What the Hell is Wrong
With This Nation?
by Christine Cuomo, presented 10/15/98 on the University
of Cincinnati Campus at the Candlelight Vigil for Matthew Shepard
What the hell is wrong with this nation?
Matthew Shepard, a vibrant and personable young student, was brutally tortured and murdered last weekend by attackers so arrogant in their hatred that they displayed their savagery for all the world to see by hanging Matthew's broken body on a wooden fence.
And their arrogance was not unfounded. As Shepard lay unconscious in his hospital bed just miles away, fraternity boys at Colorado State University responded to this senseless horror by creating a homecoming float upon which hung an effigy of Matthew-- a scarecrow wearing a sign on its chest announcing "I'm gay."
I'm gay.
Well, I'm a lesbian and I refuse the idea that my desire to put my naked body next to the naked body of someone with the same genital structure as mine gives anyone a good reason to hurt me in any way. I'm a lesbian and I reject the notion that because I love a woman with the tenderness, passion, and normal everyday affection that anyone has for her beloved, I do not deserve full and equal protection under the law.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people stand for something very significant in this culture, in this moment. If those murderers in Wyoming, those frat boys in Colorado, those Justices on the Supreme Court and those voters in Cincinnati are all so threatened by us, we must be a very powerful force for social change. In fact, I believe we embody and enact a form of freedom that is likely to threaten anyone whose thrives on unquestioned norms and the judgement of others. I believe we threaten anyone who is comfortable with strict limitations on the flowering of his own soul.
Despite our differences, despite our faults, queers attempt to live out the truth provided by our own hearts-- to put love, desire, and happiness above social sanction and conformity. This is our courage and our strength. This is what we offer the world.
And the straight people who are with us-- those who oppose violence and discrimination out of a commitment to justice, and even more crucially, those who know in your hearts that there is no legitimate excuse for homophobia-- our families, our friends-- You have a special role in the fight for equality. We count on you to educate your communities. We count on you to be out about your support for the full equality of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered persons. We count on you to keep these issues and our interests visible when we are not present, to refuse to tolerate homophobia even when we are not around. We count on you to model for others respect for the dignity of all persons and all relationships of love and caring.
You know, everyone's sexuality is complicated. If the recent political events have shown us anything, it's that everyone's sex life seems pretty strange from the outside. But we cannot allow lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered persons to be scapegoats for our collective discomfort with sex, or our discomfort with difference. We cannot allow the radical right to continue to cast homoerotic sexuality as the prevailing evil in a society that condones inequality, hatred, racism, poverty and violence.
We are not the problem!
It's funny. When I heard about the brutal torture of Matthew Shepard, I wanted to rage in the streets. But when I heard about the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the Issue Three case, I wanted to hide under the covers, or run away. No matter how out we are, or how safe we feel, when hatred hits home it's difficult to keep up the will to fight.
But I urge you, as I urge myself: Keep fighting for those brave students and young people who are out and proud and who need our support.
Keep fighting to take our country back from the right wing extremists who have co-opted the Republican party and who would like to turn our pluralist democracy into a conservative orthodox state.
Keep fighting to keep your local progressive organizations strong, so that they can represent your needs and interests, and so they are ready to respond in the face of the everyday evils of political life.
Keep fighting for your passion, for your freedom, for your right to full and equal protection in the society to which you contribute.
Our silence will not protect us.
Our closets will not keep us safe.
And, you homophobes, your hatred will not protect you from what you fear, because we will continue to fight for a world where love matters more than convention, where desire is not a sin, and where our bodies and our love are sources not of shame, but of joy.
