What’s My Motivation Again?

So ever since I came out, there’s been these buzz phrases bandied about:

Gay Community

Gay Leaders

Celebrate Diversity.

If you asked me, I don’t believe in any of them. I just don’t think they exist and I’m sure by saying that, someone may want to revoke my Homo-Express card and tear up my Gay Handbook. Sorry. I wasn’t issued those, nor was I invited to attend orientation.

Allow me to explain. As far as I can tell, the “Gay Community” is just that. Neiborhoods where gays tend to gather like the Montrose in Houston, SoHo in Tampa, Castro in San Francisco etc. Although it seems that the “gay community” is a generic term for all of us, sort of “sticking together” if you will. I can see the former, but I can’t see the latter.

As far as gay leaders, I have no idea who they are. I know there’s supposed to be the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Is there anybody I’m missing? Anywho, these groups, in my opinion, don’t speak necessarily for me. On paper, it might seem that they do, but I think their leadership is obfuscated by their liberal agendas. For example, I should think that if they were opposed to gay marriage bans, they would oppose it no matter who puts it out there. However, they appear to be rather silent when “Democrats” float the idea or when a “Democrat” is governor.

I asked both groups in an e-mail about a week or so ago asking why they were so silent on the Virginia gay marriage ban. Not only did the groups refuse to answer, but the NGLTF added me to their e-mail list. HRC, I would guess, found that I’m already on theirs, so they ignored me altogether.

Now I come to the “Celebrate Diversity” line. This is partially true in that people from all walks of life, religions, races, nationality etc. are gay. However, there seems to be little tolerance amongst us for those with differing beliefs.

Here’s some examples:

Gay liberals may not like gay conservatives. Gay conservatives may not like gay liberals (I just laugh at them myself). Some gay whites probably may not like gay blacks, vice-versa, and they probably both don’t like gay Hispanics. Some gay men don;t like the flaming queens. Flaming queens may not like the leather crowd. The leather guys may not like the Drag Queens. Label queens snub their noses at t-shirt and shorts guys (like me) etc. etc. etc. You get my point.

No? My point is this: There is a lot of intolerance within the gay community from what I’ve seen. Sure there are those who love everybody, but I think that if you’re going to have a “Celebrate Diversity” bumper sticker or t-shirt, you should do just that.

This all brings me back to gay leadership. Who the heck are the “leaders” in our “community”? What are they leading us towards? These are two major questions I would have. Would I would like to see is a person or persons emerge to lead towards the common goals that we all have. This should be people who are more interested in putting aside any differences in exchange for pushing what we want and deserve. I’d follow a gay liberal if we shared the same common goal and they were willing to do what it takes to achieve it. Hell, I’d follow Andrew Sullivan or that Avarosis (Sp?) guy if they were actually serious and wante d to put aside all the B.S., bloviating and pomposity.

A lot of gays like to compare us to the Civil Rights movement, so let’s use that example. O.k., it’s been a while since I’ve studied that, but were those who fought hardest all the same? Did they all have the same beliefs? Did they care who wore what to the clubs? Or did they just stick together for the sake of what they wanted?

I think that if there were a sincere desire to achieve gay rights, folks would be willing to put aside their differences to get it. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody willing to do so.

The catch-phrase on my high school football team was “Ya gotta want it!” That meant that you had to put everything else aside, focus your attention on your job and your common goal of victory. If we had a bad play in practice or a bad practice over all, our coach would start his tirade with “Goddamn it(insert last name here), you don’t want it bad enough!” Shouldn’t that be our catch-phrase also? It seems nobody on our team wants it bad enough. Sure when we lose, as it were, they’re good about wallowing in pitty and blaming other people for it, but where does that get you?

Let’s forget about laying blame everywhere. Some say it’s Republicans in our way. I say there’s liberals in our way too. Some say evangelical Christians are in our way. I say there’s plenty of non-Christians too. You know it’s true, so what the hell’s the point in fabricating obstacles?

 I don’t think we’re getting very far. It seems to me that we are our own obstacles and we’re more than willing to lay the blame elsewhere. We don’t have any sort of real leadership willing to put irrelevant issues aside for one reason or another. So what are we going to do about it?

Long story short, I won’t follow you if there are irrelevant caveats like fighting for women’s rights, abortion rights, voting for “Democrats” etc. So, what’s my motivation for following you?

 I suppose I rambled a bit. Essentially I just hammered this out and hoped for the best. Perhaps someone else could have said it more eloquently or more “nuanced” but hey, this is me. This is how I rolled.