I should be in bed. But then I realize that tomorrow I, along with other second-class citizens, will fight for my civil rights. So, as sleep escapes me, I visualize signs and slogans, fists raised aloft in solidarity. All for equality. All for recognition.
But there’s something else bubbling beneath my insomnia: anger. As right and just as it is to take the high ground, be mature, channel reason and optimism in lieu of cynicism and doubt, what I really want to do is scream, “Wake up, bigots! It’s 2011!” And why shouldn’t screaming work for our side? After all, the slurs, taunts, and biblical verses conservatives blast through bullhorns resound in the halls of the state capitol, contorting a very straightforward decision into a sick, religiously-tainted, “morality”-governed bout of tug-of-war. But the victors’ prize isn’t a trophy; it’s the continued subjugation of a minority, the dissolution of their basic rights and privileges–the same afforded to drunken couples in Vegas drive-thru chapels, but denied to committed partners.
A variation of love shared by the majority should not be mapped onto us all or given precedence. After all, everyone loves another in multiple, complicated ways; there is no one way to practice love, no one way to express it. Love is nebulous and messy. But we all deserve to have it recognized, not just by our friends and families, but by the legislators and other elected officials that we, their constituents, look to as arbiters of justice and equality.
Hope as currency has been financing the LGBT community for decades. Let us all fund a better tomorrow.