From Stonewall to DOMA

The first time I marched in a Gay Pride parade I was a baby, all of about 19 years old.  I felt strong, brave, and my pride was bursting as I walked the parade route, winding down Denver’s East Colfax holding a rainbow flag that streamed from a pole bigger than I was.  I shouted and chanted alongside my GLBT brothers and sisters.  “We’re here! We’re QUEER!  GET USED TO IT!”  The crowd was large and the sweltering sun beat down on us.

The year was 1991 and our local gay community defeated a Denver ballot initiative to exclude gays and lesbians from city anti-discrimination ordinances.  However, our success was shoved to the wayside with the passage of Amendment 2 the following election year, making it legal in the state of Colorado to discriminate against homosexuals.

 

It felt like worms in the pit of my stomach.  My young mind couldn't understand how people could be so mean to people they don’t even know.  I've carried this disappointment for the last twenty-one years.  It doesn't hurt any less that I’m older.  I've just gotten used to it.

 

Conservatives have run their campaigns based on defeating the “gay agenda”.   The gay agenda.  Ha.  I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.  The so called “gay agenda” is this:  Equality and the pursuit of happiness.  Isn't that what our constitution guarantees?

 

My wife and I pay our taxes every year.   But because of the Defense of Marriage Act, we don’t get the same benefits that a heterosexual couple would receive.  We don’t get to file our taxes jointly; our health insurance isn't charged the way a straight couple is charged.  That isn't even the half of it.  Same-sex military couples can now legally fight and die for our country but can’t even collect survivor benefits.  Where is the support for our troops that conservatives claim to love?  Where is the love in any of this?

I am proud to call the GLBT community my family.  We have come a long, long way since that night at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, where those brave men, women, and drag queens said, NO MORE.  They linked arms singing and formed a kick line in the street, and for this they were met with police batons that were cracked against their skulls.  Think about that for a moment.  They were beaten bloody for standing up for themselves and their own human dignity.

We will continue to fight for equality.

On this, the eve of the Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of DOMA and Proposition 8, I have the same awful worms in the pit of my stomach.  I still want to believe that justice prevails in our great country, but honestly, I've just gotten used to the disappointment.