Take Me To Your Leader Ship

I'm a bit frustrated. Actually, forget that, I'm extremely frustrated. Every time I've opened my RSS feeds in the past week and clicked on my "Gay" grouping to read what the gay blogosphere is talking about, I'm confronted with multiple postings about needing a gay leader. Writers whine about not having another Harvey Milk alive today, or cry about the general lack of direction the LGBT community has right now… and it's getting a bit old.

Here's a real harsh reality we have to face in the Queer world, and I'm just as guilty of it as the next 'mo: we are extremely reactionary and judgmental.

We take all of our leaders and trash them to hell within their first ten minutes of leadership. Why? Because we saw them talking to a conservative figurehead without eating that person's babies. Because they did not immediately thrash out at the latest bit of legislation that did not include free lube for all. Because they chose to attend the rally put together by the Lesbian Activist Front vs. the Gay Liberation League. We quickly assign blame and toss them aside.

The movie Milk has done a lot to show us why we need a leader in this time, and I think that is one of the many reasons we as a community are looking for that leader now. But if we all lived during Harvey's time in San Francisco, I'm quite confident that we would have chided him for even thinking about working with a person like Dan White. Not undeservingly, we've cast a martyr's halo over Milk's life and career, so we wouldn't dare criticize him now, but the point is that we shouldn't criticize our own for crossing the line in the sand from time-to-time.

Does that mean that I now think it's OK for Rick Warren to speak at Obama's inauguration? Nope, not at all. Do I think it's OK for Obama to meet with Warren from time-to-time to hear out the crack-job communities' perspective? Sure, that's not a bad idea.

My point is that if we want a leader, if the LGBT community truly wants someone to stand up and take the helm of this movement, here's what has to happen:

A - We back down from attacking our own
B - We accept that while someone may be an enemy, we may still need them at some point, if only to throw them under the bus
C - We demand the highest of expectations of that leader while also recognizing that she/he is not godly, but merely human
D - We create opportunities for someone to rise to the challenge.

How does one even become a leader in this haze of noise? If there were even someone out there who could lead such a diverse community, are we even able to hear them now? And if we could hear them, would they want to lead?