San Antonio. El Paso. Salt Lake City. Three cities. Three same-sex couples. All harassed and detained or arrested – for kissing.
You heard the stories. You read the news. You had to have asked yourself, when will it stop? When will I be able to walk down the street of my hometown, holding my better-half’s hand? When will I be able to give my loved-one a kiss – on the cheek, on the lips, without fear of intimidation – or incarceration?
Three weeks ago, after these incidents, I called for a nationwide kiss-in, in the hope that we could reach all those people we keep talking about – people who know of us but don’t know us. And then I reached out to a few friends – Willow Witte, co-founder of the grassroots LGBT group Join The Impact, and David Mailloux, who writes DYM-SUM. We took the idea of a nationwide kiss-in, and crafted it into The Great Nationwide Kiss-In.
As of today, just three weeks after I wrote, “It’s Time For A Nationwide Kiss-In!,” The Great Nationwide Kiss-In has events planned in 50 cities. Thousands of people have joined our movement. Gay people. Straight people. Bisexual people. Transgender people. Young and old alike. In big cities, in small towns. The stories are heartwarming.
We have a few cities where high school students, without fear of their conservative, southern neighbors whose beliefs might discourage those less-courageous, wrote to us and asked us if they could organize a kiss-in in their town. Just a few days ago, we received an email from a man in Saipan. Yes, I asked the same question: Saipan? Saipan, he tells us, is a U.S. Territory, north of Guam. He writes,
“The local LGBT community is not as visible as I believe it should be. This would give us an opportunity to let our voices be heard, to highlight our presence in this community, and to give us a political edge which we did not have before. While there is increasing acceptance of lesbians and gays here, we remain a marginal part of the wider community, and a there remains a level of shame associated with being LGBT. Most important, I want my local LGBT sisters and brothers to engage with the national and international discourse about civil and human rights. I believe this event would show our determination to stand in solidarity with our LGBT sisters and brothers in the U.S., and indeed, around the world.”
Literally all over America, and in a few cities in Canada, on Saturday, August 15, at 2 PM EDT, people of every orientation, gender, and race, will gather with their partners, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, better-halves and loved ones, and at the top of the hour, kiss.
What could be more powerful, what could send a stronger message, than these brave and beautiful souls, standing up for their inalienable right to perform the most basic and beautiful of human acts, sharing a kiss? A kiss that straight couples don’t even give a second thought to as they exchange that simple expression of affection, at a train station, doctor’s office, department store, restaurant, movie theater, or football game.
I think of the people in Boston, in Phildelphia, in Chicago, and L.A., and I’m grateful they are working so hard to make The Great Nationwide Kiss-In a success. But then I think about those kids about to enter their senior year of high school in the South, organizing a kiss-in, and that man in Saipan, those straight couples who support us so fervently they’re donating their time to organize a kiss-in in their home towns, I think about them all and I realize, this isn’t about kissing. It’s not just about protecting the rights we already have, it’s not about fighting for what’s ours already. It’s about fighting against homophobia, and being our best selves, showing the world, and the next generation, what’s important. Showing the world, and the next generation, that everything truly important, begins around the ones we love, and that, in order for us to be our best selves, in order for every person to reach their full potential, being who we are, and being able to include those we love in our lives, is essential.
To those who have said “gays want to make out in public and force their lifestyles on us!” I say, hogwash. Most gays I know, even in big cities, still feel a bit slef-conscious about giving their loved one a kiss in public. Why? Because we know that many, many people will look at it and may actually be uncomfortable. So, some of us glance around, hoping that no one will notice, and hoping, worse, that our loved one won’t notice we’re looking around, worried someone might notice. Because that homophobia we’ll be fighting on August 15 is the same homophobia we fight every day, each one of us, in our own way. It’s the homophobia we grew up with.
That simple act of giving our loved one a kiss in public is an act that, for a great many members of the LGBT community, represents years of aggression against our own internalized homophobia, years of fighting against decades of “don’t rock the boat, don’t embarrass anyone” training. On Saturday, August 15, thousands will give their partners a kiss that has more meaning in it than any passerby, any onlooker – who supports us or not – could possibly realize. And we’ll all be one step closer to the goal: Full equality, in name, in act, and in perception, than we were just one minute, and one kiss before.