AS MOST OF YOU
ALREADY KNOW, young university student Matthew Shepard, born in 1977, is
dead. He was beaten, tortured, had his skull crushed by the end of a gun,
lashed to a fence and left for dead in the near-freezing night. By the
time he was found by cyclists the following day, he was barely
recognizable as ever having been one of God's living creatures. He was not
viewed by his killers as human, and he was treated, and discarded, as
such.
The entire nation and much of the world are aware of this event. The President of the United States has spoken out on the issue and pressed for the need for anti-hate crime legislation
HOMOPHOBIA remains an unperturbed threat, one that is not easily prevented--like AIDS is--with skillful negotiation or slapping on a condom. It's a complex social issue. Hate and hate crimes are the festering sores on American society. There are people who will tell you that the victims of hateful discrimination are the problem. This is simply a lie. It is the lie that is tied up and left for dead on the side of the road. Lies transform innocence and hope into something less than human and unrecognizable. That's the very nature of the common lie that is created--often profanely in the name of God--and then pointed to, saying, "Look, that's the problem. That scarecrow doesn't belong here. The same can happen to you, if you're different."
What could a five-foot-two, 105-pound young man have done to defend himself against two larger men, their vehicle, and their assault weapon? Probably not a lot. There might have been some things he could have done to prevent himself from getting into the situation, but the consequences of poor judgement is not supposed to be death. Murder is one of the top ten proscribed crimes in the Bible. If the Bible isn't enough, remember that murder is illegal in all 50 states as well. So how come the murderers of gay men so often walk away with just a year of jail time? Why are the stolen lives of gay men and lesbians deeply discounted in this society, and why do you allow it?
So Matthew Shepard is dead. What will be the outcome of our poor judgement if we do not do something lasting and meaningful beyond the successful prosecution of these two devils? What? You are sitting there alone or perhaps with a loved one or a whole family nearby, as you read email or scan the Web for news in front of the computer screen. What are you going to do now? What are you going to do when your children, your nieces and nephews, your students, your future young neighbors and friends, the people who will care for you in your old age, ask you, "How did it feel and what did YOU do?"
RATHER THAN than wait for that day when you look back and wonder what you could have done, why not start asking yourself, "What is it that I can do today, starting right now?"
I discussed the general state of things with a friend last night who commented that this country in general is more concerned with the extreme parochial concern of "the economy" and worrying about filling their houses with more and more things. What about other people? What about being concerned with the pain and suffering in other houses? Are you filling your lives with other people, or things? What are you going to do that takes your concerns outside your front yard, beyond the peephole on your apartment door, and into the far greater realm of social justice? What are you, those with children, going to tell them about gay people and homophobia? Will you even bring it up, or wait till your children ask?
When I was in camp, twelve years old and already being taunted as being gay (I was completely unaware of what being gay even meant at the time), a kid in my bunk said to me, "I told my parents there was a kid in my bunk who's queer and they said, `Don't talk to him.' " That's pretty much the last thing he ever did say to me. Parentally condoned homophobia." Jeffrey D's parents were horrible people, and they transmitted that to their son.
I am sure that kid has grown up and not given me a second thought. Up until that summer, we had been friends. Some peer pressure led to my being denounced in general. For what? Because I was unathletic? Little did I know at the time that loving differently would make me a potential murder victim, everyday, in this country, and in many places around the world. So that kid has grown up and probably forgotten the little faggot from Camp Kent ever existed, but for 23 years I have had to live with this bitter initial lesson. Life may not be fair, but it can be different. A lot different.
SINCE THAT DAY in camp, I have had to endure a lot more nonsense. Taunted by dorm-mates at college simply because there was no apparent girlfriend. That merited a swastika on my door, among other comments, because I was not visibly having sex with anyone. I have since endured a boss who made disdainful comments about "all those homosexuals" holding hands on the train, who got on from a weekend at Fire Island. Later, I had to endure a drunken idiot workmate, a supposed friend, refer to me to my face, "A homo Jew bastard." Pretty accurate on all three counts, actually, but a completely insipid comment, later laughed off by others as a "joke." Imagine if I had called him a drunken Mick. That would have very accurate, but hateful.
And further still, even at my job now, out of the closet as I am, having to endure the boss's secretary emailing me, of all people, an extremely tasteless joke about "four gay guys at the funeral parlor picking up their lovers' ashes"--and pretty much condoned by the directors she "shared" this "hilarious" joke with. I am still not completely thrilled to be sharing an office with a woman who happily entertains conversations with gay men but whose sheer hatred of lesbians is apparent. My current boss, upon hearing an anti-lesbian rant, left it up to me to deal with it. She might not be an active gaybasher--one of her favorite people is a gay man--but she stood by and left the dirty work to me. So officially, she never had the guts to take a stand, even though respect for sexual orientation is in our employee handbook. (It's a good thing the person who edited the handbook and the person who typeset it were gay. Even better that the heterosexual HR director made sure it was included.) I wonder if what my boss would do if someone insulted or threatened her good gay friend in front of her.
And she's one of the "good guys."
It comes as no surprise, then, that even now coming out is still difficult. Was there any logical reason I had to fear telling my relatively new-found relations in England that I am gay? They are getting this letter as well. Will I be feeling a change in the weather as a result? That's a risk I am now taking, and one that I hope turns out not to be a risk, but a signal to them that I love and trust them, and that having a "secret"--that secret being my very being--has been painful for me. When I took 12-year-old Ari to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty last year, his father had no fear leaving him in my care for the day. Now that all of them are getting this letter too, I wonder if there is retrospective "dread and worry?" Or will I be pleasantly informed that my having to worry was completely silly, and even insulting of their intelligence.
When three-and-a-half-year-old Daniel sat on my lap and asked me, "Have you got any children?" and later "And why not?" when I told him no, what can I have told him? That I "just don't" was a sufficient answer for him. Everyone laughed at little Daniel's articulate and quite natural inquiry. I ask myself the same question. "And why not?" The real answer is that right now, legally, I am not really allowed to have any, not the way I would like--in legally recognized matrimony; it certainly is not encouraged. Right now, there are people in this country who would gleefully kill me for merely thinking such a thought. So for now, I have to content myself with the sporadic little cousin or friend's child on my lap, who sometimes will draw something special for me, and it winds up on my kitchen cabinet held by a magnet.
And what are my "big evil gay intentions"? That perhaps a long time from now I will still have a relationship with today's children, and maybe their children's drawings will join the others on the cabinet. These are my "sick and depraved" longings. I was able to effect a family reunion after decades of separation.
Together with my cousin we found my great-great-grandmother's tombstone in the cemetery where his grandparents are buried. Genealogy and a thirst for knowledge of our origins has brought a lot of people together. My visits have served to bring together the British cousins who haven't seen much of each other otherwise. Will my outing myself to them now sunder all of this? It's a risk, and one I have to reluctantly but willingly make. Check back in a year and I'll tell you how it all turned out. I remain, however, optimistic, but in a way I imagine Atlas had to be optimistic--weary, weighed down, and worried.
PERHAPS SOME OF YOU are already doing things for the greater good. Some of you, perhaps not. Some of you might need to come out more. Some of you who are not gay might need to reach out more to the gay people you do know. Some of you receiving this are very religious. Perhaps knowing someone gay in your very real life is something you are really going to have to think about, and discuss. If you didn't think you knew anyone gay, well, that's ended. If you're reading this they you do know someone gay. God has placed us in your lives in a very real way. Do you think it was to simply objectify us and look at us with a distanced mixture of pity, fear, and even loathing. We are made in God's image, but we all look different. So what does God look like then, the face in the mirror or the one across the street? It seems clear to me that God does not want everyone to be the same. If diversity is good enough for God, then it ought to be good enough for us. Perhaps the best way to praise God is to start praising each other a lot more than we are. If we followed that suggestion, perhaps there'd be a lot less hatred.
If you already think you are doing enough, perhaps it's time to do just a little more. It might be great that you are involved in letter writing campaigns and perhaps even demonstrations. But maybe the strongest thing available to you is your mouth. Perhaps you have to just start talking more, treating people more humanely. Perhaps not see people and events as disposable. Perhaps this means picking up the phone and checking in on someone you haven't spoken to for a while. Perhaps this means being just a little kinder to others. Perhaps this means being just a little braver and a little less afraid of the great unknown. Perhaps it means saying "stop it" when the crude fag joke is being repeated at work, and making a big fat "gay" deal about it. Perhaps the only thing you will be able to do is make a difference in one person's life. Perhaps you will join just one social justice organization for a year. Perhaps you will get off your fat ass this year and vote. Yeah yeah yeah, you have a lot of excuses for why you can't or don't want to vote. Do you know how lucky you are to have that vote? Ask any black South African and she'll tell you just how very lucky you are. Even that horribly backward country, once liberated, put gay rights into its constitution. Apparently a century of apartheid taught them something about others.
Perhaps you will be the one to just pass along the message, maybe by passing along this one. Will it be worth it? Of course it will.
So fifty years from now, if you are still alive, you shall have lived through a lot. Do you want to simply bear witness or do you want to be able to say, "I tried. I did something. I cared. I showed I cared. I wanted to make a difference, and I acted on that desire. Even if it was just for a little while." The death of Matthew Shepard is one that will hopefully open hearts, minds, and mouths.
The word "perhaps" appears many times in this message, and some of the ideas put forth here might fit you and some might not. Take from this what you can. This is the Information Age; it's interactive; you don't just have to sit there and read. You can write, you can talk, you can move. So at whatever level you can, start moving.
THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS have to ask yourself now: Am I a member of a community and a society, or is my life limited to these four walls, the things in it, and the route of my daily life? Am I just a satellite? Am I an optimist, the way Matthew Shepard was when he decided to go to the University of Wyoming, and when he decided to stay despite previous incidents? I am also an optimist the way Anne Frank was, up in that attic hiding place during the world's very darkest hour. I am an optimist like my grandfather's cousin, who was forced to burn the bodies in Auschwitz, and later testified against the monstrous guard Kaduk, who was punished. I am an optimist like the people of Sarajevo, even in 1992, who held a beauty pageant, despite the building crumbling around them. I am an optimist like Nelson Mandela, who sat in cell for years, and who became President of that brave nation while it seeks to reconcile the victims and the perpetrators. I am an optimist like that student in Tianenmen Square, facing the tank. I am an optimist in a world where half the population weeps while the other half hates them for weeping.
THE FINAL QUESTION you might have to ask yourself is this: Why are the optimists all crying this week? Will you comfort them? Will you join them? What are you going to do, my friend? What are you going to do, my cousin? You have to have an answer for that question, because we are all in trouble if you don't. Your silence will not protect you.
--14 October 1998