I'm gay.
Yep, I'm gay!
It's not that I've forgotten. It's just that this part of the many, many parts of me seemed to fall to the wayside after 9/11. With all the sights, sounds, smells and feelings assaulting my very being, I guess my sexuality just didn't seem to have much to do with anything on my mind.
Three thousand people died that day. One can assume that at least 10% of those people were gay, but it just doesn't seem to matter. Who's really thinking about the victims of 9/11 in terms of race, sexual orientation or religion??
The victims of 9/11 fall under only one kind of label: Victim. Or perhaps another kind of label: Innocent. Except, of course, for the ones we also call Hero.
Sure, there is by many accounts, the most famous hero of 9/11, Father Mychal Judge, who is widely known to be gay but Father Judge's sexuality just doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with his heroism. So we don't talk about it, and our not talking about it is probably the reason mainstream America can honor him so freely.
Don't think, don't tell, just mourn.
I have heard of gay charities helping to raise money for the same-sex partners of 9/11 victims who got anything but the same treatment when it came to the financial compensation of the heterosexual married spouses. But I just kinda brushed that under the massive rug that I'd put all my personal issues under since 9/11.
9/11 took the gas out of my anti-homophobe engine.
I've been far too busy thinking about the big picture.
You know, the big picture?? The one where we all live happy and equal free from racism, homophobia and Regis Philbin.
But television this past week has shuttled me back to Planet Gay.
First there was the Rosie O'Donnell coming-out-to-save-the-children special. (Hey, Rosie, thanks. By the way, we all knew, a lonnnngggggggg time ago, but it's still cool.) Rosie was inspired to speak because of the case of the two loving foster fathers who have raised an entire family of HIV-positive babies, nurtured and nourished them so that now these children who were not expected to live past the age of 2 are 5 to 14 years old.
Florida says these men are good enough to be foster parents, possibly for the entire lives of these children, but not to adopt them. The fathers may now lose one of their sons. They were good enough to foster him to health, but now that he's healthy, they're not good enough to adopt him.
Florida needs a kick in the Bush.
Then there was the Matthew Shepard story on NBC. I just can't talk about Matthew Shepard without sharpening up my chopping knife and heading into a redneck bar for revenge, so I'll drop it for now.
Sigh.
But oddly the thing that really got me the most was simply the news.
It proclaimed proudly and broadly how wonderful the St. Patrick's Day parade was this year with its tribute to the 343 brave fireman who gave their lives and all the heroes of 9/11.
That was all wonderful, of course, but this is the first year that I didn't even hear a peep about the exclusion of gays from the parade.
I guess the parade picketing folks felt like I have, that it's ok to postpone our gay selves in the wake of 9/11 because the massive tragedy of 9/11 is far more important then our personal rights or lack of rights as gay Americans.
But two wrongs don't make a right.
9/11 was the most terrible thing to happen in my lifetime, probably in yours, too.
It was the cowardly act of ignorant, racist, evil bastards who just wanted to end innocent lives simply because they were American lives.
The best way I know to fight back the terrorists who did this is by obliterating homophobia, and anti-Semitism and racism and sexism and any other kind of -ism you want to throw in there.
Some might say that this was the year that no one should have mentioned the exclusion of gays in the St. Patrick's Day parade, but I think just maybe this was the most important year to fight for those rights.
I admit I didn't want to see any picketing or controversy on the news. It would have seemed, well, disrespectful, but when the 343 flags marched by as teary eyed spectators pointed and smiled, I suddenly felt so shut out. Heck I'm about as far from Irish as you can get being a Hungarian Jew and all, but amid all that goodness and heroism it just felt even sadder that this parade really does stand as a symbol of homophobia.
If Father Mychal Judge were alive today and wanted to march under the banner "gay hero," he would not have been allowed in that parade.
Everyone has their heroes. My 9/11 hero is Father Judge. I picture his kind face kneeling over the fallen firefighter trying to administer last rites as he loses his own wondrous life. To me he stands out as a symbol of selfless kindness and bravery, but he could not march in The St. Patrick's Day Parade with a banner proclaiming who he is.
Haven't we learned anything?
Like I said, I felt sad when I watched the news footage of the parade and I felt sad as the news ended and sad as Saturday Night Live began and then I watched Sir Ian Mccellan come on stage and say, "Thanks for making me feel so welcome, which is more than I can say for the St. Patrick's Day parade does, as an openly gay man. ... Although they don't seem to have a problem with priests."
I just love that guy.
