One of my biggest complaints about the Gay Rights Movement in the past few years is that it's been quiet and complacent. We've been all too happy to accept the small, ultimately meaningless, gains in exchange for our peaceful subservience to the Christian-Conservative Overlords that have been running our country. As a result, nothing of substance has happened, and even more so, some of the rights that we have fought in the "politically correct" arena have been stripped from us.
It's not just the "corporate" mind set of our National Organizations that is the problem though. GLAAD and HRC exist for very specific things, and it's my belief that they should continue to do what they do best, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that they are not good at leading our community as a whole to action. As Michael Crawford over at Bilerco Project put it:
While there are many smart and politically savvy people in positions of leadership in our organizations, I do wonder how much of gay conventional wisdom is shaped by psychic damage caused by the intrinsic evil of the closet and internalized homophobia.
That is not to say that our leaders are closet cases, but how much of the timidness and unwillingness to speak openly and forcefully about our lives and our families is the result of old-school political battles necessitating a less overtly "gay" style of activism?
We have been too scared to act up for too long. It's time to be activists. It's time to let people know why they can't take away our rights. It's time we stop acting like scared, closeted high school students afraid of the Jocks finding out for fear of beating and start acting like the proud, successful, happy queers we are!
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