National Coming Out Day

Today is National Coming Out Day and I feel it is one of the more important days of the year when it comes to moving forward on full equality for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.

You have probably seen pools in which people are asked if they support gay rights. Quite often the question about gay rights is followed up by a second question, "Do you know anyone personally who is gay or lesbian?" This second question is the one that interests me the most. As you would expect those who answer "yes" to the second question are much more likely to answer "yes" to the first question as well. That makes perfectly good sense. What makes no sense at all is the fact that people still answer no when asked if they know anyone who is gay or lesbian.

There might be one or two old hermits who live in remote areas of the Rocky Mountains and who only eat what they can find and who refuse to ever talk to another human being period who could say that they don't know anyone who is gay or lesbian, but they aren't going to be answering the phone to take one of these surveys! Lets face it, everyone knows someone who is gay or lesbian. We are your friends, your family, your doctors, your convenience store clerks,your lawyers, your burger flippers, your teachers, your neighbors, sometimes we are even your florists and hairdressers. Who we are is who everyone else in this country is, but some people still think they don't know anyone who is gay because no one has ever said to them "I'm gay". It is important that we in the LGBT community be open and honest about who we are, not just with our close friends and families, although we should start there, but also with the people where we work, the people where we go to church, the people where we shop, we should be open about who we are everywhere so that no one can believe any longer that they don't know anyone personally who is gay.

If we can get our society to this point then the fight for equality for LGBT people will be over. We will not win this battle with lobbying although there are plenty of groups who will claim it is the only way and take your money so they can prove themselves wrong. We will not win this battle by screaming slogans and carrying signs even though that can be quit a bit of fun. No, we will win this by showing that we are a diverse group of people no better or worse than any other group and no less deserving of equal rights. Oh yeah, a little help from the Courts wouldn't hurt too :-) The fact is that once people know us and realize that they have known us for years, they will have a hard time looking us in our eyes and saying we don't deserve the same rights as they do.

I understand that many of you think you can't come out. I thought that for a long time as well. All I can say is stay safe, do not risk your safety to come out of the closet, and secondly start working on getting yourself to the point where you can come out to as many people as possible. Life is much better when you aren't hiding, this I can promise you. I also believe that living as who we are as individuals makes all of our lives better as a group. No one has to come out today just because it sounds all "official" today, but if you are still in the closet on any level, think about what coming out will do for you and for everyone else and start moving towards that goal. You may not come out today, but it is as good of a day as any to start working on it.