Being Thankful

            It is November and fall has fallen all around us, well except for here in South Florida it’s still hurricane season for another 28 days and the weather is still in the 80s.  There is something else about November, it is Thanksgiving and it gives me time to sit down and think about what I am thankful for. This year the LGBT+ community has made many strides, the biggest being that same-sex marriage is now legal in all across America and that got me thinking that as a member of the LGBT+ community I have a lot to be thankful for so I decided to dedicate this month to what I am thankful for as a member of the LGBT+ community. Follow me on Instagram (@ravenillusion) for daily lead-in to these blogs.

Day One: Those who Fought Before Me.

               I stand up and fight for causes. I write my congressmen, I do whatever I can to help, but I have never been able to get down in the trenches and but my blood, sweat or tears into a cause. No, not like those who have fought before me. I look back at thinks that the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, or the more better known Stonewall Riots and I see people who were ready to lay it all down on the line for their belief in freedom to be who they were. I look upon those people with admiration and pride because of what they have done.

               I think what make me look at them with the most admiration is the fact that they did set about to become the champions of the rights that they are. They were just everyday people trying to live their lives as who they were who just happened to be in the right place at the right time when history took place. In the case of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot it was transvestites, drag queens and other gender non-conforming individuals were just enjoying themselves when the cops came to raid the place and they took to arms to protect themselves from discrimination. The same is true of Stonewall, the people of that night were just trying to have a good time when the cops came, but strangers rallied together to fight for freedom. For more information on either the Compton’s Cafeteria or Stonewall Riots see this. Without those fights we wouldn’t be where we are today, we must learn from our past or we are doomed to repeat it.

Rights and History

I just want to talk about rights and how we as the LGBT+ community deserves them. I look at the current state of LGBT+ rights and it makes me sick, for every stride that we make we have assholes like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and the rest of their cronies who would like to see the strides we have taken away. Justice Scalia still whines about losing the marriage equality fight. It seems that everywhere we turn that someone wants to take our hard earned rights away. Why, because we love differently, or because we choose to be who we truly are? I look at the battle we fight as members of the LGBT+ community and I can’t help but see parallels to the civil rights movement of the 60s. With the black community of the 1960s it was court orders to integrate college campuses, for us it’s marriage equality, and even though we have a court order from the highest court in the land we are still fighting battles for something as simple as a marriage license. Frankly I’m tired of going to Huff Post and seeing Kim Davis’s face, I think her 15 minutes of bigoted fame has come and gone.

Then we can take a look at discrimination with the little things like equal protection under the law, equal opportunity employment, and housing rights. I mean we’re not asking for much just the same things that every heteronormative and cisnormative individual has. This shouldn’t be that hard, there’s no asterisk next to all men are created equal, there is no “but” in the civil right act. The fact that some people likes boys instead girls, girls instead of boys, or identifies as a gender different from the one assigned to them at birth should not make them any less of a human being. So why is it that in most cities I can still is be fired from my job or denied medical care? There is nothing about my sexuality that makes my skillset any different or my body any less functional.

Then let’s talk about the elephant in the room, cakes. Now I know I have said some things before about Christians and their businesses and what I think they can do with them, and there’s part of me that firmly believes what I say, however I don’t think we should be fighting this war over cake, flowers, or catering in general. I believe the concept of discriminating against someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is ridiculous. This discrimination in 2015 looks as ridiculous as discriminating against someone based on their race looked in the 1960s. How can we claim to be a progressive society; a melting pot of different cultures, ideas and beliefs yet we want to exclude one segment of the population just because they are different.

So as we come to the end of LGBT history month let’s also remember that this fight didn’t start with marriage equality. Anyone coming here from my Instagram (@ravenillusion) knows that I’ve been covering LGBT history month events there just to show some of the struggles and triumphs that have happened in the past. There are many pioneers that have come and gone that have fought for the rights that we have today so take some time to remember them, and look onward to the pioneers of the future.

In Honor of Matthew Shepard

It is LGBT History Month and today in LGBT marks the anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard from injuries sustained in an attack six days earlier. Shepard’s death was a hate crime and brought to light hate crimes in America and even caused the creation of hate crime laws. So I thought it would be a good idea to honor him today with a little look back at the tragedy.

It was on the night of October 6, 1998 outside of Laramie, Wyoming that Shepard was beaten and tortured by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. They lured him out to a rural area and pistol whipped and tortured him and tied to a fence and left him for dead. McKinney and Henderson were not drunk or on drugs that night and after they left Matthew for dead they returned to town and picked a fight with two Hispanic youths. Matthew was beaten so badly that his face was so covered in blood that that the only clean spots were those that had be cleaned by his tears. When he was found he was in a coma and was died six days later on October 12, 1998. McKinney stated in an interview that Henderson pretended to be gay to lure Matthew into his car with the intent to rob him and McKinney attacked him after he put his hand on his knee, McKinney stated to a detective that his violence was triggered by his feelings toward gays.

Henderson pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping and in order to avoid the death penalty agreed to testify against McKinney. He received two life sentences. During McKinney’s trial it was argued that it was greed and violence that prompted the killing not Matthew’s sexual orientation, they even argued the gay panic defense stating that he was driven to temporary insanity by Matthew’s advances towards him. McKinney was found guilty of felony murder and after a deal was brokered was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

This horrific murder brought to light the need for hate crimes laws in America. When Matthew was killed under federal and Wyoming state law crimes committed based on sexual orientation were not prosecutable as hate crimes. A bill was first attempted in Wyoming House and it failed in a 30-30 tie. Bill Clinton attempted to extend federal hate crime legislation to include homosexuals and the US House rejected the efforts in 1999. In September of 2000 Congress passed legislation, but it was stripped out in conference committee. In March of 2007 the Matthew Shepard Act (H. R. 1592) was introduced to Congress, the bill passed however then President George W. Bush said he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk. In December 2007 a bipartisan hate crimes legislation was attached to a DOD bill, but it failed to pass. Nancy Pelosi was still committed to getting the Matthew Shepard Act passed, she did not succeed. When Barack Obama was elected he was committed to get the act passed. Finally on October 22, 2009, more than 10 years after his death the Senate passed the act with a vote of 68-29, President Obama signed the Act into law on October 28, 2009.

As much of a victory the passing of this act is the fact that it took over 10 years from Matthew’s death for it to pass was a real tragedy. To believe that it had passed back in 2007 and couldn’t be signed into law because of the bias of one man makes me sad. It did however pass and has left a legacy on the USA.