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A song for unsung heroes - gay rights - Brief Article
Advocate, The, July 4, 2000 by Jonathan Capehart
So there I was, sitting on a panel at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on the Thursday night before the Millennium March. And Andrew Sullivan was ticking me off.
The charming yet contrarian British bad boy slammed the march as a waste of time. He even said that he felt that the gay community is "post-march." That's easy for Sullivan to say from the comfort of his Dupont Circle perch in Washington.
With that remark Sullivan failed to recognize that the march was important for those who are now the frontline soldiers in the ongoing gay rights movement. I am talking about the people whose daily acts of courage--big and small--are demystifying gay people for the benefit of America. For me, what makes them true heroes is that they are changing hearts and minds outside of comfortable gay meccas such as Washington and New York.
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In fact, we know they are creating change in New Jersey, Vermont, and Utah. Very public battles over membership in the Boy Scouts, gay marriage, and the permissibility of gay-straight student alliances, respectively, have been and are being waged in those places.
But most of the frontline soldiers in the fight for gay acceptance toil without that kind of national recognition. Abigail Garner, the daughter of my friend Lee Mauk in Minneapolis, is one of them.
Through her Web site--www. familieslikemine.com--and her columns in gay newspapers, Abigail provides a great resource for children and their gay parents. And by using her own life as the child of a gay parent as an example, this elegant and eloquent straight woman speaks with great force about the need for understanding and acceptance to any group willing to hear her vital message.
Abigail never used to think of herself as an activist. But as she travels around the Midwest talking to schools and individuals as well as chapters of the group Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Abigail knows that her heartfelt work to expand the idea of "family" makes her a grade A activist.
No disrespect to her father, but Abigail must have gotten most of this heroic trait from her mother--Lee's ex-wife of 15 years. In a recent column that appeared in Minneapolis's Lavender magazine, forwarded to me by her proud father, Abigail recounts how her mother gave her grandson Liam, Abigail's nephew, a copy of Daddy's Roommate. You know what it's about. The story told of the relationship between a little boy, his father, and the father's domestic partner. The inscription read: "This family is like the one your dad grew up in when he was a little boy your age."
As if that weren't enough to make you stand up and cheer, here's what Abigail writes about her mother in that Lavender article: "I like to say that my mom is one of the most powerful people in the world because she is an elementary school librarian. She has made it part of her role to see that books on GLBT families and youth are ordered and made accessible." After pointing out that her mother has had to endure questions and hostility, Abigail notes that her mother is "committed to helping her grandson--and other schoolchildren his age--learn about homosexuality without shame." You go, girl!
Abigail, her mother, and Lee are just three of the hundreds of thousands of people--gay and, in increasing numbers, straight-who are pushing the country to view us with respect, compassion, and understanding. And an estimated 300,000 of them showed up on the Mall in Washington for the Millennium March.
I know the march was shrouded in controversy; there were people understandably put off by the heavy hand of the Human Rights Campaign in calling for it. But the people who went to Washington couldn't have cared less about the internecine battles. They went to renew their strength in--and to reaffirm their commitment to--their battles back home. And they went to show the nation that, despite recent gains that have seemingly induced complacency in many, the battle for equal--not special--rights is very much alive.
Sullivan may view that as a waste of time, but I see it as time well spent.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Liberation Publications, Inc.
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