry about it, but make sure that you can stand up to any degredation dealt out by others and show them that they aught to be more accepting. btw, you are a fairly good persuasive writer, you might want to go into public speaking. Just be careful about how you use songs and other quotes, because people can easily believe that the words were written for a different purpose and have no relation to the matter at hand. It might also help if you can be more passive, and leading others to your point of view, rather than rallying them in the name of your point of view.
Actually, some schools do it as early as primary school: there's a great, great film called It's Elementary that I highly recommend everyone watch. It covers various schools' efforts to teach diversity to young children in an age-appropriate manner.
Sorry, i must have missed something. Not having gay marriage is a problem, but the issue will stick around until it becomes legalized. There's no way anyone'd be able to stop it from becoming legalized in the near future.
Honestly, I think the best thing we gay people can do is come out, live full and happy lives, become obscenely successful, and rub it in everyone else's faces (not in a mean way of course, but in the "look at us, we were able to overcome challenges that were set up by hundreds of years of homophobia!"). The more people who come out, the more people who know a gay person. So be the best person you can be, because you're representing all of us. Lastly, and this is really important I think, shoot down comments that are hurtful and belittling. People, especially people in highschool and college, use words like "fag" "homo" "queer" and "gay" to put down someone elses masculinity, and in some abstract way draw a line between the word and themselves. Shoot these people down. Even if you're not out, you can just simply say, "That's not cool" and make up a gay cousin or something. Just my thoughts on political activism and whatnot.
I agree with you Jon... and I invented a 'gay best friend'... XD Although, I usually take those terms and make them my own. I live in paraguay, and people here speak mostly spanish, so it's a little bit different... I think I already said this somewhere... The most commonly used word with a hurtful meaning like fag or queer is 'puto'. And when someone I'm out to uses that word with me (they don't mean it in any hurtful way, though) I just say YES I AM, AND I LIKE IT!. When some else uses that word in that sense, and I'm not ready to out myself to him (or them, if it's a group). I simply make up my 'gay best friend' and that takes care of it... Although my friends have other gay friends (that they won't introduce me, no matter how hard I try!!) and thus they don't use that word in that sense. It's true, we call each other puto all the time, but it's like saying: hey you!...
And if YOU'RE cool--especially in the way you do that, you'll be amazed at how it turns even the most hardened homophobic str8 guy to jelly--especially if you do it in front of his girlfriend! Good advice Jon.
I didn't have to invent a 'gay best friend' because I already had a German penpal who really was gay, and I used him. But, I rarely stopped people from using 'fag' and 'that is so gay!' (as a negative thing). However, I used this gay penpal to talk to my one friend to see their reaction. They seemed okay and... strangely interested (inquiring his boyfriend's name and stuff... which I actually could answer too...). However, I just never mention that I came out to him first and it was he who immediately afterwards said he was gay too. Honestly, I think the best thing we gay people can do is ALL MOVE TO CANADA (where we have gay marriage!).
