It’s a sad picture – a photograph taken of a couple determined to make life miserable for a segment of our community for reasons I can’t quite understand.
It was taken seven years ago at a city council meeting during discussion of Eureka Springs’ Domestic Partnership Registry that eventually passed.
These same people are back, and again determined, this time with outside help and money, to overturn our anti-discrimination ordinance.
And once again I’m puzzled, because I can’t understand their fear.
It’s difficult to share our fears. It makes us vulnerable, these intimate feelings – feelings we don’t want to share with ourselves, never mind our perceived enemies.
I own my own home and therefore will never have to fear being kicked out from under my roof for sharing my bed with another man.
I’m self-employed and never have to worry that I might lose my job because I was perceived too effeminate.
But I do fear that I, or a loved one, could be refused medical treatment from a doctor, nurse or EMT because they say it goes against their religious beliefs – or suffer the humiliation of being barred from a lunch counter, denied a loan, refused a new set of tires, a birthday cake for my partner or a coffin, simply for being gay.
The LGBT community is no stranger to fear, and I doubt anyone gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender has not been a victim of oppression or marginalized for just being true to themselves.
So what is the other side afraid of? What do they think they gain, or lose, by rabidly going against us in our fight for equality? Surely it’s more than just the issue of bathrooms for the transgendered.
Contrary to what they may think, we are not out to get them, take over their town or take down their religion. What we want are just the same equal protections their families take for granted – nothing less and nothing more.
This fear and loathing, coming from the other side, and its “love the sinner hate the sin” rhetoric, are disingenuous at best.
Tell me honestly what you feel and fear and maybe we can have an honest conversation that just might turn those frowns upside down.
Thank you John. No one should fear such an open dialogue. I know I was scared of homosexuals when I was growing up. I mistakenly thought that every gay man acted like Liberace. The only information out then that I had access to was a book by Dr. David Ruben called, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask”. I sneaked reading my parents’ copy when I was 13. The chapter on gay people basically said that lesbians didn’t really exist. They were only faking it for movies. As for gay men they were all obese, had food fetishes, and met in Greyhound bus stations and their biggest thrill was to get a shot glass up their arses. Of course as an impressionable young boy who knew he was attracted to the same sex beginning at age 5 this horrified me. I thought I would lead a hellish life and society told me that being gay was about the worst thing in the world. This idea contrasted greatly with how I lead my life. I was always an A student, I volunteered at a young age. I was a Cub Scout & Boy Scout. Most everyone seemed to like me because I was kind, caring, and helpful. Still if they knew my secret I might be spat upon, kicked around or killed. In fact at about age 19 while at my University I almost committed suicide. I could no longer live this life that said, “Thou Shalt Not Lie”, but I felt I could not be honest to anyone about the simple truth that I loved men. This was while I was still a virgin. Jump ahead 40 years and I believe I have lead a honorable life. I have contributed much to many charitable causes. I have helped many people out by taking the time to listen & talk with them. I have donated endless hours to various environmental, animal, and civil rights causes. I have never been arrested for anything and generally am viewed by most educated and open-minded persons as a good American citizen. I don’t have any of the talents of people such as Alan Turing who broke the Nazi code and helped create the modern computer or astronaut and scientist Sally Ride. I could only hope to be as brave as Mark Bingham, who attempted to overtake the 9/11 hijackers in the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. The musical talents of Elton John have brought such joy to millions, something I wish I could do. Writers James Baldwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, & Oscar Wilde have helped educate and entertain millions more. Imagine how much less culture we would have without Leonard Bernstein or Frida Kahlo. These are but a few of the folks that under a law in Arkansas could be fired simply because of who they love, something they were born with. This is not a law that says you can fire them for not doing their jobs or for stealing or lying but for who they are or were, upstanding citizens for the most part, who contributed thousands of time more to society than probably any person reading this blog. It’s ironic that those who want the right to arbitrarily fire someone or kick them out of their apartment because someone is gay are generally people who are protected by law from being fired or made homeless because of something they clearly choose to be (a Baptist, Mormon, Catholic, Protestant, etc.). So I ask those who think it’s okay that a modern day Alan Turing who saved tens of thousand of lives during WWII could be fired from his job in Arkansas simply because of who he loved and it bothered you, if that is moral, or representative of life, liberty, and justice for all? Okay, I welcome the factual feedback of folks who do believe it is fine to be able to kick someone out of their rented homes or fire law-abiding citizens from their jobs simply because you do not agree with who we love.
The best example I can think of is this: as a wildlife educator, I have learned over the years that there are people who will kill any snake they see, because the Bible says snakes are evil. They do not WANT to be educated on the difference between venomous and non-venomous snakes. Then there are the people who kill any snake they see because no one taught them the difference. Once they learn that harmless snakes are best left alone and perform us a service, and that venomous snakes are MORE likely to bite you if you try to kill them, they reconsider killing snakes. Then there are the people who really WANT to learn about snakes and to understand them. There are also people who are neither interested in, nor afraid of snakes. And then there are the snakes themselves, minding their own business, and wondering what all the fuss is about.
The difference lies in the explanation given to me by my paternal grandmother when, as a child, I called a racist person, “ignorant.” “No, honey,” she said. “He’s not ignorant. He KNOWS racism is wrong, but he keeps on being racist anyway. The difference between ignorance and stupidity is that the ignorant person does NOT know, and the stupid person does not WANT to know.” That last part is hard to change. Especially in those folks who believe that they are God’s footsoldiers to enforce an ancient book in the modern world, all the while deliberately — stupidly — ignoring the concept that if God didn’t want there to be any gay people, he wouldn’t create gay people. Since it is not possible, at least in their minds, that God may not exist at all, they actually believe that they are good, and righteous, by being his enforcers. You can’t have open dialogue with people who only know how to open their mouths and not their ears.
Dearest John Rankine I so admire your determination, honesty, heart, creative ambition and expressiveness. These are merely ‘a few of my favorite things’ I love about you as I SING your praises (no pun intended)… Eureka Springs has always been a gem to me, a gem to live in truly because of the diversity. The opinions, joy, sadness, challenges, solutions and life that happens here is real. The genuine quirky souls that call Eureka Springs home are what make us all who we are and we all live in mutual symbiosis in this little village stuck smack dab in the middle of the Arkansas Ozarks . This eclectic village is in the midst of a very conservative area in Arkansas. That is the only reason WHY I live here in Arkansas, EUREKA, ‘I found it’ my people. Truly to understand what pushes people forward against others choices I will never understand, but it happens. My thoughts are, some are not happy, and when unhappy people exist they have a tendency to wish to share that unhappiness with others by pushing their beliefs onto those who are living their true lives or at least trying to. Fear and ignorance sometimes prevail and other times those who do not understand do not wish to take the time to. Occasionally and more often then not I have seen others circumstances change where they have to deal with precisely what they have been fighting against. Then sometimes those who were vehemently against something begin to embrace it because that issue now is affecting their own lives directly. It is at that time they become more open. I call this the Universes way of bringing life to a full circle gently. While recently dealing with a very personal issue regarding a change in lifestyle in my own immediate family, I am empathetic to all humans being respected and not discriminated against. Some individuals lifestyles are not usual but isn’t that what life is made up of, DIFFERENCES Uniquely our own. Can you imagine how boring it would be if we were all the same? We can only pray that everyone will be more empathetic in the future. One day maybe we all won’t have to fight so hard for what we believe in and live in PEACE. My thoughts go back to your brilliant photo shoot of “‘A Community at PEACE’ ~ hugs ~ gina Eureka Springs Peaceful Resident ~
You are so correct, John. It is just sad. They are wearing their politics on their faces, and it is not good for the rest of us. You can see it. Is there anything that would soften them, one wonders? If the gentleness of their idol can’t do it, I don’t know what possibly could. About the only thing I’ve ever seen change the mind of people such as these is if someone close, say a child of theirs, came out. Even then, it’s just a crap shoot. All of us, I’m sure, know too many who have been rejected by their family for being LGBT. Thanks, John.