Whispers in the Rainbow Painted Night

Monumental. That is the only word that has been cycling through my mind today following the Supreme Court Ruling legalizing gay marriage throughout the states. Simply monumental. This is so much more than a piece of history, this is the catalyst of the gay rights movement; this is our Women’s Vote in 1920, this is our Brown vs. the Board of Education, this is the close of our Civil War. I cannot even begin to wrap my head around the significance of this vote, this ruling, this declaration of humanity in the US. There is a peace to be found in finally being recognized.

Naturally I had no doubt that SCOTUS would legalize gay marriage, they had the safety net to do it. When they were first invited to hear the mind-bending arguments against the California rulings of Proposition 8, only a handful of states had legalized gay marriage. It was politically and socially unsafe to suddenly be the trailblazers for equal rights, to force so many undetermined states into acknowledging what the majority still viewed as an abomination. No one wanted to be the ones to let gay marriage in. Let’s face it: from 2010 to 2014, doing the right thing was career suicide for the justices. But no one wanted to be the ones to extinguish the possibility of equality forever either, because they knew the change was inevitable. More and more states were moving towards legalization, and many other countries in the west have been passing equality laws for years. Waiting and biding their time, the justices shuffled their feet and turned away petitions to hear any cases on gay marriage until a fair amount of states had already taken it upon themselves to pass the laws, and when those who hadn’t were few and far between, they went for the kill. Silencing those hanging in the balance, the court ruled in favor of the rainbow, and took all the credit for what most states had to do on their own.  But their ruling has eliminated any possibilities for an opposition to file an appeal, to motion for repeal, to put a new law on the ballot or to amend a standing one. It’s all said and done.

But this of course has drawn the little cockroaches from their dark corners to begin their pouting and spouting of hatred, promises of rebellion, ignoring the ruling, even some declarations to divorce their straight partners and preachers who swear they will set themselves on fire (whatever, just call me first so I can grab the marshmallows). Perpetrators of discrimination are still demanding tolerance of their own narrow-minded and bigoted views, and others just stand in noticeably stunned silence over the loss. But as I said to one person earlier this evening, “you had a good run, 3,000 years of hatred; you need to accept that your time has come to an end.”

The suffering that the gay community has endured over the years worldwide has been unimaginable, including social stigmas, gay bashing, the exclusion from gay rights and protective anti-discrimination laws, horribly violent gay cure therapies, and even murders and genocides (it is estimated that anywhere from 10,000-25,000 homosexuals were killed by Hitler’s Third Reich movement). We’ve even been blamed for horrible events such as the Newton shootings, 9/11, global warming, and natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. Me personally, I wouldn’t be that offended by the insinuation, I’d be more inclined to use them as a pick up line: “hey baby, you know that earthquake last night? That was me.” *WINK*

But all jokes aside, growing up gay in the US these past few decades has been hell, as I documented more thoroughly in my previous posts, Though I have no idea how hard it was five or six decades ago, I realized earlier today that today’s generation has no idea what we have gone through, the struggle we faced, the fight we fought so they can have what we never did: security and freedom in who you are from birth to the grave. Many of my gay clients are out in the open: they have boyfriends and girlfriends at school, they’re out to parents and friends, and they’re loved and supported. Some still get bullied, but none of them have any idea who Matthew Shepard is or the torture he went through for being himself in the 90s. It's a different time and a different world, many of us had parents who struggled (and continue to struggle) through their acceptance of us. We never would have dared to be out in high school for fear of getting beaten or killed, and mind you, this was in Southern California in 2002, not Alabama 1980; the way things were such a short time ago are distant shadows for today's youth. This morning, one client haplessly raised his hands and noted “we have equal rights…yay.” Child, this deserves so much more than a slightly enthusiastic yay. This is historic. And we’ve lived to see it.

We’re equal. We can marry. Soon we will have total federal protection with anti-discrimination laws. Soon we will be able to adopt children and provide loving homes to our families all over the US. And with this comes a new revelation: we’re okay. We are normal. We don’t have to cry anymore. We don’t have to die anymore in the face of cruel, heart-rending adversity. We’re human, just like everyone else. And finally, this country thinks so too. The voices of hate have become whispers in the rainbow painted night.