It has taken a month for me to write this post. I struggled with shame and outrage that made me want to run from the blank computer screen. But this morning it occurred to me that this article isn’t about me. It’s about the LGBTQ community:
Turner Classic Movies played the documentary, The Word is Out, last month in honor of Pride Month. It was actually released in 1978 and it is a mosaic of interviews of twenty-six remarkable people of the LGBTQ community.
This was the 1970s. It had taken a long time for some of them to find their voices. They spoke of struggles to hide themselves. Some forced themselves to live a straight lifestyle but ultimately failed. They feared losing their families, jobs, homes, and even risking their physical safety. Some had been speaking up for their friends and family members who had been LGBTQ for some time while others were coming out for the first time in this documentary.
They were remarkable people! My wife said to me that it would be wonderful simply to sit and have a conversation with each of them, and I agreed. I’m sorry that many have died since the film was released, but they can still be known because their stories are in film and print.
Here are a few of the people who were interviewed:
David Gerrold, an author of science fiction in novels and television. He wrote the Star Trek episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles.”
Pat Bond, an actress on stage, television, and movies. In the documentary, she spoke of her time coping as a lesbian in the military.
John Burnside, a gay rights activist and a noted inventor.
Sally Miller Gearhart, an activist, author, and the “first open lesbian in America to be hired as a tenure track professor” (San Francisco State).
Elsa Gidlow was a powerful author, publishing books of poetry and an autobiography. As early as 1917, she was writing about gay and lesbian issues. She was 77 years old at the time of the documentary.
Seeing these people helped me understand why there is a Gay Pride Month, with parades and audacious displays of speech, art, and costumes. The rest of the world MUST see what tremendous contributions are being made by this community.
Yet much of the world is still trying to silence them. Many religious communities call them sinners and advocate for having them put to death. We have an evangelical church in Central Florida that has been quite vocal about calling for their executions. Churches with whom I once associated didn’t agree with these extremist congregations, but we remained silent, allowing them to “breathe their threats of murder” because we, too, considered the LGBTQ lifestyle to be sinful.
Our current President is trying to take back the progress made by the last administration for LGBTQ equality. His administration is chipping away at their healthcare rights and has been trying to take away their protections in the workplace. Recently it has been working to repeal protection for homeless transgender people.
There may be as many as nine million LGBTQ people in the United States. These nine million people have loved ones: friends, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and children. I’m one of them. There are people in the LGBTQ community that I love with a ferocious passion. Religion and government should be aware that I and millions of others will not sit back and let our loved ones be diminished. We are not ashamed of them. We’re PROUD of them.
Perhaps they don’t need us to speak for them but maybe they’ll let us speak WITH them.
************
David Mercer is a Humanist Celebrant and calls himself a secular pastor. You can find out more about him at: www.cflfreethought.org/david-mercer