Asking more from family and friends on queer rights

Following the election last Tuesday, I am very happy and hopeful about the future. Even though Proposition 8 passed in California, President Barack Obama will appoint liberal Supreme Court justices who will eventually give me full equality in the United States, maybe even in my lifetime. I have hope.

But in the meantime, it's going to be rough. Each step forward will be met with stiff opposition. Queers have long been convenient targets for political hate campaigns. This will get worse before it gets better. It already is.

Recently I've discovered that several long-time friends don't agree I should have equal rights, including the right to be married. Some of them have participated in campaigns specifically intended to take away my civil rights. By definition, these people are not my friends, and I will no longer encourage such behaviour with my continued association. These people will no longer be able to truthfully say "I have gay friends, but..." – not if they're referring to me.

I am also raising my expectations of my friends and family. In the past I simply asked friends and family to accept me and not say bad things in my presence. I didn't feel I had the right to ask them to volunteer for a cause, contribute money, or vote a certain way. Although I knew in some cases that they were opposed to my rights, I ignored it. I had very low self-esteem, and I just felt happy that people actually liked me: Internalized homophobia is powerful and insidious. Those days are past.

Now I will call on my friends and family to help advance my civil rights whenever I see fit. Since my friends and family love me as I love them, I expect they will be willing to help me. If friends and family are engaged in or supporting organizations that hold anti-gay agendas, it is my expectation that they work to improve those organizations from within. To be clear, I'm not unreasonable: I don't actually expect my friends and family to live up to my every expectation any more than I live up to theirs.

Queer issues will never be as important to most of my friends and family as they are to me. But now I'm not going to hesitate to ask for help, and if that turns out to be a problem, it will be short-lived. It will be fantastic if they choose to help, and it will be okay if they don't, but no friend will be allowed to work against my civil rights and remain my friend. This is called self-respect, and it starts now.