When Matthew Shepherd was beaten and killed 18 years ago I cried, became furious and then took action.
I still remember that pain. I remember it when I feel most vulnerable. I remember the sense of powerlessness. I remember my anger. He was my age when he died. But over time, I grew complacent and selfish. I isolated myself from my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, buying into the bullshit that there are "good ones" among us. It is a lie. It is a lie told to us by our mainstream culture to make us conform and to distract us from this fact—we are born free.
Now, 20 years later, we are in a worse predicament. Forty-nine. Forty-nine of us are in body bags in Orlando. Forty-nine. Forty-nine of us went out with their friends and their lovers and their partners to dance and be authentically themselves in a place created to be safe from judgment and bullies and shitty people. Imagine, five friends go to dance and drink. Only one came home. Who among us has not thought this? We look at our own friends; these beautiful families that we have created and wonder, "What would I do if this happened to us?" Now, the straight community is again trying to take away a tragedy that is unfortunately ours. They are attempting to make this into a terrorist attack on the people of the United States in general while conveniently burying its insidious nature.
This was not just a national tragedy. This was a radicalized jerk who is a direct product of not only his deformed vision of Islam from ISIL but also by the equally deformed and deranged form of Christianity practiced by hundreds of high-profile public figures and celebrities along with millions of imbeciles across this "free" country. Remember this: Every single anti-LGBT Christian church, pastor and person who has tried in any way, even in the smallest possible way, to make us less than human, to take away our god-given inalienable right to be free, is guilty and has our brothers' and sisters' blood on their hands and splattered all over their faces.
How can anyone believe that a manufactured right to "keep and bear arms," written, mind you when it took a full two minutes to load a gun that was only accurate 30 percent of the time once fired, somehow is more important than the ability for any human to take a precious breath. That … THAT my LGBT beauties is what we are now fighting for—THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO BREATHE!
Has anyone else found a correlation between gun-owner proponents and those who, without question, support our police? But this bizarre dichotomy and hypocritical position is not tenable. They want the police to have tanks and paramilitary gear to "protect us." And yet at the same time they are crying for guns to protect themselves. They are, in essence, saying that these indispensable men and women in blue, who should be obeyed without question are: 1 ) not doing their jobs, and 2 ) need to be watched vigilantly by an armed population. But they are so consumed with patriotic pandemonium and self-justified fervor that they cannot understand how these two positions should not and cannot be held by one person at the same time. Either you want the citizens to do the policing or you want a specialized and properly deputized force to do the policing.
If there was any moment under the sun to act and to do and to speak and to be out—It. Is. Now. Every time you think "someone should do something" it is a call for YOU to take up our rainbow flag and do more than goddamn wave it. You need to wear it, own it, make it into a dress and WORK IT. Every single one of us has gifts to offer, no matter how small. Volunteer to be a greeter, a water person at an LGBT Pride run, a go-go boy on a pride float throwing beads at screaming gays and our allies. We can each do our own part to help our leaders to more easily do their jobs. We cannot just stand around and listen to the music. Work first. Then party. And, oh my, what a party this will be when our work is done.
I am not going to be silent. Of course I rarely am anyway, but I vow to be louder, to be prouder, to be an active volunteer, to be present and to, every day, remember Orlando. Remember the dead so that they would not have died in vain. Look at their faces. Look at the grief-stricken faces of their mothers. Look at the faces of their friends who survived them. They are us.
Joe Franco is a freelance contributing writer living in Andersonville. He has written many articles for Windy City Times.
