May 18, 2009.
Wayne Besen’s column “A Fractious Movement” in May 13th Windy City Times concerns an issue that our community/movement should be talking about.
It is only one of the issues that can affect how successful we are and will be in gaining our equal/civil rights and helping everyone understand our concerns, which many of us don’t even understand much less non-homosexuals.
Besen says that some of us are thinking we need a charismatic person to come lead us, something I assume like the black civil rights movement had Dr. King. That seems strange considering how successful our cause has been since 1950 without such a person. He is right when he says that in fact it is the diversity of people and ideas and efforts that has made us strong and more difficult to stop. An example he gives is that while most of us have problems with how religion has harmed us, some of us are working within the various religions to change them.
It was not easy when there was only “ONE” organization and publication speaking for us, even though ONE, Incorporated, always gave equal opportunity to all groups and views. But it is good today to have so many millions of us working for the cause that each of us can choose the particular part of the cause we want to work on, legal (such as Lambda Legal, GLADD, NCLR, etc.), religious (such as SDA Kinship, Dignity, Affirmation, and of course MCC), our heritage (ONE Institute, Gerber/Hart, Lavender Library, Homosexual Information Center, etc), political (such as Stonewall, Log Cabin, etc.), social service (such as the several good LGBT centers in major cities, youth concerns (such as GLSEN), the military (such as SLDN), and even bloggers who alert us to what our enemies are doing, and sites such as Daily Queer News, etc.
So anyone who wants to step forward and try to speak for us, fine, but I personally don’t want the President (Obama or whomever) to choose one person to decide what millions of homosexuals want or think.
For instance, while it seems most of us are pro-choice, we have pro life people such as PLAGAL. We are strong only when we allow diversity that we ask of others. While I don’t seek marriage, I certainly do nothing to discourage those who do.
And a final thought: It is very interesting, for those who read and trust polls, that while more and more people are now in favor of same-sex marriage, more people now are against abortion. How do those in favor of civil rights explain this?
