Big Gay Closet

I have paid a high price for trying to keep my sexuality a secret. Losing your privacy, your Cabinet job and your perceived integrity within 48 hours isn’t very easy.

But I accept that I should have been more open and should have set a better example as a public figure. I will now need to take a few days to recover from the events of the last week and I then intend to get back to my work as local MP.

There are many people with far greater problems than I have and they are entitled to expect me to get on with the job which I am paid to do.

I love my job as local MP, and it is the greatest job and responsibility which I will ever have. Over the weeks ahead, I will want to understand whether I still have the confidence of my constituents, without which it would be difficult to continue my work.”

from PinkNews.co.uk

This is part of Harvey Milk‘s famous Hope Speech — the one that starts with “My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you.”

Today, these two paragraphs stuck out for me, and I thought I’d share. I hope you find them as grounding as I do.

Harvey says it’s all about “coming out”. Our anger, our frustration, our loneliness and ultimately the hope we can have in our leaders — those that come from our community — it’s all ours, and while having friends in high places is great, being in high places is better.

Like every other group, we must be judged by our leaders and by those who are themselves gay, those who are visible. For invisible, we remain in limbo–a myth, a person with no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no friends who are straight, no important positions in employment. A tenth of the nation supposedly composed of stereotypes and would-be seducers of children–and no offense meant to the stereotypes. But today, the black community is not judged by its friends, but by its black legislators and leaders. And we must give people the chance to judge us by our leaders and legislators. A gay person in office can set a tone, can command respect not only from the larger community, but from the young people in our own community who need both examples and hope.

The first gay people we elect must be strong. They must not be content to sit in the back of the bus. They must not be content to accept pablum. They must be above wheeling and dealing. They must be–for the good of all of us–independent, unbought. The anger and the frustrations that some of us feel is because we are misunderstood, and friends can’t feel the anger and frustration. They can sense it in us, but they can’t feel it. Because a friend has never gone through what is known as coming out. I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward. I remember the lack of hope–and our friends can’t fulfill it.

via The Hope Speech : Harvey Milk | From Dana’s Guests | DanaRoc.com.

I spend a fair amount of time in Harrisburg. I know who is closeted. Any closeted Senator who votes for Eichelberger’s bill will be outed. I also know a State Senator who is wildly homophobic and is also an alcoholic. One of her rants will also be made public depending on her vote. This is fair warning.

via The Pennsylvania Progressive:: The State Senate’s Bigotry.

What do you think? Is this fair?

The bill they are voting on is a “marriage protection bill” that will protect marriage from gay people who would like to destroy it marry.

UPDATE:

The bill has been tabled by a vote of 8-6. No word yet from The Pennsylvania Progressive as to whether he needs to make good on his threat.

An interesting quote, in light of the threat:

“We knew this was coming in the last couple of days because some of the people had switched their votes,” Eichelberger said, noting that even though the table motion could allow for the bill to be resurrected before the end of this session, that’s not going to happen. “The people who voted for this were voting to kill it. That’s the realistic picture. Why they did it, I don’t know, because they are some of the people who were in support of this effort in the past.”
from Philadelphia Gay News