Editor’s Letter, Gay Liberation

This feels like a huge week, perhaps one of the biggest. A turning point.

This feels like a huge week, perhaps one of the biggest. A turning point. Its not really about the legalities of marriage and the 1300 something laws that are now available to legally wed same-sex couples. Its about love.

Not just the romantic love that delivers us into the arms of a committed partnership, although that is most certainly a part of it…

But the love which drives a community, over decades, to accomplish feats of epic heroism.

Its about the women, men and persons who risked their reputations and their jobs, gave up families and security and homes, and in some cases their lives, so that generations they would never meet would not face the same torments as they. That is love.

And while there are still laws to pass and over turn, this week’s rulings have given us a concrete sense of the inevitable. Don’t you feel it? Equality in every quarter and corner of our lives will be ours. The absolute conviction of that possibility is rooted in the ceaseless and selfless efforts of so many. That is love.

Despite our cultural, ethnic, aesthetic and even political differences, we have come together over the decades to stop a pandemic, reshape our entire nation’s attitudes (several times) and steered the course of history.

No doubt this has not come without struggles between us. We are communities within communities. We have traded harsh words, and there are difference in the way we may see where our movement is going or how even to lead it. But when history finally pivots, its not because of one organization or individual but the woven efforts of our many hands pushing back and lurching forward in unison.

And so my deepest hope for my community is that as we redefine and recalibrate our paths, we look at each other not as adversaries with cruel and biting words, but with mutual respect and tempered conversation. In the end don’t we all want acceptance? And isn’t it sometimes the ones closest to us; friends, lovers, family whose words can cut us down most?

So at least on this weekend, my hope is a joyous revelry for a major milestone in our long march toward liberation.

Its with my deepest gratitude and pride to be a part of a truly awesome LGBTQIA community. Thank you.

Love and respect,
Grace Moon