The Big Voice of a Child

While I was still a public radio reporter, I had a dream in which I was at a retreat of some kind and there were Republican members of the state Senate in the room. One of them shared about a tragedy that had occured in her life with her mother. As she walked past me, I reached out and stopped her.

"Senator," I said with tears welling up in my eyes, "I don't normally do this, but I think it's appropriate." And I gave her a hug. Another Republican, an older conservative man, walked up behind me.

"You know it's sincere when there are tears in the eye of a child," he said.

And I woke up. It was, unfortunately, only a dream.

This week there are advocates for LGBT equality roaming the halls of the Florida Capitol building, asking lawmakers to make it illegal to fire somebody because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. They are hopeful that a bill to end Florida's ban on allowing same-sex couples to adopt children will get overturned. They are looking for resolutions to call on Congress to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and to condemn the Anti-Homosexuality legislation in Uganda.

We, the adults who have managed to make it this far, ask our elected leaders to hear us. We try to put a human face on the often demonized "other" that our opposition puts out there. We tell our stories, show pictures of our families. We plead.

We have not seen positive change at the state level. In fact, at the state level, things only seem to get worse.

Perhaps it is easy for those with the power today to ignore me and others of my age group. But I see a new light dawning in the generations that are coming behind me.

You'll hear our opponents say they are against civil rights for the LGBT community and against allowing us to adopt because they are looking out for the interests of the children. So, I present a child... an Arkansas boy... who did NOT stand for the pledge of allegiance because he understands there are some who do not enjoy "liberty and justice" in this country. There are no tears in Will Phillips' eyes. But his yet still-small voice is much bigger than its timbre. And if we are going to be "all about the children", then let's listen to Will.