Reflections on Victory And The Journey Ahead

People waiting in the Leon Co. Commission Chambers for HRO hearing. Photo by Phil Sears.

Many of us are just coming down from Cloud Nine after the achievement of passing a Human Rights Ordinance that covers many people who work, live and play in our county, including the LGBT community. As I reflect back on Tuesday night, and look forward into the fall, there are some things that keep rising to the top of my "stuff we still need to work on" list.

As noted at our PFLAG meeting last night, we all must be concerned about the upcoming elections in August and November. Three of our majority (John Dailey, Bob Rackleff, and Cliff Thaell) all face opposition in the coming months who are determined to crush them and repeal the ordinance. I mean, our foes bought a private plane to circle around the County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon flying a message: "Dailey and Thaell: Vote Yes and You're Out!" Now's the time for people standing on the side of love and freedom to not quibble amongst ourselves, but to put the power of our feet, our wallets and our votes into the singular effort to retain these three members of the commission. And if we can pick up another sure vote by unseating the ones against us, great!

For me, the next bit of education has to begin with ending the use of the term "lifestyle" or "lifestyle choice" to describe someone who is openly-gay. Being a person of lesbian orientation is NOT a lifestyle or lifestyle choice: it is my life. My lifestyle choices would be that I prefer to drink my coffee black, to wear 100% cotton clothing in summer, cut my hair short so I don't melt in the Tallahassee heat, attend church regularly, act with a troupe of adults who are silly and wear balloon ears and call themselves Faustkateers, etc. etc. My life is that which I believe began at my birth. The knowledge and the understanding of that life I believe began well before that. And it is the essence of my being. Dismissing my life as a lifestyle, as if it were something I tried on one day and thought it fit well, is insulting. Sadly, it is not just my opponents who use that term, but a number of my friends... even LGBT people... who have succumbed to using that term. Let's practice: it's a life, not a lifestyle.

In that same vein, I heard a disturbing trend threading through the testimony on Tuesday night. Many of the speakers in favor of the ordinance wanted to take on our opposition full force and in their face. Since the opposition was claiming and proclaiming their "christianity", some of our proponents took the bait, and fired back: "If you think homosexuality is a choice, how about your religion?! That's a choice, too, and you're protected. You chose to be religious." Trouble is, fighting with fundementalists over whether they "chose" to be religious goes nowhere. Some believe that they did NOT choose Christ; Christ choose them. Another way of saying it: God knew us from the beginning, and we were made in the image of God. So trying to make that kind of "choice" argument is pointless... especially with folks who don't want to listen to you anyway.

And it raises for me that feeling of loneliness of being an "other" within my own "other" set. I left religion out of my comments Tuesday night because it wasn't pertinent to what I was going to say. Instead, as with most things in my life, I kept my religious beliefs in my heart... and was routinely tapping into them to keep from becoming mean. I don't think religion and faith of any sort, and particularly faith in Christ, is bad. It is actually very good. But it can become bad in practice.

The whole reason I started this blog two-and-a-half years ago was to deal with this weird awakening I was having as a member of the Body of Christ... and to square that with being gay in an LGBT community that was hostile to Christianity. During this ordinance process, I was again seeing the same struggles of "us" vs. "them" and feeling pained that neither side could see past the labels. That's why when Commissioner Cliff Thaell in his closing comments noted that we have an environmental disaster looming in the Gulf of Mexico, and it would behoove us to be thinking as "We" rather than "us and them" to deal with a serious and big issue, I was glad. I couldn't agree more! But beyond that, I find myself having to recommit to being the incarnation of a Christian to my queer community and the queer in the pews for my Christian community.

I look forward to the day when I can be a human with both groups!