Thanks Marla--I can only imagine the reaction of t...

2005-07-25T19:48:00.000-05:00

Thanks Marla--I can only imagine the reaction of the Senators. The key to change on this issue is to constantly put the promoters of the anti-gay bigotry in this state and country on the defensive. They are shocked when the "bigot" label is placed on them and begins to have currency. Some members of the media are starting to cover stories from this perspective, but most are not.

Gary

Thank you for posting this. I testified about thi...

2005-07-25T19:14:00.000-05:00

Thank you for posting this. I testified about this practice at a hearing of a committee of the Indiana Senate some years back after an Iranian man I'd met online while working toward the Stonewall 25 events had been executed for being gay by being thrown from the top of a tall building.

The subject of the hearing was remembrance of the Holocaust. I was at the hearing for another bill and hadn't planned to testify on the Holocaust one but there had been too much head-in-the-sand introductory talk by some of the legislators present intimating that the United States was altogether a good guy where the Holocaust's victims were concerned and that weren't they all so pleased that that sort of thing was all so all but far behind us. So I gathered my courage and spoke off the cuff.

I opened my testimony with an explanation of the meaning of the pink triangle and about how the United States, after liberating the camps, forced the survivors who were incarcerated in concentration camps because they were convicted of violations against Nazi-era anti-gay laws to remain imprisoned until they had served out the entire sentences the Nazis had ordered.

Then I said that the past was also the present, telling about the death squads then targeting gay people in Brazil and Costa Rica and the enforcement of antigay Sharia laws in many predominantly Muslim countries, finishing with the story about the fate of my Iranian acquaintance and linking the mentality behind it to police abuse of gay people in the United States and, in that pre-Lawrence era, the existence of antigay laws punishing consensual sex in private in this country with sentences up to life in prison.

Asking them to think of my friend and what the last moments of his life must've been like, I could not help but think of that myself.

With tears running down my cheeks, I apologized at the end for redirecting attention from those who had suffered in the past but hoped that they'd understand that we all had a greater obligation to protect the living currently in peril.

More than a few of the Senators -- all of which subgroup had antigay voting histories -- were visibly displeased that I'd spoiled their party (and, for those whose antigay records were well known, their opportunity to enhance their reputations as humane respecters of human diversity.) The Holocaust survivors, however, noticing this dynamic, all made a point to come to me to visibly demonstrate that they appreciated my using the opportunity their suffering had earned for good cause and tell me never to hesitate to do so in the future.

Thank you again for reminding the world that "Never Again" is still a long way off.

Comments on Advance Indiana™: Iran's Gay Lynchings

Thanks Marla--I can only imagine the reaction of t...

Thank you for posting this. I testified about thi...