Tears from Obama

 The following post comes from Northaven members Bill Stoner and Jim Lovell, and was written after yesterday's inauguration.

Tears from Obama

STONEWALL!!!

         It was not so long ago that I had to keep the name “Stonewall” secret, lest family or friends question why it interested me. But Monday, there it was for the whole world to hear, brought into our full society and elevated to legitimacy by an American president.

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths -- that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall..."
-- Barack Obama 

         “…Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall…” With that phrase Obama touched so many millions of lives with hope and pride, so many young kids struggling with who they are because our society and our religious leaders make them suffer—in the name of Christianity.
         Jim and I were literally shocked to hear Obama say it. Truly shocked. It came out of the blue and grabbed us to tears. Here was a president, a president, equating a battle launched by drag queens fighting cops to such lofty milestones as the fights for the rights of women and blacks.
         Seneca Falls, N.Y.: 1848, about 300 people, mostly women, but also for the first time and very notably some men, held a convention aimed at furthering women’s right to vote. It launched the national campaign for the long struggle for equality that, sadly and amazingly, is still being fought in Congress—165 years later.
         Selma, Alabama: 1965, about 500 blacks marching peacefully in support of voting rights were savagely attacked by police when they refused to disperse, using tear gas and clubs. It became known as Bloody Sunday. Two days later, Martin Luther King came to Selma and led another march, but the national attention and condemnation of Bloody Sunday led police to allow King’s march. But Selma became the energy that fueled a struggle as old as the Emancipation Proclamation, but one that brought us a black president. Twice.
         (Did you all notice Speaker Boehner’s weird tan made him darker than Obama?)
         Stonewall Bar, New York City: It was 1969, an era when many cities routinely raided bars catering to gays. When laws prohibited the gathering of more than 2-3 men. When you absolutely knew you’d be fired if your employer knew—or even suspected—you were queer. I was 25, knew I was gay, and lived two lives.
         You lived in fear of being discovered for being who you had no control of being. So you hid, and lied, and lied a lot. I hated the lying more than being gay scared me. You moved to another city, bigger, easier to hide in. And lied some more to those back home.
         You lived without love because the law was always watching, hating. You listened to sermons, read articles, learned of new laws condemning you, sentencing you to hell, calling you the scourge of mankind.
         I listened to then President George W. Bush make a special nationally televised announcement from the White House about 3 years into his first term. He was calling for an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting same sex marriage. I’ve never forgotten his words:
         “Failure to do so will mean the end of our society as we know it.”
         Stonewall was, according to its neighbors, a quiet bar that posed no problems. It somehow became a magnet for drag queens and everybody got along. But then it was okay for cops or anybody to hate fags, especially sissies in dresses. So they frequently raided the Stonewall, sometimes arresting sober people for being drunk. Sometimes just shoving them around. Until that summer night, as the paddy wagon began loading up customers, and the drag queens had had enough and began fighting the cops.
         Of course, the gays lost, a mess of them went to jail, but the next night drew a small crowd at the Stonewall, and the cops came again, and the next night a larger crowd, and the “Stonewall riots” lasted a whole week, becoming the rallying cry for half a century.

“It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."
-- Barack Obama


         Since you are reading this, you at least in some measure willingly associate with two gay men. How far you assimilate or accept us is as varied as you are.
         Jim and I married Aug. 10, 2011, in Des Moines, not because we felt a need to cement our relationship, or prove a point to anyone. We mainly married to honor all those “pioneers” who fought for our right to marry, who fought the cops outside a drag bar, who lost jobs and families, who were beaten just for being gay, who were tied to a fence to die, who rallied around and cared for AIDS sufferers when no one else did or would.
         We didn’t exchange rings in our ceremony. Instead, we felt that our relationship, now nearly 18 years of it, made rings  of understanding and knowledge of gay people to ripple out to family and friends, like the multiple circles when a stone is dropped in water.
         We don’t know where Obama’s bold, brave, and historical ideas on gay’s rights are going. As we’ve learned as a country, you can pass all the laws you want. Changing minds is a whole different obstacle.
         But because of those Stonewall drag queens, ever since, very, very slowly at first, but now picking up greater speed, the nation is learning just how boringly normal gays are. And it is working exponentially: as more gays successfully come out in all walks of life, younger ones entering the battle have support for coming out, and they inspire others, and so on.
         But the battles are still raging: churches and politicians all across the country are working very hard to deny gays just about anything they can: benefits, employment, marriage, adopting. And as they rally the troops against us, it continues the mindset that gay bashing (as in clubs, pipes) is alive and well.
         If women are still having to fight for equal pay, equal promotions, and their right to not be subject to our government raping them with a sonogram probe—we have no delusions that the fight for gay’s rights will be anything but a long, long road.
         But, hallelujah, dear Lord, Barack Hussein Obama, gave us one helluva big boost.  Amen!

From Tourves,
Bill and Jim