| What
do Operation Save America, a cartoon bunny, the Bush Administration and
a New York medical college have in common?
Quick...somebody pinch me and tell me what year it is. 1954? Or is it 1965?
Should we be watching the “Donna Reed Show” or maybe “Leave
it to Beaver” on a black and white TV?
Did dad forget to roll the windows up on the Edsel station wagon last night?
Is J.Edgar Hoover still ferreting out the communists in Hollywood?
Can you believe they’re teaching little Billy sex education in school?
It’s a shame they had to fire his gym teacher. I always did think
it was kind of strange she lived with that other woman.
Either on some bad TV drama, a news report about a police sting in some
public park or from the mouth of a frothing anti-gay politician or evangelical,
all of us have heard this phrase at some point in our lives:
I don’t really have anything against homosexuals — it’s
just when they put it in your face like that. I wish they would just stay
in the closet.
I am fairly confident those lines aptly capture the sentiment for anti-gay
consevatives in regards to the LGBT community in this country.
Most of them don’t want to hurt us. Few of them want to see us dead
or incarcerated. Most of them are okay with us existing — as long
as we keep quiet and they don’t have to see us.
Is this the backlash we’re getting from the sodomy law overturn,
Canadian same-sex marriage and the desire many gay Americans have to wed?
A story I read in the Charlotte Observer last November about Operation
Save America reported that the group wanted the city to refuse Pride a
license to hold the event. Their statements reek of polite intolerance
“
I would hope they don’t have a festival at all,’’ said
Sheryl Chandler. “Sodomy is still against the law in North Carolina,
and I don’t think they should be celebrating it in our public parks.”
See what I mean? Chandler isn’t advocating a stoning. She just wants
us to be quiet and go away.
All of us have heard the tale of the cartoon bunny named Buster on the
PBS series “Postcards from Buster.” In a recently produced
episode titled “Sugartime,” Buster goes to visit a farm in
Vermont to learn how maple sugar is made. The farm is owned by a lesbian
couple.
Quickly springing into action against the dangers of maple sugaring lesbians,
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the “Sugartime” episode
does not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming when the
series was funded. By law, she said, any funded shows must give top attention
to “research-based educational objectives, content and materials.”
“
Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles
portrayed in the episode,” Spellings wrote in a letter sent to Pat
Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.
“
Congress’ and the Department’s purpose in funding this programming
certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children,
particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television.”
She asked PBS to consider refunding the money it spent on the episode.
Here we are again. Spellings doesn’t want to send any of us to jail.
She just wants us to be quiet and go away.
In early February, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA), under the guidance of members of the Bush Administration, told
a federally funded conference on LGBT suicide to remove the words “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual” and “transgender” from
the title of their session, which was originally called “Suicide
Prevention Among Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Individuals.”
It is SAMHSA project manager Brenda Bruun who specifically requested the
title be changed.
The producing group was initally strongarmed into changing the name to “Suicide
Prevention Among Vulnerable Populations.” After a barrage of negative
press attention, however, the administration backed down and allowd the
group to leave the name in the original form.
One doesn’t get the impression that Bruun or anyone working under
the Bush Administration wants us to commit suicide. It sounds like she
just doesn’t want anybody to know that we happened to be LGBT if
we did. You can tell what she really wants, though. She just wants us to
be quiet and go away.
Also in early February, the New York Medical College decided to ban a gay
student group.
Joshua Sahara, an NYMC student and president of the group, said the organization,
which supports health-related issues for gays, was banned last fall after
changing its name to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender People in Medicine.
It was previously known as the Student Support Group.
NYMC spokeswoman Donna Moriarty said under the former name, the group did
not stress a “homosexual agenda.” She also said the college “does
not discriminate” but has the right “to preserve its identity
... in the Catholic tradition.”
Not for one moment do I think Moriarty feels LGBT medical students should
be denied their education. But I do feel confident she wouldn’t want
to know her health care provider might be gay or lesbian. She, too, just
wants us to be quiet and go away.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist. But it does seem that a concerted,
continous effort — albeit a polite one — is mounting to render
us invisible.
Figure out what those four I mentioned in the beginning of the story have
in common now?
If you can’t see us or hear us and no one acknowledges us, then where
are we? Now is the time to be louder than ever. Now is the time to make
it clear we are not going to be quiet and go away. |
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