The original question posed by the Outwrite Collaboration was on the tapestry which makes up our lives. What is that tapestry? How do we each fit into the tapestry? Well, this is my answer.
Threads of the Tapestry
A Gay Opinion 5/08/00
by R.A. Melos
I believe if a gay agenda truly exists, it was born out of the feelings of frustration
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) persons experience on a daily
basis. I know for a fact, my one true goal in life is to experience, on a permanent
basis, the feelings of inner peace and freedom I get on a temporary basis when
I listen to any Jimmy Buffett CD. However, heterosexual society has changed
me, and guided me to follow my own gay agenda by denying me and all GLBT persons,
the feeling of equality we are entitled to as human beings.
There is so much more to equality than the laws which will grant it to us. We,
the GLBT community, will have to learn a whole new way of thinking about and
seeing ourselves. We currently have experienced a brainwashed sexual prejudice
which will not disappear within our lifetime.
The sexual prejudice we experience can not disappear when politicians are currently
weaving new threads of hate into the universal tapestry by passing and drafting
new laws which limit the recognition of our marriages, and laws which deny us
the right to adopt, or even own property. These are the same threads of hate
once weaved prior to the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s and 1960s.
It seems to me, in spite of the progress the GLBT community has made in ways
of openness and recognition, we are still being oppressed by small minded bigots
with a need to dominate and subjugate people, and now it is the GLBT communities
turn to be subjugated. Well, I am not willing to be subjugated, nor am I willing
to hide or attempt to "pass" as straight just to appease those in
positions of so-called authority, whether they are politicians, police, or other
general ignorant fools.
We may joke about agendas, but every person on Earth has a personal one, and
the point of getting your agenda completed depends on the universal timing of
many other personal agendas. When enough peoples personal agendas converge the
results will be progress. When enough of the GLBT community, those still hiding
in their own emotional closets, come out to themselves and the world, the gradual
progression of total equality will once again be spurred onward.
I try to weave the threads of truth and honesty into my own tapestry of life,
but many of the GLBT community are afraid of this honesty because of centuries
of taught oppression by heterosexual society. Let's face it, in spite of the
outcomes of the trials of those who murdered Matthew Shepard, or Scott Amador,
or the many other sexual orientation murders, the result is still a fear instilled
in the homosexual community by the heterosexual society.
The message of zero tolerance toward crimes committed against GLBT persons is
not as strong of a message as the image of a dead body hung from a fence, or
the chalk outline of a body on a sidewalk. Until we can overcome those images
and our own inner fears, and stand together, out and proud, we will not earn
the equality which is rightfully ours.
I know how I sound, a gay man only out for the past three years, living in the
American North East, one of the more tolerant areas of the world, urging people,
who like myself, spent the better part of their lives in personal denial, to
come out, but that is what it will take to earn our equality.
The closeted community only serves to hurt and divide the entire community.
Heterosexuals have used the closet against us for centuries, relegating those
deemed unworthy of equality to the dark corners of very cluttered emotional
closets. They have consciously and subconsciously eroded our self-esteem, and
continue to do so, now by making the statements any gay union should not be
called a marriage, or be considered as "sacred" as a heterosexual
marriage. Like all the divorced heterosexuals in the world haven't already destroyed
the sanctity of marriage?
When the heterosexual community can claim a zero divorce rate then maybe they
might deserve to be heard, but right now they are tossing stones from their
glass houses, and hurting themselves and the GLBT community as well with their
threads of denial.
The same can be said of the heterosexual societies attempts to deny GLBT persons
the right to adopt. When the heterosexuals can claim a zero rate of heterosexual
child abusers then maybe they should be heard, but right now they are threading
the tapestry of life with ignorance, contempt and hatred, and I'm tired of having
the beauty of the universal tapestry of life destroy by these flimsy threads
which will hopefully soon be broken.
So as not to appear too hypocritical, I am not telling anyone of the closeted
GLBT community to come out, but I am asking you to do it for yourselves and
for those of us already out and helping to weave a better life for all. One
person can only do so much, and one million people can do so much more. It is
time the closeted community came out and added their brightly colored threads
to life's tapestry with their honesty, their love, and their self-awareness.
Help weave a rainbow of colors into this tapestry, and make the threads of honesty
and truth, and acceptance strong as steel.