Stonewall Oregon

Laura Calvo
Portland OR

Tomorrow lots of turkeys and pumpkin pies will be placed in ovens around the country. Families, both immediate and extended ones, will gather to share the feast of thanksgiving. I’m sure the green bean, mushroom soup, and canned fried onion ring industry look forward to this time of year. Most folks will sit down to their dinner tables, including the card table set up for the kids, earlier than usual. A lot of folks will be up very early the next day for Black Friday. That always sounds like some sort of religious holiday of some sort, but it is the day that retailers across the country look forward to as they go from being in the red to being in the black.

Forty Thanksgivings have passed since the Stonewall riot in 1969. Thirty Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parades have marched in the streets of New York since Harvey Milk was assassinated in San Francisco.

Just as many or so holidays have passed since Anita Bryant, a former Miss America pageant runner up, became the lightening rod to ban Gay adoptions in Florida. Bryant led the “Save Our Children” campaign which led to a nationwide campaign of fear and marginalization of LGBT people. Her statement, made during the campaign, “”As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters.”, was turned around by Harvey Milk’s now famous rally cry, “My name is Harvey Milk and I am here to recruit you.

Bryant also said, “All America and all the world will hear what the people have said, and with God’s continued help we will prevail in our fight to repeal similar laws throughout the nation.” Her statement could be aptly book marked as the point where politically and legislatively LGBT people would be put on the defensive. Viscous anti-gay proposition and ballot measure campaigns sprung up which sought to further discriminate, vilify, and marginalize an entire class of Americans and their families for another two and a half decades.

As the fears of of Y2K manifested, another eight years of blight would ensue for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Americans in the shadows of terrorism, near financial ruin, two wars, and politics as usual. The power brokers of the extreme conservative right used gays and lesbians as a means to further drive a wedge in the American electorate.

In 2006, we saw the beginning of the tidal change. After a second term election of , arguably, one the most detrimental administrations in U.S. history, we began to see a sea change with a new majority in congress, state legislatures, and local government. More and more state and local jurisdictions were passing anti discrimination laws. Gay marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships were taking root and breaking the hard crusty top layer of soil. Increasing numbers of large corporations were extending benefits to their LGBT employees and an increasing number of these companies were taking the steps to ensure safe work place environments.

As with any sea on the globe, there are always storms and swells that don’t make for smooth sailing. Without doubt there has been set backs, delays, inefficiencies, squabbles, and obstacles along the way. By no means is the journey anywhere near the destination. But just as the pilgrims, who we attribute the custom of Thanksgiving, saw land fall of the eastern coast there is land in sight. Despite the sighting of land, much work remains. The journey will continue.

While many of us celebrate the holiday season, many of us are impatient and grow weary of the length of our journey. Our impatience is aggravated by the speed of change that we had hoped would come. Naturally,human tendency, gives rise to frustration when we don’t see more or faster forward movement towards our goal of full equality with our neighbors.

In 2008, the promise of change and hope led us to leap to the faith that our journey was nearing an end. In the past 10 months since inaugurating a new President with a majority in Congress, we have been perched on the edge of collective seats with the anticipation of seeing all of issues resolved. Many of us are not satisfied with the pace of the changes we had leaped to believe would happen by now. We should not be satisfied as we look over the political and social landscape. Agreed, any right delayed is a right denied.

At the same time, the moral arc of the world is long but does bend toward justice. We must all work to bend and shorten that arc in any way we can as individuals and collectively.

But as we all sit down for a feast with our family, friends, and loved one’s, let us take a moment to shift our forward gaze of impatience and anticipation to a positive reflection of the past. Take a moment to close your eye’s, take a deep breath and think back to what it was like in 1969. Imagine in your mind’s eye actually being there for the Stonewall Riot or Compton cafeteria. Hear the words of Harvey Milk and wrap yourself in what it would have felt like to be there the evening he was elected. Fast forward to election night last year and how the promise of a new dawn of hope sprang up across the country.

Now open your eyes and look at the past ten months. Look through the lens of accomplishment, if just briefly, to what has been done. If for just one day, just while you gather with friends, family and loved ones, reflect on where we have been and where we are today. Yes we still have a long ways to go and there is a lot of work yet to be done. By taking a moment, just a part of the day, maybe we can come together more resolved and energized to do that work.

The work we need to do to continue progress requires the resolve to get things done in a still difficult political climate. A climate where despite the ugly rhetoric, feet dragging and out right obstructionist ploys of those who would rather see us at worst obliterated and in the least silenced and forgotten still remains. That is why as we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner and join hands in thanks, we must also join hands in resolve to continue the journey.

Here is a list to consider from the last ten months:

• Appointment of David Hubener as U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, confirmed by the Senate on November 23rd, 2009
• Reversed an inexcusable US position by signing the UN Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
• Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees
• Endorsed the Baldwin-Lieberman bill, The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, to provide full partnership benefits to federal employees
• Signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act
• Lifted the HIV Entry Ban effective January 2010
• Released the first Presidential PRIDE proclamation since 2000
• Hosted the first LGBT Pride Month Celebration in White House history
• Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King
• Appointed the first transgender DNC member in history
• Issued diplomatic passports, and provided other benefits, to the partners of same-sex foreign service employees
• Committed to ensuring that HUD’s core housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity
• Conceived an HHS-funded National Resource Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders
• Testified in favor of ENDA, the first time any official of any administration has testified in the Senate on ENDA
• Signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded existing United States federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability
• Supported lower taxes for same-sex couples who receive health benefits from employers
• Hired and appointed a record number of qualified LGBT Americans, including more than 10 Senate confirmed appointments (and now Ambassador Huebner)
• Changed the culture of government everywhere from – among others – HUD and HHS to the Export-Import Bank, the State Department, and the Department of Education
• Emphasized LGBT inclusion in everything from the President’s historic NAACP address (“The pain of discrimination is still felt in America.  By African American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and a different gender.  By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country.  By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion simply because they kneel down to pray to their God.  By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.”) . . . to the first paragraph of his Family Day proclamation (“Whether children are raised by two parents, a single parent, grandparents, a same-sex couple, or a guardian, families encourage us to do our best and enable us to accomplish great things”) . . . to creating the chance for an adorable 10-year-old at the White House Easter Egg roll to tell ABC World News how cool it is to have two mommies . . . to including the chair of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce along with the Secretary of the Treasury and the President of Goldman Sachs in the very small audience for the President’s economic address at the New York Stock Exchange
• Recommitted, in a televised address, to passing ENDA . . . repealing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell  . . . repealing the so-called Defense of Marriage Act