Today is National Coming Out Day. Someone you know and love—a friend or family member—may tell you, "I'm gay" or "I'm lesbian." How will you respond? Hopefully with a huge hug and a simple, "I love you."So, is one blog post by one guy who calls himself an ally going to change the world? No, perhaps not. Do I need to do more to stand up for equal rights? Certainly. At the very least I wanted to use today as an opportunity to state where I stand.To answer the first question about changing the world with one post, I certainly won't claim I did that. I didn't even manage to generate more than a grand total of one comment. But I did receive several email messages from people I know (from various corners of the country) thanking me for the post. I won't say who sent them, but I can say this: They were grateful to see the message posted, to know they had an ally, a safe place.
As for the second question, "Do I need to do more to stand up for equal rights?" I answered, "Certainly." And perhaps that was the biggest impact of writing the post. As I stated, I don't think that I've acted (and I certainly hope that I haven't) in a way that would make someone question my support of equal rights for all. And as I reflect again on my past life, I still stand by that assertion.
However, "doing no harm" is not the same as "doing good." I think over the past few years I've moved from quiet ally, to ally, and in the past year to advocate. And maybe writing that post last year was the catalyst to help move further along the continuum from just "doing no harm" to "doing good."
The day after I posted that blog, I attended a community film forum screening of "Born Again," at the Nickelodeon with a follow-up discussion with the filmmaker, Markie Hancock, who was raised in an evangelical home and came out as lesbian as she was studying at Princeton Theological Seminary. Later last year I attended a talk sponsored by the University of South Carolina Safe Zone featuring Harriet Hancock (no relation to the filmmaker) who spoke about her advocacy for the gay and lesbian community in Columbia since her son came out to her in 1980. Her story is an absolute inspiration and the community center for GLBT community center in Columbia is named for her and rightly so. I spoke at two events with Christine Johnson, executive director of SC Equality, including one for Openings SC, a support network for GLBT and allies.
And this spring I attended the Safe Zone Ally Training. I mentioned this to a friend, also a straight ally, who joked with me, "Oh, you need to go training to learn to be nice to gays?" Well, of course, he's right in a way. And while the training did not provide me with any transformative insights (which is to my friend's point, that I was already an ally, but I did learn something from it and it was very well done), it was more about showing and confirming my support. My "Ally" symbol hangs next to my office door. My office is tucked away in a corner of the third floor of Wardlaw College, but this post can be displayed anywhere.
Please understand I am not posting this to brag about my activities or anything of the sort. There are certainly many (many, many) others who do more (much, much more) than I do. I simply share it as a means to show my own journey of educating myself and where I stand as a result of that educational process.
I'll close with the same type of question with which I began: What will you do? Everyone is at a different point in his or her journey. If you are straight and don't feel you understand much about what it means to be gay, maybe all you can do at this point is commit to listen and learn without judgment. Maybe you want to read something or watch a film that helps you understand more. Maybe that's all you can do for now. Personally, I think that's great. Start where you are.
Last year I posted a video of Depeche Mode's "People are People." It's still worth a listen.
