Photo credit: Benson Kua
Recently, when a high school student asked our senator, Ron Johnson, if health care was a right or a privilege, he replied “I think it’s probably more of a privilege.” He then asked, “Do you consider food a right? Do you consider clothing a right? Do you consider shelter a right? What we have as rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have the right to freedom. Past that point, everything else is a limited resource that we have to use our opportunities given to us so that we can afford those things.”
Never mind that food, shelter and health care are required to sustain life, or that the cited right to freedom implies freedom from fear of the loss of life if we lack of those “resources.” As for the pursuit of happiness, that relies on freedom from fear. Yet, in Ron Johnson’s Republican world, those rights are reserved for those who can pay for them, otherwise, you do live in fear. So, if you’re African American you fear extrajudicial execution; if Latinx, you fear deportation; if a woman, you fear loss of reproductive rights; and, if LGBTQ, you fear discrimination, bashing (physical or psychological) or worse.
Living in fear isn’t freedom and certainly prevents pursuing happiness. Speaking of which, this past week, LGBTQs were repeatedly told that we are not equal or worthy of that right to happiness. In the U.N., a resolution passed condemning the executions of LGBTQs. The United States voted against it. Then, the Department of Justice announced the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not protect transgender people from discrimination. And, as if to ice the cake, it also released a memo empowering discrimination against LGBTQs in the name of religion, essentially elevating religious beliefs (read Christian) above the rule of law. There’s also been a spate of anti-gay scrubbing going on. Just as the White House website removed all LGBTQ references on Inauguration Day, we have now been removed from the 2020 census and, according to Julie Bock, senior vice president of programs at Pathfinders, a Milwaukee youth services organization, references to LGBTQ youth have been removed from federal grant applications.
Ironically, Wednesday, Oct. 11 is National Coming Out Day. Just a year ago, its celebration was almost reduced to a shrug because some believed our progress had made the act of coming out a given. Sure, there were still lots of closeted people, but especially younger people seemed no longer encumbered by the pervasive fears of the past. Now, in light of government-encouraged and -endorsed animus, one can understand a renewed reluctance for people to come out. Who would honestly want to expose themselves to hate and discrimination? But that’s precisely the strategy. This is what theocracy looks like.
Now, more than ever before, it is paramount for us to be visible. And, for the moment, we are. Last weekend SSBL held its annual international gay softball tournament, ARCW’s AIDS Walk raised more than $400,000, and the LGBT Community Center’s Big Night Out fundraiser and the LGBT Film/Video Festival are in the offing.
Can we maintain the momentum to resist oppression? We’d better. Going back in the closet is not an option.
