You would have thought that someone would have asked me about the amendment today, but people up here just don’t understand. They’ll never know. Maybe they didn’t remember that I’m from
So it’s important to explain to these New Englanders why it
hurts. Why we, the gays, particularly
Southern Gays, feel yesterday so acutely.
Like a punch in the gut, if you were punched by a million people all at
once. Obama can’t change that. The hurt’s been coming today in slow aches,
in crescendos and decrescendos, in white hot bursts of sorrow.
Many will chalk it up to an election, and I can understand
that. I remember my first class election
– sixth grade. I lost, and it felt
bad. Why
don’t people like me? I
wondered. I could have answered the
question – I was a nerd. I always had my
hand raised, and I was always hanging out with girls and other impossibly cool
clarinet players. Oh, and one time I
farted in class so loudly, it made the school newspaper in comic form.
And I know, despite all of the philandering and posturing,
that politicians are incredibly frail, incredibly vulnerable, and incredibly
brave to put their egos, their entire self-worth on the line for each and every
election. I feel sorry for Dick Lugar; I
really do.
But this has nothing to do with politics. And you might think, wait, there was a
vote. A campaign. Money.
Elections. Allegations of
fraud. Percentiles and quartiles and
predictions. The sixty-one versus the
thirty-nine percent. But it’s
irrelevant. It’s a ruse, a smokescreen.
As a native-born North Carolinian, yesterday was a reminder
that we are small. We are small in numbers
– ten percent or less (probably less) of the population. I am the gay person at work, as I have almost
always been. Maybe there have been other
gay co-workers, but yes, everyone assumed that we were sleeping together. And I am a daily ambassador of gaydom to one
hundred and twenty children; I come out again and again every time I sashay
through the hallway, gay slurs dissolving into embarrassed whispers.
We are small, but our responsibilities are mountainous. And the mountain that we carry is the cumulative
weight of our experiences. The first
time we were called a faggot. The first
time we realized that we didn’t fit in.
The first time we kissed another boy, or girl, probably way later than
everyone else. The first relationship,
and hiding it from your college roommate, who later moves out. The first time you were chased by drunk
fraternity brothers for walking down the street with a friend. The fifth time you were yelled at from a car
window, for walking down the street by yourself. The first time you came out to your
grandparent. The first time, the second
time, the third time, and the last time you felt ashamed. Unwanted.
Unloved. Unworthy of affection,
worthy only of shameless flattery, cosmopolitans, and one-night stands. The immeasurable, unbelievable, silent and
inexplicable sadness that you feel at your first straight wedding, no matter
how much you love those other people, because you are the other. Less than. The lowest common denominator.
This is why yesterday hurts.
Because we re-live our entire lives, and we remember.
