The event is observed around the world because dangerous homophobes...those who like to kill or maim gay people...are everywhere. Witness the brutal rapes of three men that took place in New York last week.
National Coming Out day is a time to reinforce empathy and humanity, passing on those traits to young people. It is a day to call attention to the inequities in the law, such as the current legality of evicting a gay person or firing a gay person from a job...simply because they are gay...
Reality in America 2010..
For me, a 60 year old Black, female, lesbian professional, it is a day of reflection. In the past couple of weeks, the ugly secrecy around youth suicide has been ripped away. We've lost 6 young people, that we know about, bullied by so called friends and classmates into believing that the only way to stop the pain, was to kill themselves. Childhood should not be painful, ever.
We've got candidates for the United States Senate...some of them incumbents....saying my kind are not fit to teach or to raise or adopt children or get married....Some say we suffer from an identity disorder while at the same time attempting to convince her potential constituents hat she does not deal in witchcraft.
There is a gubernatorial candidate proclaiming that all gays are dysfunctional...not like him...a bestiality loving...serial adulterer...blatantly racist...and father of a secret out of wedlock child that he hid for ten years from his wife. All this while claiming to be a Christian.
I guess his coming out day is an open acknowledgement that he is unable to be faithful to his wife.
We have so called men of god, married to women, yet closeted and hiding....living the life of a gay man or a woman in some cases......while telling people from the pulpit that being gay is a choice and can be changed at the drop of a hat or a prayer to their god.
If changing is so simple and being who you are is so wrong....why haven't you changed yourself? And the last time I read your bible, one of the so called sins that commanded the death penalty was adultery...even in the Ten Commandments...
We have powerful church organizations spending millions to keep civil rights inequality on the books while secretly condoning the illegal and bigamous actions of their parishoners.
We suffer under a government that refuses to recognize that the LGBT community daily pays the ultimate price by dying in illegal wars to protect people who openly hate them and wish nothing but ill will. Didn't we learn this lesson with Black Americans?
We have whole communities of people (Black, Hispanic, Asian) refusing to accept that homosexuality is just another part of the human sexual spectrum...one part...nothing more....
Kind of like being left handed in a right handed world...different...but not wrong....more than likely genetic...
I know that some world class golfers (Phil Mickleson) and at least two world class tennis players (Rafa Nadal to name one) decided they could make more money by playing left handed. But the fact remains that they are still natural right handers...born right handed.... regardless of how they play their game.
The same holds true for gays and lesbians and transgenders. We may act straight...look straight (whatever that may be)...live straight..marry straight...however it does not change the fact that we are natually homosexual.
Homosexuality runs in families like other genetic traits...Brothers and sisters both gay and lesbian..from the same mother and father...happens..
National Coming Out Day, this year coincides with Columbus Day...that great American lie to the world that a white man who went to his grave believing he'd landed in Asia...”discovered” America. Columbus got lost...never made it to America which had been peopled with Native Americans for more than 11,000 years before the white man built his ocean going boats.
As Americans we need to “come out” and admit that we celebrate a fool. Better yet...let's cancel this holiday altogether or replace it with something real...like Americans Honoring Native Americans or National Coming Out Day or Mathew Shepard Day or James Byrd Day...or the day that President Obama canceled Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
However, as bad as things may seem according to the mainstream media, it is getting better and will continue to get better, because like racists, the homophobes are dying out and the teabaggers...while being a nuisance...really are temporary in the national scheme of things.
So my comemoration of National Coming Out Day is to end this ramble by coming out again and standing before you in all my 60 year old nakedness.....
I am a Black Female, Lesbian, Left handed, Liberal, freelance writer who votes...American as apple pie....and proud as hell..
