Legalize Gay

Recently, I went to D.C. to visit the wonderful Samantha Dahl.  I could tell you about the trip, but then I'd have to kill you.  Seriously.  But that isn't the subject of this post.  While I was there, Brittany, John, and I visited the Human Rights Campaign store.  It was pretty awesome.  For those of you not familiar with HRC, they are a LGBT rights organization.  The yellow equal sign inside a blue square is their symbol.  They had flags, shirts, bags, watches, bracelets, pins and pens, all sorts of stuff.  While I was there, I bought this awesome bag:

I am completely obsessed with it.  Since I got back from D.C. I have been carrying it around with my purse and a library book or two in it.

Those of you who know me well already know where I stand on the issue of gay rights but here it is for the rest of you.  I think that this movement is the civil rights movement of our generation.  I want to practice civil rights law when I graduate, ideally for Lambda Legal, the ACLU or South Carolina Equality.  But even if I don't get hired by any of those organizations, this is what I want to do with my life.  This struggle for equality, for love, is my calling.  I feel strange using the phrase "my calling" because of its religious connotations but no other words express how strongly I feel about this.  I think it is what I am meant to do and I won't be fulfilled doing anything else.  I simply can't sit and watch this battle, I have to be involved.

Now back to the bag...  Since I have been carrying my Legalize Gay bag, I have left it at home more than once because I didn't want to have to deal with people's reactions to it.  Thursday I went to dinner with my mom.  My parents are very very conservative evangelical christians.  They barely know me at this point in my life because it's just easier to not tell them things than to get the "You're going to hell" lecture.  I haven't told them what kind of law I want to practice because I know they would be disappointed but that won't change my mind.  If I tell them now I'll have to deal with their disappointment and their efforts to change my mind/save my immortal soul for the next few years.  Now once I am actually a lawyer I'll absolutely tell them but for now it's just easier to omit it.  That has been my general theory with my parents on a lot of things in my life (sex, drinking, the whole not going to church thing) and it has worked fine thus far.  On Friday, I took the bag to the Strom (USC's student gym).  While I was walking around the track between lunge sets, I kept looking over to where I had left it.  I wasn't terribly worried about it being stolen, I was more worried that someone would vandalize it or something.  Yesterday I babysat for my cousin's two little ones.  I traded my stuff over into a Tridelta tote before I went to get them because I didn't want to have to talk to my aunt and uncle about it.  I went to Skyline (a line dancing club in West Columbia) last night and left it behind.  Usually, I would just bring a small purse to Skyline but it was raining when we left so I wanted to bring an umbrella too.  I saw the bag on my bed and almost grabbed it so I could carry both things together but I stopped myself.  I was worried that someone would see it and try to bother me or mess with it.

So I have left my bag behind three times and one other time I have been concerned about its well being.  I've owned it for less than a week.  This whole thing has made me very conscious of the privilege of being straight in our hetero-normative society.  While I consider my dedication to the LGBT rights movement as a very important part of who I am, it is not nearly as basic as my sexuality.  I go out with my boyfriend to bars, restaurants, the grocery store, wherever and I don't have to worry about the kind of reactions we'll get.  I get to be proud of him, to show him off.  I was always aware of this privilege somewhere in my little brain, but this one week of "Should I bring the gay bag or not?" has made that knowledge so much more real to me.  LGBT individuals don't get to leave their sexual or gender identity at home.  For them it is more a question of "Should I hide who I am?  Is it safe to be me here?" and that fucking pisses me off.  They don't always get to show off their awesome significant others or even themselves.

My experiences this week have also made me wonder if I should be more honest with my parents about who I am.  To understand the extent to which this would hurt my parents, you need to understand what they expect of me.  They want me to be a good christian girl.  There are lots of definitions out there of what makes a good christian, I don't mean to say that the one I am about to put forth is right or wrong, it is just what my parents believe.  They want me to believe in God and Jesus his son.  They want me to accept Jesus as my personal savior.  They want me to not drink, smoke or cuss at all.  Also, no drugs.  They want me to go to church at least once a week.  They want me to wait until marriage (to a good christian man) to have sex.  They want me to take a passive and submissive role in my dating and marriage relationships as the bible says is appropriate for women.  They want me to be a conservative, pro-life republican who opposes LGBT marriage and rights.  I am almost* none of those things.  So when I say "I support LGBT rights" my parents will hear "I'm an unsaved sinner who is going to hell."  My mother will be devastated and my dad will be livid.  But is it fair, to them and to me, to not tell them?  Am I essentially lying by not telling them these things?

I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do but when I do, I'll let y'all know.

*I don't smoke or do any illegal drugs but that's because those things are super bad for you.