Photo Credit: Katherine Keller/Bay View Compass (bayviewcompass.com)
Members of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) gathered in opposition to a Drag Queen Story Hour in Bay View.
Last Saturday, in charming Bay View, there was an anti-LGBTQ rally. It seems a local cell of the Roman Catholic-inspired, extremist American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) decided to spew their homophobia in protest of a Drag Queen Story Hour. The TFP is the same group that petitioned against a Marquette University LGBTQ alumni dance held last year in March (see my March 27, 2018 column on the subject). Deemed a heretical cult by mainstream Catholics, its members aren’t particularly fond of them either, calling the church’s more moderate modern thinkers “apostates” and Popes John Paul II and Francis I satanic.
Anyway, along with the obligatory banners emblazoned with hateful slogans, the TFP brought an effigy of their patron Madonna (the virgin one, not the “Like a Virgin” one). But, as the group assembled, a clarion went out on social media and a counter-demonstration ensued. A local resident reported being called a “faggot” by a protester. Eventually, everybody left, and Bay View returned to its respectably gay and hipster calm.
Were it not for the unrelenting litany of homophobic offences we endure nowadays, like Brother Ron’s recent Jesus Car breakdown, this otherwise silly slice of life in America would be laughable. But today, each homophobic microaggression, as innocuous as it might seem, enhances the macroaggression of institutionalized hate and has consequences.
In mid-April, 15-year-old Nigel Shelby, an Alabama high school freshman, committed suicide. He was gay, out, black and bullied. One reporter covering the story wrote “Kids can be cruel.” True enough, but the reality is that cruelty is taught, condoned and often encouraged by adults. As it happened, a local sheriff’s deputy celebrated Nigel’s suicide on his social media page. He subsequently resigned, but he made his point.
Then, while Nigel’s family mourned, news broke of yet another anti-LGBTQ act of state. This time it was a Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) announcement of a regulation that, according to the Human Rights Campaign, “would allow medical providers to cite their personal beliefs in refusing to provide a broad spectrum of services—including life-saving care—for LGBTQ patients.” HHS released the statement just in time for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Growing up LGBTQ in America can be challenging. If you’re lucky and live in a progressive city like Milwaukee, there are support options that have been shown to reduce youth suicide rates. High school Gay-Straight Alliances exist in a number of schools throughout the Milwaukee Public School system and have proven crucial in instilling a positive awareness of students grappling with their sexual identity, while also improving other students’ attitudes towards them. There’s also the Alliance School, an MPS charter school founded specifically for bullied youth. And, of course, Milwaukee recently joined a growing list of cities and states that ban so-called conversion therapy for minors. Sadly, such infrastructures do not exist throughout Wisconsin, much less throughout the country.
On a positive note, a majority of Americans support the Equality Act now before Congress. It would guarantee federal protections for LGBTQs. In a recent vote, the House Judiciary Committee approved the bill. All committee Republicans voted against it.
