A few days ago I read with some level of interest that the anti-gay American Family Association is asking its members to refuse to either use or accept mail with the new Harvey Milk stamps, honoring this country's first openly gay elected official. The abject pettiness of this should be obvious to anyone, but I find it strangely encouraging. This incident seems to represent the current state of the anti-gay movement in this country; having been losing every major battle for the past two years, they are reduced to bickering over stamps. A hollowed-out movement, the organized, anti-gay bigots of this country, while still strong enough to, disturbingly, block important legislation like anti-bullying because it might just encourage people to be nice to gay students, are increasingly on the defensive. They are a movement that is loud and belligerent (the faux online encyclopedia "Conservapedia", for instance, refers to Milk as a sexual predator), protesting the rise of marriage equality but able to do little to stop it.
Make no mistake, there are still important battles to fight before we can say that this country recognizes that the LGBT community is truly equal--workplace protections currently lag for gays and lesbians, for instance, but it seems clear that it is only a matter of time. The fight for marriage equality is nearly over, with almost every state that currently bans gays and lesbians from marrying having that ban challenged in court. Even my home state of Pennsylvania unexpectedly joined the ranks of marriage equality states a few weeks ago when a judge found that our law prohibiting gay marriage is unconstitutional; Governor Corbett declined to appeal.
I and many others find this change cause for celebration. If our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender fellow citizens are not equal, then it makes a mockery of the promise of equality that we hold dear. A move to live up to the promises of our founding documents is welcome, and long overdue. Yet for many, full equality for the LGBT community is a horror that they vigorously oppose. They cry that their religious rights are being infringed upon, that the "destruction of the family" is the end of everything. Growing up in a fundamentalist denomination, I used to think that they were right, as much as I am ashamed to admit it now. But while I and millions of other Americans have changed our opinions on equality, I truly feel sorry for those who are still wrapped up in their hatred of gays and lesbians. They will protest, of course, that they don't actually hate members of the LGBT community, but their actions put the lie to their words. What does it mean to say that you do not hate members of a certain group, but then you do everything in your power to keep them from enjoying their full rights as citizens? What does it mean to state that you "hate the sin, but love the sinner," a statement hateful and demeaning in and of itself, and then oppose curriculum that would help stop bullying against LGBT students, bullying that leads to lasting damage, including numerous suicides by gay youth? You cannot say that you do not hate gays and lesbians and do these things; it is a lie, and it is disgusting to try and make that claim, to place a fig leaf over your utter disdain for people different from yourself.
The anti-gay organizations and the leaders of that movement draw upon the worst impulses of humanity. They play upon our fear of those different from ourselves rather than calling us to accept and love the great diversity of the human species. They call up hatred and fear when instead we should be drawing upon love and understanding, the better angels of our nature. They point to others who may be different from us and declare them the enemy, when instead they are our brothers and sisters in this universal, shared journey of life. If we are to persist as a civilization, at least one worth living in, we need to continue the work of eschewing hatred and embracing love instead, of drawing upon our nobler instincts as a species. Embracing hatred has always led us to violence, to war, and genocide; it is a destructive impulse that holds us back. When we stop listening to the modern-day Bull Connors, our apostles of hatred, we'll be all the better for it.
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