We’ve
heard about it for years. Many have tried to define it,
including 22 organizations that released a combined
statement in January 2005 to outlets such as
Advocate.com. It’s the Gay Agenda, and while
many pontificate about it, condemn it, or allegedly try and
further it, I as a gay man have yet to figure out what
it is.
Actually, let me flat-out say it: There is no
gay agenda. I hate to break it to all those antigay
organizations out there that have made such a myth the
bedrock of their bigotry campaigns, but really, it just
doesn’t exist.
Those who think it does are giving gays and
lesbians too much credit. For there to be a gay
agenda, there would have to be immense unity among us,
since we would have to agree across the globe on said
agenda. It might even have to be put up for a vote.
Only then could it be disseminated to community
leaders as well as the millions of gays and lesbians
scattered across the world.
Frankly, that does not, will not, and cannot happen.
Gays and lesbian are a diverse community,
composed of many voices with many ideas on how to
achieve goals. We don’t all agree on any issue,
be it same-sex marriage or the usefulness of pride
festivals. We’re not all of the same political
ideology (yes, for some reason, there are still gay
Republicans—but then again, the world is filled
with oxymorons), and many of us still keep our sexuality
private or hidden. No, there is no consensus among us,
let alone an agenda.
Yet bigots on all sides attack this “gay
agenda” every chance they get. Just two weeks
ago, in a small community outside of the very liberal
city of Santa Cruz, Calif., it was debated, screamed about,
and politicized in the name of “the
children.” Seems that a few gay teachers, to
promote diversity, put up posters in their classrooms
that included same-sex couples, and a parent wanted them
removed. Community forums followed, held in
gymnasiums, ripe with the typically hateful religious
rhetoric about how gays want to indoctrinate young
minds, which was countered by the weaker calls for diversity
and tolerance. Newspapers printed editorials. Radio
shows debated (I did two; in one, a caller said that
all of us gays should be put on a barge in the
Pacific...but he didn’t want us hurt; how kind).
Parents yelled.
It was during one of these shows that something
struck me: Why do we always have to talk about the gay
agenda? How about talking about the antigay
agenda? Because while it is debatable as to whether we
have a firm plan, there can be no doubt about the existence
of an organized, crystal-clear antigay one.
Indeed, let’s dispel a few myths
propagated by our opponents: They are quick to say
“You can be who you want, just don’t force
it on us” or “We don’t hate you--we
simply wish that you keep your lifestyle away from our
children,” plus plenty of other venomous
remarks masquerading as tolerance. The fact is that they
don’t only want gays and lesbians to shut up--they
want us gone. Most would fire up the ovens if they
thought they could get away with it, doing away once
and for all with the blight of gays and lesbians--let the
fires of hell claim those evildoers now instead of at death.
When the president of the United States talks
about the “protection” of marriage, what
he’s really talking about is equivalent to a
big federal NO stamp placed on the foreheads of each
gay and lesbian American. It’s not about
marriage--it’s about the need to smack us back
down because we’re getting too uppity. When
school boards get upset at posters about tolerance or over
gay-straight alliances, it has nothing to do with parental
choice concerning what their children are taught in
school--it’s about their denial that any of
their kids could be gay. They don’t want their
kids to know about gays, because they wish we didn’t
exist. Period. End of story.
The antigay agenda is theocratic, rooted in the
turn-or-burn teachings of an antiquated book of fables
from 2,000 years ago. We are the subjects of the last
bastion of sanctioned bashing--the one group, all those
outside of it can agree, it is all right to
oppose--because, of course, it’s not humans but
God who said homosexuality is wrong, and He
can’t be questioned.
So while the gay agenda might not be clearly
defined, there can be no doubt what the antigay agenda
is: removal of all things from society that in any
way, shape, or form say being gay is acceptable.
But back to our so-called agenda: Why does no
one seem to notice that it’s mentioned only
when someone or some entity is trying to oppress us?
Gays and lesbians have far more to do with our lives than go
around each day trying to promote some ethnocentric ideology.
Last week my agenda was getting over the loss of
my friend of 14 years, Owen Chou Lee, the best damned
chow chow to ever put four paws on the ground. It was
to try to get more employment in my industry, to keep up
with property taxes, to get a manager and an agent so I can
move forward. It was about loving my remaining pets
and trying to explain to them where Owen was; and
hugging my friends and extended family, who came to my side
during yet another loss.
It was about deciding whether to go to the
doctor for this damned flu I’ve caught so I
could have my voice back in time for my radio show. It
was about life, my life. Converting school kids into
homos or indoctrinating unsuspecting and susceptible young
nubile adolescents just didn’t fit into my
schedule at all.
But when pressed on-air, I managed to come up
with a set of goals I’d like to see gays and
lesbians achieve. Federal domestic partnerships with
all the benefits of marriage would be nice. (Please,
don’t give me the separate-is-not-equal argument
about marriage.) Protection from getting fired would
be good. For that matter, so would not having to worry
about getting kicked out of the house. Allowing gay
youths a safe haven at school through the teaching of
diversity would be fun. Creating an environment where
all gays and lesbians young or old could live openly,
without the fear of political, social, or physical
repercussions, would be a nice start
Basically, we want the same benefits, rights,
and protections as other Americans.
So there is in fact a gay agenda--however,
it’s called by the wrong name. The agenda
isn’t gay, it’s American. What all
those opposing us don’t understand is that we have
the same agenda that everyone in this nation has: to
be free while living here. Free to be who and what we
are; to have our unions sanctioned with the same
benefits; to not fear death or expect to be an outcast at
home, work, and school for simply being different.
Gays and lesbians want freedom, particularly
from religious oppression. We want what our founding
fathers wanted--a place where all are indeed created
equal, endowed with the same inalienable rights, and treated
as such.
There is no gay agenda--this is so clear, and
it’s the stance we must take. But there is an
American agenda, a promise made by the founders that
we are still striving to fulfill. Gays and lesbians have
merely started to pursue the freedoms and exercise the
rights granted in that document that the president
wants to amend. How we get and pursue those rights and
freedoms remains up for debate, and while there is not
real unity in the gay community, there is one thing that
ties us in the United States together: We are
Americans first. It’s time to remind the Right
that our agenda is not based on sexual orientation but on a
political and social promise, set forth by a group of
insightful men a couple hundred years ago.
Our American agenda doesn’t need a
sexuality. It has a foundation, the very one on which
this country was established. I stand not on the fact
that I sleep with other men, but on the fact that our
founders recognized we were a nation of misfits, all
of us outcasts, who suddenly had to get along within
our nation’s borders. They gave us a road map
for that--us, we the people. Gays and lesbians are
part of that we, whether anyone likes it or not.
So the next time someone asks what the gay
agenda is, tell them you’ll forward it to them
immediately, then promptly send them a copy of the
Constitution. It’s ours as well as theirs; moreover,
it was set up more for us than for them. After all, it
was meant to give a voice to those who might not
otherwise have one. To call out a religious monarchy
(or a theocratic administration thinly disguised as
Republican). To give a voice to those who previously
went unheard. This voice belongs to us, gays and
lesbians, because it is our document too.
We don’t need 22 gay organizations to sit
down and come up with talking points labeled an
“agenda”; instead, we should remember
that the Continental Congress has already done so for us.
Not one thing we are fighting for has to do with our
sexuality. NOT ONE THING. Every single thing we want
is promised to everyone else in this great melting
pot. It all can be summed up nicely by the very pledge
schoolchildren make each and every day: liberty and justice
for all.
What part of all do those on the other
side not understand? An antigay agenda is un-American,
and when we start making that argument, we’ll
win more battles than we’ll lose.
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