Sitting up here in Turkey Hollow today I find that I am not happy. Granted, that news will hardly upset the neighbors. Am sure the cars on the quick-ways will not stop and that the business of the state will continue. However, when in such a mood, I have to slow down, think carefully and chose my words so they hopefully will be effective.
You see, it appears to me that the LGBT community is about to be sold down the river in Albany for
personal and political power and the appalling sound of silence is deafening.
State Senator Malcom Smith is negotiating taking marriage equality off the table in order to be President of the Senate. He is sacrificing our rights and freedoms in order to placate the 'gang of three' - a group of three anti-gay Democratic State Senators. Behind the scenes, those with access, including me, are assured that down the road when this might happen, that might happen and a rabbit pulled out of a hat might happen, we will get our freedom.
In the meantime, we are expected to quietly sit and allow them to use us as a bargaining chip in the name of a greater good - a Democratic controlled Senate. We are viewed as disruptive and unreasonable if we simply insist that we are entitled to over 1,000 rights, benefits, privileges and protection offered to all other New Yorkers. After all, haven't they been good to us? They might even pass a piece of legislation or two to give us a couple of those rights if we just behave. Maybe a major appointment of some member of the LGBT community would satisfy us.
You know, at that pace, I will most likely see maybe ten or twelve additional rights before I die in 20 or more years. I want to die a free man. I want to know what it is like to live free. To know that the next generation will find no barriers in its way to contribute their talents and gifts to this society.
Truly, what is most bothersome to me is the silence from our LGBT elected officials, our allies in the Senate and even from the community. I respect and honor State Senator Tom Duane and have supported him from day one. However, why was he in Washington, DC this weekend while all of this was taking place in Albany? Why isn't he mobilizing other progressive senators to fight back? But the burden shouldn't be placed just on Tom's back simply he is the openly gay Senator; we need to hear loudly from all of our LGBT elected officials. Instead, we hear crickets.
Our straight political allies, many of them who personally told me they wept when they heard the results of Proposition 8, have also been silent as marriage equality is swept under the rug to attain political power and to satisfy three bigots. Can't we find at least four State Senators who will speak out and demand that the rights of LGBT people not be bargained away, no matter for how long? Aren't there any voices of conscience in the State Senate that can rise above raw politics and remember why they were elected?
Our LGBT community, which had no problem mobilizing thousands to shout outside the Mormon Temple, has been strangely mum as this is debacle taking place in Albany. If we learned one thing from Proposition 8, it is not to wait until the bad news arrives. We must not be silent, we must speak out, we must demonstrate and then others hopefully will find their voices. If we don't care about this trampling of our dignity in Albany, who will? It is our freedom they are playing with and you are the ones that must call them on it.
As I reflect upon this, I can't help but remember how people in this state felt over 40 years ago when the rights of African Americans were bargained away in order to keep some segregationists members of Congress happy. Based on my experience in the civil rights movement at that time, I know that was not acceptable to many decent elected officials nor to African Americans and nor to me.
When I think of it in those terms, I know I must end my silence. Now is the time for you to end yours. There is an labor and civil rights song that we used to sing in the civil rights movement that I loved.
It was called "Which Side Are You On?"
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