So… InterstateQ.com has its first Guest Contribution. Thanks to Micah Beasley, UNCG student for submitting to us his guest column he submitted to The Carolinian (UNCG). Micah’s guest column is in response to the guest column by Jason Crawford, entitled “The Matt Hill Comer problem,” published a couple weeks ago (see more about the aftermath here). Unfortunately, The Carolinian website has not yet been updated, so I can’t provide you the link to the online publication of Micah’s guest column, but he has sent me the full text for posting here.
One Word: Peace
by Micah Beasley
Submitted as a guest column to The Carolinian (UNCG), Issue 2/6/07
In light of Mr. Crawford’s thoughts on homosexuality that warranted two responses in the editorial section, I feel the need to offer my opinions on our society as a whole and how it affects those of us with so-called “alternate” lifestyles. I will not take the route of picking apart Bible verses; I believe that they change nothing. In my opinion, what these misplaced scriptural references do accomplish is to further discrimination and hate against homosexuals, a hate that leads to sign yielding radicals proclaiming, “AIDS cures fags.” I do not know when this started, but in this society the basic human right of respect has perished. When did America, the supposed land of freedom, prosperity, and acceptance become a society where you can be met with cruelty and harm because of your personal lifestyle?
I am not unpatriotic, but I am not proud of the society we live in today. Rather, I am disgusted by this society. Disgusted, because our country is running rampant with intolerance. Disgusted, because there are people out there in personal turmoil who are afraid to love because they fear they will be victimized.
I am in constant disbelief that there are those who have socialized younger generations into believing that we are not all created equal and that certain individuals should be ostracized for any reason, let alone their sexual orientation. Fortunately, though, there is hope. It lies within one simple word, peace. The ultimate gift that one human can offer to another. However this word and the ideas behind it have been left trampled upon and forgotten. It is no longer a mainstream thought for Americans. I no longer witness it in our relations with foreign nations and especially with the disregard for nations that really need our help, such as Darfur. We spread democracy, but not peace. I also certainly do not see it amongst my fellow Americans.
Recently, I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Mrs. Judy Shepard at UNC-Chapel Hill. Mrs. Shepard is the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was heinously beaten to death simply because he was a homosexual. It was a shock to our nation, yet nothing was done to prevent it from happening again. Everyone turned their heads. What followed were similar crimes that received less media attention and affected less Americans. Mrs. Shepard urged homosexuals to tell their stories in attempts to further the acceptance of diversity and addressed how imperative it is that heterosexuals fight for gay rights. She commended those who have already done so, but blamed the society that meets diversity with hate—this same society that raised these two men to think it was perfectly acceptable to take a young man’s life.
I stand behind her thoughts whole-heartedly. Intolerance is at our doorsteps America. Will we continue to turn our head the other way, or will we finally face this problem, head on, and fight against oppression? In the words of Mrs. Shepard, “our voices are beautiful,” and they will be heard. I would like to encourage everyone to visit the Matthew Shepard Foundation at http://www.matthewshepard.org to learn how you can “replace hate with understanding, compassion and acceptance.”
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All of us, every one of us
GUEST COMMENTARY
By Matt Foreman, Executive Director
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The last five days have been a grueling and defining moment in our movement’s history. When we learned that protections for transgender people would be stripped from ENDA, an unprecedented groundswell of anger, energy and determination rose up to reverse that decision.
The other day, a letter signed by more than 300 national and state advocacy organizations that work on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people was delivered to Congress, asking for more time to garner support for ENDA as it was originally introduced. Some 2,500 congregations were asked to activate their memberships to call Congress. Students are also calling and e-mailing Congress and launching Facebook accounts to build support, working from 120 LGBT campus resource centers. Action alerts, blog postings and opinion pieces supporting a trans-inclusive ENDA have been flying over the Internet.
We at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force are immensely proud to be part of this moment. Our staff mounts a full-court press in the halls of Congress, on the telephones and over e-mail, to convince our congressional leaders that separating transgender people from the rest of us is unacceptable and unsupportable.
Why have we all worked so hard together and in such a dramatic way over this issue? For over a decade, the Task Force, and increasingly our organizational colleagues, has re-embraced transgender friends, family and colleagues as part of our community and part of our movement for freedom and equality. We believe the social disapproval and punishment of LGBT people varies only by degree. Yes, we can be fired if we identify ourselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual. But it isn’t always about who we love; sometimes it’s about a refusal or inability to disguise ourselves — “pass” — as heterosexual.
Two women loving each other, two men loving each other, men and women who may love either men or women, and people who self-define their gender identity or expression all challenge and change gender-based assumptions and expectations. Centuries of formal state-sponsored and informal cultural oppression show that none of us are intended to exist, to thrive and to enjoy good and long lives.
There is no more fundamental human right for all of us than to be free to love and live as our minds and hearts guide us. But what is the value of freedom if we can’t get and keep a job, something we all need to make for ourselves a decent life?
Discrimination at work hits transgender people particularly hard. A survey conducted in Washington, D.C., shows that 60 percent of transgender respondents report either no source of income or incomes of less than $10,000 per year, a clear indication of the desperate need for employment protections for transgender people. Employment discrimination undeniably erodes the freedoms of transgender people, and all the rest of us, to live as we know we must.
Uncounted numbers of LGBT people courageously refuse to live a lie. This basic need to live fully as the people we know we are — loving someone of the same sex or transforming one’s self to express the other long-sought gender — forms the foundation of our very movement for freedom and equality. Just as we would oppose any legislation that cut out lesbians or gay men from needed protections, we oppose the re-drafted ENDA that excludes gender identity. We dream that all of us, every one of us, will some day be able to be and tell others who we are, each minute of every day, and not face punishment, prosecution or persecution.
A groundswell of support for a trans-inclusive ENDA, resounding across this entire country, cannot be ignored. We call on congressional leaders and all people of compassion and good will to work harder to win passage of a federal law that protects LGBT people in the workplace so that every one of us can simply live.
Matt Foreman is the Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Guest contributions to InterstateQ.com are provided for thought, reflection, dialogue and civil debate and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of regular InterstateQ.com Contributors nor those of Matt Comer.