There is a bittersweet ending to June and its celebration of LGBTQ Pride that gives way to July with its focus on Freedom.
As the country celebrates its independence, it seems to have lost sight of some of the basic lessons that come with freedom, like it applies to everyone, not just a select few.
It has only been six years since the LGBTQ community won the freedom to marry same-sex partners. An equal right, not an extra right which has been available to heterosexual couples for as far back as anyone can remember.
In 2020, the Supreme Court handed down the decision to grant equal employment rights to the LGBTQ community; these rights gave way to the same protections as outlined in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The rights were not extra; they were equal rights.
The LGBTQ community did not have the same freedoms concerning these two areas for decades and continues not to have the same rights regarding access to housing and healthcare. The ongoing debate lacks humanitarianism.
When I think of my life as a gay man and the freedoms I have, I quickly become perplexed and frustrated.
As a gay man, I have had to wait for others to decide to legalize my right to marry the person I love. I have had to wait for other people to decide on my freedom to work without fear of discrimination.
As a white man, it appears that I have certain freedoms that are not readily available to me because I am gay. I don’t want extra rights to live my life freely, I want equal rights, and I want them without having to work so hard to convince people that I am not infringing on their freedom to live in the ways they want to.
I am doing my best not to make this political, yet it seems the only way to get people who make decisions for people like me is to speak up and argue against the lack of equal freedoms.
In the end, it requires people to be compassionate, caring, and concerned about how they treat their fellow citizens. The fact remains that people who want equal rights do not lessen any other people’s rights. It is not like a pie with only so many slices.
I look forward to the day when we all have the equal freedoms and rights envisioned on this day by our founding representatives 245 years ago.
Our access to freedoms and rights should not result in cognitive dissonance when we look at different parts of who we are and show up and see some areas have freedoms while others do not.
With much gratitude.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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