Several years ago--many, actually--after I moved to Miami,
Carlos and I went to Disney World. I'd been to Disneyland but not
yet to the World. So,
we did the Magic Kingdom and Epcot and had a really great time. Our last night,
wee stayed late for the fireworks and found a beautiful spot beside a pond to
watch the night sky light up.
As we were leaving, feeling
all aglow, I took Carlos' hand in mine as we walked out of the park. Just ahead
of us, a Lesbian couple was doing the same. Just ahead of that couple was,
well, this
guy, who looked back at The Lesbians and The Gays holding hands and said,
"What do you think this is? Gay Day?"
To which one of the Lesbians replied,
"Every day is gay day."
And the guy smirked, but kept
moving. I like that story because it
could have gotten ugly, but it just turned into a giggle and a smile.
Joel
Diaz and his friend, Ethan, after a night out, decided on getting some people together and going to a popular spot in their Columbus, Ohio neighborhood. As they
stood in line at Mikey's Late Night Slice--apparently the pizza is that good--Joel
and Ethan began holding hands.
Gay
day, though not so much. At first.
A
customer in front of the two men turned around and told the men to, ahem, cut
that "gay shit" out.
There weren't a couple of
Lesbians standing by to utter the line, "Every day is gay shit" or
something, but something else, quite lovely happened that night. Almost
every single person in the line that night made it clear to that guy to
cut that Homophobic shit
out.
And
while Joel and Ethan, and another gay friend of theirs, stood up for
themselves, and told the man that he couldn't speak to them like that and they
wouldn't take his bigoted remarks at all, it was the straight people in line
who stood up the loudest.
Of
course, as bigots do when they get called on their hate, he continued spewing venom,
ignoring the entire crowd. And that was when the people working at Mikey's
shouted to the man that they would not serve him because he was spewing hate.
They said they support everyone in our community and that he should get out of
line because they would not be serving him. He begrudgingly got out of line and
walked away escorted by a friend who had been hanging back.
How simple is that? Stand up against hate. Say something, do something,
non-violent, and the hate has no place to go, except home.
Joel wrote up his story for a Facebook post and shared it
with friends, who, of course, shared it with friends and so on and so on. Suddenly
the post had gone viral and people everywhere--even in a small town in South Carolina--began
telling the story of standing up against hate.
And the more it’s shared the more people stand up. The more
people realize it was just a couple standing in line for pizza and holding
hands against the cold. And what's not to like about that?
Stories like this give me hope for the future--especially as
more states fall into the Equality Column. People, straight people, are
beginning to finally realize that being gay isn't "shit" it's just
being gay. And two men, or two women, holding hands in Columbus Ohio or in the
Happiest Place On Earth should be treated no differently than any other couple anywhere
else.