I woke up last Tuesday morning with the sun streaming through my bedroom windows to the sounds of the birds singing their morning songs outside, and I thought to myself that the day was going to be filled with promise and productivity.
Most of you know that I’m moving to Lexington shortly, and there is much to do before I make the final transition. So, I woke up feeling energized, ready to start checking that To-Do list.
Then, I logged onto Facebook, a mistake in the first place, but today added extra ire to my fire. There I found a news story from The Advocate (the gay magazine, for those of you who aren’t familiar) about how two mentally disabled gay men were kicked out of the Hazard Pavilion by some bigot who works there reportedly because they are gay.
What… a terrible way to start my day.
I know eastern Kentucky is about 20 years behind the rest of the nation in social policy, but turning away two innocent individuals from a public facility simply because they are different? Come on, Hazard – grow up a little.
While I realize religion still has a strong hold on this region and remains at the center everyday life here, the treatment those two men received is unacceptable. Not only is it illegal to turn someone away from a public facility based on sexual orientation but it’s ethically wrong to turn someone away because of fear and hatred.
The Pavilion employee pulled the “Bible card” to defend his actions. The Bible apparently gives him the authority to turn people he doesn’t like away from the facility. I wonder if he turns away black people and women, too. I’m sure he’s a UK fan, so I wonder if Louisville fans are allowed to swim in his precious pool. What if a Muslim person came to swim? Would they be turned away based on some unofficial Bible authority this guy says he has?
It’s baffling to me that the Bible was this guy’s only excuse for being turning those two men away since all I’ve ever learned from the Bible is how to love and treat others the same exact way I would want to be loved and treated.
Clearly, this guy missed all those hundreds of verses and decided the only ones he was to adhere to are those that could possibly pertain to homosexuality.
And here I was, ready to accept a newfound perspective of my home county as a tolerant, accepting and open-minded place. Not that I was under any delusion that eastern Kentucky was as open-minded as New York, San Francisco, or even Lexington. But still, after working at the Hazard Herald for a year and a half and really getting a sort of behind the scenes look at Hazard and Perry County, I felt this place had come a long way since I first came out in high school.
I faced discrimination here, mostly from the administration at Perry County Central High School, but also from certain members of my family who told me I couldn’t bring my girlfriend to their get-togethers. I’ve walked out of church services in which gay people were mocked and I fought for over a year to establish a gay-straight alliance at PCC. I was made fun of by my classmates and gawked at by the men who work at the Mexican restaurant in town. But I was never – not even if I showed up hand-in-hand with my girlfriend at the time – told to leave an establishment because I was gay.
Perhaps I just didn’t go to where the bigots worked, but perhaps it doesn’t matter because they are clearly still living among us.
I don’t consider myself to be very vocal about my sexuality. I don’t browbeat people into liking the fact that I’m a lesbian and I’m always going to be a lesbian. Either people I know like me for who I am, or they tell me to stay away from family functions. It’s not my problem to fix if someone doesn’t like me because I’m gay – it’s that person’s problem with which to deal.
That being said, my fear is that those men, who are both reportedly mentally and intellectually disabled, will not be able to understand the concept of not caring what others think about their sexuality. They were just being themselves and trying to be “normal” in a world that already sees them as “other,” and this bigot decided it was his Biblical duty to tell them they were not welcome.
The two men walked away crying, in what I can only assume they was a devastated state of mind, and I’m sure on Sunday this guy will tell his congregation about how many stars his crown will have in it when he gets to heaven because he discriminated against two individuals “just like God told him to do.”
The good news is (if something like this can ever produce good news), the Kentucky Equality Federation is planning a protest at Hazard City Hall sometime in the near future. I’m not sure what good that will do in this town, but at least it will let other LGBT people know that the whole state is watching and that there are people, all over this commonwealth, who will support them and fight for them when given the chance.
We’re all just humans – no different than any other human – trying to make it in this world. It doesn’t matter who we love, it doesn’t matter what we believe: we all bleed, breathe and die the same. Instead of drawing lines between us and them and living in self-made walls of fear, we should all be most afraid of the lonely lives we will lead if we remain afraid of one another – lives of which I’m sure Jesus would be ashamed.
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