Another thoughtful article by Michael A. Jones, a human rights activist. Here is an excerpt: One simple guess as to what Milk would say today, that doesn't differ at all from what Milk said during the last summer of his life in 1978 as he was fighting an anti-gay ballot initiative in California, is that gay people won't win any demands for equal rights so long as they stay hidden.
'Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying silently in our closets...We are coming out. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it,' Milk said.
That's pretty sage advice. If nobody knows that we're out there, they won't know that we deserve equal rights. And if nobody knows we're out there, then the other side's lies, distortions and myths about sexual orientation continue to gain influence.
Harvey and James are right: we need to continue to living our lives freely and courageously, not just in the Castro or Chelsea, but in Columbus and Charleston for all to see. We need to have those difficult conversations with relatives who don't know about our sexuality. We need to be ourselves, nothing more or less.
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