“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This simple phrase from the Declaration of Independence helped launch our nation. But as a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender American, are you free?
Are you free when in 34 states you can be fired from your job because of your sexual orientation or gender identity?
Are you free when you cannot marry the person you love? Or walk hand-in-hand in every city and state in America? Or, when kissing your partner is considered an affront to society in so many places?
Are you free when your government denies you more than 1,100 rights granted to those that can get married? Or passes a law that prevents you from being recognized as a couple by the federal government?
Are you free when you pay taxes on domestic partner benefits provided by your employer for which your straight married colleagues pay nothing?
Are you free when politicians can espouse discrimination against you? Or suggest that you need to go through reparative therapy?
Are you free when you go to work and hide who you are or what you did last weekend due to fear of discrimination or violence?
Are you free when in your house of worship the preacher calls you a sinner and desecrates your “lifestyle?”
Are you free when you are asked to provide proof of your relationship when your partner is rushed to the hospital and you want to ride with him in the ambulance?
What other groups in America can lay claim to these horrible facts? None.
Freedom is liberty, which is at the core of all democratic principles. Yet the LGBT community is far from being free in America. As Martin Luther King said at the March on Washington in 1963, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men … would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable rights’ of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note.”
Well America has written another bad check, but this time it is to the LGBT community. This election year is our time to make a collection call. It is time for us to tell America to pay up. We have waited long enough.
We absolutely must exercise one of our penultimate freedoms; the right to vote. There is only one choice if your liberty is important to you. Romney/Ryan have made their thoughts known about LGBT equality; not now, not ever, because the Bible tells them so.
Obama may not be perfect, but his record on LGBT rights is pretty close for his first at bat. Let’s make sure he gets four more years. Then freedom will surely ring.
Stampp Corbin
Publisher
San Diego LGBT Weekly
