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bg5000:

Every now and then, usually during a particularly bad spell of Chicago weather, i consider the possibility of moving back to the South. My family still lives down there, as do a large number of close friends, Plus, thinking about how much more i could get for my real estate dollar makes me giddy. Of course, it’s not long before something like tonight’s passage of Amendment 1 in North Carolina comes along, which makes me completely abandon that line of thinking and replace it with a version of the same “fuck the South” attitude that you hear from so many people at times like this. At that point, staying here almost feels like i’m taking a defiant stand against intolerance. 

That’s bullshit, of course, and i know it. Moving would be the real act of defiance. The South needs more people like me to fight all these bigoted/misogynistic laws that seem to always be passing, not less. However, i worry that i’ve spent too long up here in this “bubble of sanity” to live in a place where the majority of my neighbors think it’s totally ok to vote against the civil rights of others. And i don’t really like that, since at best it makes me feel lazy, and at worst, cowardly. This is something i need to work on, and bthny’s post was very helpful in this, especially this part:

the best thing that progressives who do not live in North Carolina can do right now is think about how to support them 

If i can’t manage to get over my own shortcomings and bring the fight myself, the least i can do is support the people who can.

This is one of those times where I feel like it’s my duty to reach out to everyone in my family and everyone I grew up with and say, “Oh look, it’s me! Tyler! The sweet kid that everyone thought was such a nice young man! Well, I’m gay, and it’s fine, and I’m the same person that you knew then, and it just goes to show you that people like me are nothing to be afraid of, and our hopes and desires are just the same as yours, which is why we should have all of the same privileges and rights and such as you do!” And I don’t do that, because 1. I’m a wimp, and 2. I always get SO MAD at the idea that I have to teach people what it’s like to be a decent human being, that everyone should be able to love the people that they want to love without the judgment from others. It’s a tricky situation, and when I think more and more about it—about the idea of being different no matter what, about the idea of having to “come out” when the vast majority of the population never has to address their sexuality openly, about being a member of a community that is encouraged to keep its sexual habits “private” while the vast majority of the population unconsciously flaunts their sexuality in public without a thought because it’s “normal”—I get so angry about having this particular cross to bear, and I want to say, “To hell with all of you! I’m not here to teach you a goddam thing!” So, obviously, tonight’s news is a major let down, to say the least. But Adam’s post above reminds me that I’m not alone here, that there’s a whole community of people fighting the same fight, and not only that, but we have a lot of allies who care about us, too, who understand the concept of treating people decently and with compassion, and that presence, for me, has always been a reminder that fighting for what you think is right, even if you’re in the minority, is worth the headaches and the trouble.