I live in Kalamazoo, Michigan and today, darlings, I am SO proud of us!

EVERY time there is some advance in LGBT rights in Kalamazoo, the so-called American Family Association swoops in and tries to fuck it up. These people don’t even *live* here, for the most part. But EVERY SINGLE TIME the voters of Kalamazoo do the right thing.

We passed our Nondiscrimination Ordinance!! *does the happy dance*

Kalamazoo, Michigan, an hour from the home of one of the most conservative mainstream protestant denominations, an hour away from fucking Amway and all the hate that the DeVos family spews. Despite the misleading ads, the voters in Kalamazoo voted to act to protect ALL of its citizens.

Not only that, but an openly gay man was elected to city commission in this election.

I love Kalamazoo today.

It’s been 8 years since the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon were attacked and since we started this war in the Middle East.

There are those of you who know that I am vocally opposed to war, for almost any reason. Ending the Holocaust? Worth the war. Ending slavery? Worth it. (Though I know, for you historical sticklers that slavery wasn’t the “real” reason for that war.) There are a number of speculations on why President Bush took us to war, probably all incorrect. Whatever they were, even if they were valid at the time, how can they be so valid that we are still over there 8 years later? Osama bin Laden has still not been found. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction.

I realize that if we don’t have a national defense, we open ourselves to attack by those who don’t feel as I do about war. I wish it weren’t true, but I accept reality. Especially after 9/11, I realize that there may come a time when we have to defend ourselves right here in the United States rather than being in someone else’s backyard. We need people who are willing to do that work, to risk their lives, to make those sacrifices so that we can all maintain the freedoms that we (mostly) take for granted.

I am so grateful to those of you who have chosen to serve your country at any point in your lives, regardless of whether you went to war. You didn’t know when you enlisted that we *wouldn’t* go to war, yet you made the choice to serve. Thank you.

My dad is a Vietnam vet. He joined the Army, frankly, because he was the child of poor farmers in South Carolina, had no education and knew that the Army was his only way out of that life. He was in Germany when the Berlin Wall went up. He had two tours of duty in Vietnam. He went to Vietnam idealistic. We were saving the world from communists! He was protecting Americans!

Do you know what he came home to? He came home to being called a murderer by fellow Americans. He came home to PTSD, to medical problems that still – 40 years later – are debilitating. He *still* has flashbacks. Just last year, a doctor removed yet another piece of schrapnel from his back. He was a prisoner of war. Vietnam fucked his life up in ways that I cannot tell you without tears.

I thank veterans when I meet one – or even just see his or her veterans license plate in the parking lot at the supermarket. For whatever reason, it tears me up to do so. Probably because I know how much it means to my dad to have people recognize his service.

Though I am opposed to (unnecessary) war, even I tried to join the Air Force when I graduated from college, because I believe that public service is important and because I recognize the necessity of national defense. What started me on running and weight lifting was a stupid boy telling me girls couldn’t do something but, once I proved that I could, what kept me at it was I wanted to by physically ready to join the Air Force. I’d seen Private Benjamin! I had heard my dad’s stories of bootcamp. I knew I’d never be prepared, really, but at least not completely ill-prepared. However, this was before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. They asked and for some reason, I told. Probably, you know, the whole thing about court martials. Anyway, they didn’t let me join.

For those of you who did serve, thank you. I hope your return to civilian life was not the same as my dad’s.

I’d like you all to do something. There are still soldiers in the Middle East right now and being there sometimes causes them difficulties at home and sometimes they don’t have family or friends who are supportive of them. Go to Soldier’s Angels and adopt a soldier. Adopting a soldier isn’t expensive or difficult: you agree to send one letter a week and at least two care packages a month. The packages don’t have to be big and expensive, so don’t worry if you don’t have a lot of cash. They can be simple. If you can’t do that, there are other ways you can help.

You can sign up to foster a soldier’s pet until they return. Sometimes being deployed leaves the soldier no choice but to take their pet to a shelter. Can you imagine that heartbreak? Expenses are covered, so it won’t be a financial burden for your family. You can make blankets or scarves, you can send cards, you can do all sorts of things. Go to the website and check it out.

They also take cash donations. As much as nonprofits value the volunteers – and in this case couldn’t do the work without volunteers – they need money, too. How else are they going to pay for the website and all the other expenses that go with running an organization.

Thank a veteran, if you know one personally. So, Nick, thank you for joining the Marines even knowing you might be sent to war. So, G, thank you for your time in the Navy. So, Rugby8, thank you for your years in the Marines. So, Ri, who is in the Middle East right now, thank you. For the rest of you who I don’t know are former military: thank you. You have my gratitude and (I hope) the rest of the country’s as well.

I was expressly forbidden to be out to any donor, to any parent, to any volunteer and, above all, to any girl. It went against everything I believed in but I justified it to myself by telling myself that I wasn’t really in the closet since I was out to the staff. It was difficult at the best of times but even more so when we had an advertising campaign that said we were for “all girls.” All heterosexual girls and all lesbians who kept their mouths shut, really. But I did it because I wanted to be a fund raiser and this was a great opportunity to learn from an excellent development director, so I sucked it up and put up with it.

Until October 1998. I don’t remember the exact date that the news broke that Matthew Shepherd was brutally murdered for being gay but I remember clearly the impact it had on me. I wasn’t sure how I could live with myself if I stayed working where I was.

Since the day I came out, I have believed that not hiding ourselves is a moral obligation that we all share but most particularly the adults among us. We owe it to our children – whether literally ours or figuratively ours – to show them that “gay” does not mean “sick” or “perverse.” Not to show the heterosexual world that we are “just like them” but to show the children, by example, that they can grow up to have happy, productive, healthy lives.

It took me until the end of January but I quit my job. I didn’t have another one but I knew I couldn’t do it any longer, not and live with myself.

Sadly, we still live in a world where being out is a dangerous decision for some people. I recognize that. I lost my children because I’m a lesbian. I get that there are risks. I know they are significant.

I believe we have to take them because as long as we don’t, the risks will still be there.

Some of you will say “I can’t be out.” Please don’t say that. Please say the truth: “I choose not to be out. I think the risks of being out are far greater than any benefit, so I make the choice not to do it.” Because the truth is, you could be. You’ve chosen not to. I will not judge you for making that choice, nor should anyone else. However, don’t give away the power of your own life. YOU are making that choice.

For the rest of us, those who can but don’t, I ask you this: How are things going to change if we don’t? How are we ever going to have full civil rights in this country if we don’t come out? If we don’t stand up for ourselves?

Matthew Shepherd died 10 years ago. This year, just this last week, a teenage boy was assaulted because he is gay. The world has changed – but the world hasn’t changed. What’s that expression? The more things change, the more things stay the same?

You may think that by being out to your coworkers or your dentist or your dry cleaner that you have no real impact but you’d be wrong. What changes people’s minds about queers being freaks (and not in a good way) is because they know and love or care about someone who is gay.

For whom in your life can you be that someone?

In the 21 years since I came out, things have changed for LGBT people, mostly for the better.  That “gay marriage” is even being discussed is progress.  In 1988, believe me, no one was talking about gay marriage.  Over the years, LGBT people have run for office, have been publicly out, have done all kinds of things, taken all kinds of risks, so that we could get to this point.

We have a long way to go, that’s for sure.  However, the first step to getting there is for all of us to VOTE!  How different do you think the 2000 election would have been if all the LGBT people in America had voted?  Al Gore might have been president. We might not have gone to war.  We might not have the huge deficit we have.  The economy might not be in the toilet.  We don’t know … because many of us *didn’t* vote.

If you haven’t already, VOTE!  Participating in the democratic process is one way we can all affect the future.