Quoting my grandfather is something those around me have come to expect. I grew up admiring the shadow he threw and having no problem walking in it, aspiring to cast one of equal standing. He is not a liberal person by nature and does not quite perhaps understand why I am gay, but his words cross all chasms of opinion. “To thine own self be true, doesn’t mean you walk only thinking of yourself, it means you walk thinking of others and how to best learn from them so that you are true.†I find myself thinking about that on a daily basis. Here is a man who grew up “knowing†that being gay was immoral, wrong, deviant, and yet he is able to also understand that it does not take away from who he is. It empowers him to be a wiser man, having learned from another.
Some people KNOW that being Jewish is wrong. Some KNOW that being black is wrong. Some KNOW that praying to Allah is wrong. Yes these people know these things. Are they wrong? This is where many today forget the important lesson I was blessed to have been shown at an early age, even though I am only now fully understanding its depth. It’s easy to say you are beautiful when you have no mirror. Each ignorant or maligned thought that we send out into the world is being sent back towards us. There was a time that “white†people were enslaved, yet was the lesson learned? There was a time that Allah was known and accepted far more than Jesus, was there a lesson learned? There was a time that the Israelites were segregated into a lot of land and oppressed, was there a lesson learned?
We are all no doubt thinking the same thing, those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Maybe we aren’t all thinking the same thing. Perhaps some of you are thinking that I am an anti-Semite, or racist or an all-out bigot because of the times and questions I raised. I want any of you who for even a moment thought any of those things of me to keep that feeling. Keep that anger, that fight, that indignation and that need to protect yourself. That is what every gay person feels each day that goes by that we are not equal in this country.
Did you know that Charlene Strong was kept from seeing the person she had spent years with, built a home and family with, loved with as they laid passing away in a hospital room because she was not viewed as next of kin? Did you know that a young man was brutally gunned down right here in Washington, D.C. for being gay? Did you know that there are children, and I mean children not teens, running away from homes because they are being beaten, even threatened with death, because they are gay?
Look at your wife or husband and imagine their life slipping away, and now imagine being told you can’t walk the ten feet to hold them and reaffirm your love?
Watch your children for a moment. Now imagine them with bruises and broken bones that you inflicted. Then imagine them on the street, scraping garbage pails for food while you eat a full meal. Can you?
Look at your best friend and imagine taking a gun and pulling that trigger simply because their hair was brown.
Take that disgusting and vile hurt, sadness and anger and ally it with that feeling from before when you wanted to stand up and remind the world that you were not to be marginalized. That is the foundation on which we are calling for a change. As I write this I am watching the love of my life work. It’s not interesting or amusing, but I love every second of it. Why? I never know when the hatred and ignorance may keep us apart. I never thought I would ever feel this way or have these thoughts. Growing up in Canada I was fortunate in some ways. It’s a small country that for the most part is young and change is easy. I grew up in a world that protected and recognized me and said yes please marry the one you love! I don’t make this comparison out of a self-righteous motivation. I make it with a sad heart that I may never be able to say I do love you forever before the world. Or even worse, that I may not be able to say goodbye to the man who I have devoted my life to.
I learned last week that a good friend of mine from childhood lost his partner two days earlier. He was viciously stalked and ripped (yes I mean ripped) apart by a gang of, dare I use the term, people who felt that his being gay was wrong. My friend could not see his partner, nor collect the body of his beloved due to the ignorance of the government in the country within which this attack took place. His partner apparently cried out for hours, calling his name as he lay feeling his life slip away. He died not hearing that he was loved, and my friend lives on knowing this fact.
Please read this not with a mind to toss it aside as we do so many sad things that pass in front of us. Look at your family and picture any one of them feeling even a tenth of what real people are feeling each and every day. This is not a plea for people to change their minds about gay being ok. This is not a plea whatsoever in fact, this is a statement being sent to everyone out there who has ever loved someone to remind themselves that this life is fragile. We need to live and not just let live but encourage it! The only way to achieve that is to be sure that every person, every human, is afforded the ability to work, love and live freely and equally.
I ask you to allow me to love my husband the way you are allowed to love.
Growing up in Northern Ontario as a Jehovah’s Witness, Michael Talon experienced firsthand the struggle for equality. Now living in the U.S. with his partner, they work with advocates for federal equality, including immigration. Working side by side, Michael and his partner Brad, head of Luna Media Group, help to deliver messages for equality to the nation.