A Day Without Me

For those of you who enjoy this blog and find what I have to say thought-provoking and interesting, consider this idea from the favorite holiday movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”:

What if I had never been born?

Just like in the movie, the relationships and bonds that I have formed with my immediate family…and some critical events in the timeline of all those I’ve known would be greatly altered. My family would likely have been just my three older brothers and my parents. And, probably, my folks would never have become sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community because they wouldn’t have had a lesbian as their youngest child. PFLAG would never have gotten a hold of Peggy and harnessed her energy to do battle with the Republican members of Congress, pushing them to break ranks with their party and “do the right thing” time and time again for gay people.

But beyond just thinking about what the world would have been like without me, think about what the world would be like without any gay person? Who would deliver mail, make bank transactions, take care of our pets at the animal hospitals, report the news, give massages, deliver meals on wheels, teach our children…you see where I’m going with this.

Contemplate this idea as you go through the next 24 hours, and realize that for December 10, 2008, a number of your gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgendered neighbors will be pulling a George Bailly on society and not showing up…not at work or school or at the coffee shops or the malls. It’s called “A Day Without A Gay Day”, a nationwide “sick-in”. Instead of spending or earning money, and contributing to the economy of a country that voted in four separate states to make gay people into second-class citizens, gays and our allies will pretend that we never existed by calling in “sick”. However, on a slight variation of Frank Capra’s hero, we won’t just “not exist”. Many of us are volunteering, wearing our pride T-shirts and donning white ribbons tied in a knot to signify our grief at the loss of marriage rights.

It’s all part of removing the veil that has hidden our community’s real contributions to society for far too long!

I am closing my business for the day, and am collecting up a box of clothing to take to Grace Mission for the homeless and poor who congregate there. May my queer Christianity guide me through the day.