Separate but Equal 2008
Do gay people scare straight people? Is there some need to say we need gays, we need to give them basic utilities, and simple access, but limit their interaction to the lowest, most tolerable levels?
I don’t know what it’s like to be African-American in the 1950s. I do know that as an Asian-American in Chicago and Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s, I was called “chink”, “jap”, “gook” and “monkeyboy”. And starting in the 1980s, I was also called “fag”.
As a minority in America, I do not want to be treated differently. I want the same opportunities, rights and access as others citizens. I thought that being an American means something to most people in the US. I thought it mean opportunity and freedom from oppression. Why, then, do we not have the decency to treat each other equally? We’re all children of God. So, though we may vary in skills, talents and other born traits, why can’t we let God’s will be and stop standing in judgment.
Such sentiments lead me to lament America’s perceptions of gays. Yes, apparently we can be entertaining. We put on lovely dinners, make pretty outfits, put on memorable weddings and create masterpieces in makeup and hairstyle. And yet, after we finish out efforts, we’re sent to the back of the bus, told to keep quiet, appreciate how good we have it, and good heavens don’t hold hands or kiss in public.
American is better than that. Unfortunately, it takes a long time. It took a century of Irish-bashing, a century of “reconstruction”, a lifetime for the differently abled. It took two centuries for women to not just earn the vote but to get a chance to sit at the top of the table.
Perhaps gays need to be more patient. Accept the bashings. Accept the teen suicides. Wait until America is ready.
But that doesn’t make it right.
