Earlier this month, I was the guest speaker at the regular Thursday breakfast meeting of PEN, the local gay and lesbian chamber of commerce. I talked about the power of gay and lesbian communications and my thoughts about what I do and how it’s relevant to gay and lesbian business people. During the Q&A, one of the organization’s leaders asked an interesting question: are we now so mainstream that we’re accepted and we don’t have to worry as much about being seen as the “other?”
The question made me think of the "New Normal" post I wrote last spring contrasting the wedding on the ABC TV hit "Brothers and Sisters" with a local “news” story about ex-gays. My conclusion then (and at the breakfast this month) was this: we have a longer road to travel. We’re not there yet.
Sadly, this month has brought fresh, and much more troubling, evidence of this assertion. In DC, a gay man was savagely beaten outside a gay club earlier this month. He later died in a hospital. Just up I-95 in Baltimore, a gay man walking home with his partner last week was savagely beaten and is now in a hospital, reportedly in critical condition.
And these are just the most recent examples. They’re the ones we know about. There are likely many more stories like this in other communities across the country.
Yes, despite the fact that Ellen is now the face of Cover Girl and her wedding received a splashy (and straightforward, if you will) cover story in People magazine, we’re not there yet.
Maybe it’s our sinking economy, maybe it’s the continued opposition to LGBT equal rights measures from anti-gay bigots, maybe it’s a combination of these and other things that cause people to perpetrate these heinous acts of hate. Regardless of the cause, the answer is the same: we have more work to do.
So, what’s the solution? We need more companies to follow Pepsi, which just announced a grant of $500,000 to PFLAG to support that organization’s Straight For Equality program. And we need more corporate leaders like Levi’s and PG&E which are joining together to lead an initiative to defeat Proposition 8 in California.
And we need to keep talking, communicating and sharing stories. Visibility won’t get us there alone, but it’s critical to continuing the dialogue and to demonstrating the value and worth of LGBT people.
When we’re seen as legitimate partners for Pepsi and recognized as constituents by PG&E, we are valued and respected. When we’re valued and respected we’re less of a target for gaybashers. When we’re less of a target for ignorant criminals, we’re living in a society that values and respects all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender expression. Continued (and expanded) gay and lesbian communications and outreach are part of the tactics we need to employ to get there.
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