2013 – Higher Resolutions

    2012 closed with a social challenge to the normalization of the lesbian and gay lifestyles, a challenge posed as a referendum to the American voting public on the shared humanity of their gay brothers and sisters.  Thankfully, the challenge ended in defeat for the forces of discrimination and homo-hysteria (will get back to this shortly!).  Nor should we forget Obama’s perhaps somewhat tardy repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (actually 09-2011).  Perhaps the tide has finally turned towards acceptance in the USA and we can catch up to South Africa, Mexico and Argentina.

    So moving on, what are our goals and resolutions now for 2013?

    One of our highest priorities ought to be completing the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Our work is hardly completed within the military, though they have made amazing progress in a very short time – I’m liking the sight of men and women in uniform openly dancing with each other at the gay clubs or holding hands and sharing an intimate moment over a beer at common military hang-outs such as Chicago’s Midway Airport, the Sip-N-Dip in Great Falls, Montana, Mad Myrna's in Anchorage, Alaska, or on Coronado Beach in San Diego.  

    But too little progress has been made elsewhere within the nation’s school systems, within the nation’s corporations and within the nation’s churches.  We need to end the institution of the closet permanently, everywhere.  

    Most disturbing have been recent Roman Catholic and American Evangelical attempts to convince US courts and lawmakers that the Bill of Rights stops at the property line of the religious establishment.  I worry that discussion exempting religious institutions from having to pay for non-natural birthing and birth control procedures will be extended by these institutions to avoid having to recognize and hire (or at least not fire) gay and lesbian employees.  There is no reason, based on past behavior, to believe that such will not be the case.

Courtesy Tretter Collection, University of Minnesota.

    Similarly, we need to finally answer that age-old question, “Why are there no fags in Star Trek?”  A touching “heart” from the 2012 Minnesota “Vote No Campaign” reminded that volunteer that he or she was working hard to beat the anti-same-sex marriage amendment so that more gays and lesbians could be represented on television, in advertising and in print media – as openly gay persons in healthy relationships and not merely as comedic routines.  The BBC in London finally got the message and promises to include more gay and lesbian content in the media, including additional positive incidental portrayals of the gay and lesbian lifestyle.  Why have ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, and Showtime not made similar commitments?  The gay and lesbian community has certainly made enough money for these networks by allowing ourselves to be laughed at or voyeuristically oogled – when do we get to be taken seriously and inclusively?

    Many of the nation’s more socially active queer youth are too young to remember that before Will and Grace, Queer as Folk or Modern Family, we were often held up for national inspection as a sensationalist scandal, as folks out to destroy civic morality, as serial killers, as sexual deviants and a whole host of negative stereotypes that reinforced many of the misperceptions conservative Americans now hold regarding our community.  We deserve a public apology for past stereotyping and negative portrayals and immediate change based on the model of BBC.  We have earned the privilege.  If the military can change, so can television and cable.

    The Associated Press (AP) has released new guidelines discouraging the use of the term Homophobia when used in a political sense.  Homophobia, AP insists, is an irrational fear of gays and lesbians.  I disagree.  It seems to me that many Republicans, Fundamentalist Christians and Vatican Bishops seem to demonstrate just exactly that – an irrational fear of gays and lesbians. Anti-gay is no more a political statement than is Anti-African-American-ism from the KKK.  In their campaign to discourage use of the term Homophobia, AP is merely seeking to water down the irrational and undemocratic nature of the homophobic Right’s war against gays and lesbians.  However, I am willing to meet them half-way.  Instead of using the term Homophobia, in 2013, I will switch to the terms Anti-gay-hysteria and Homohysteria.  Seems fair.

Courtesy Tretter Collection, University of Minnesota.

    Let’s cut Target Corporation some slack in 2013.  Three times in the last month I have had to correct persons, including fellow writers, regarding Target’s mea culpa to the LGBT community regarding some very unwise political contributions in the past.  Target got the message and apologized.  We need to move on and renew our support for this company.  Many urban homos forget that most gays and lesbians do not live in gay ghettoes and in the majority of US cities and states, the only legal protections gays and lesbians have in the workplace are those voluntarily adopted by companies such as Costco, Target, General Mills and too few others.  In states such as Montana, Target, Costco and General Mills might be the only places where an “out” gay or lesbian might be able to find and hold employment.  We still need their support, let’s give them ours.

    Finally, speaking of support – where’s Mark Dayton’s pro-gay leadership after the 2012 defeat of the anti-gay marriage amendment?  Not only did we rally support against the amendment, working up-hill all the way, but we gave Dayton exactly what he said he needed – Democratic control of the Minnesota House and Senate.  Get it done.  Let it go. We need to move on so that we no longer have to be divided over this issue.  Minnesota’s DFL Party has a history of dragging its feet in the fight for Gay rights – in fact, Arne Carlson, once called them on it and became a pro-gay Republican writing anti-Gay discrimination into state law for exactly this reason – to get over it and move on.  Come on, Mark!  If the Marines can do it, if the BBC can do it, so can you!

    Happy New Year!  Congratulations for 2012 – let’s be even happier and more equal in 2013.

(998 words, 28 Dec 2012)

(c) Agassiz Media & Consulting, 2012