Awake You Sleepy Giant: A Note to the Q Community

For a long time the Q community* has waited patiently.

We were patient as we were watched, discriminated against, and harassed by police officers until Compton Cafeteria and Stonewall, then we were patient with being ignored and living our isolated lives until the AIDS epidemic, then we were patient as we worked to educate our community until ACT UP, then we were patient with our government grants to educate until we realized that this would not be over until our culture could look at Q community as a vital extension of themselves.

The Eye of the Storm of Prop 8: So what has happened over the past few weeks? We have found ourselves fed up with allowing the tyranny of the majority dictate the lives of the minority.

When I moved out to Los Angeles in January I was hired at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center as their Vote for Equality Senior Field Organizer. Then the proponents for Prop 8 began a grass roots campaign that threatened equality in California.

Pro-equality Californian's answer to that was one of the largest coalition tactics to date—the "Decline to Sign" campaign. Leaders at Equality California, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and LA Gay and Lesbian Center—Lorri Jean, Sky Johnson, me—would head the statewide coalition. For personal and academic reasons I had to step out of that extensive leadership role. In the months to follow, I, and countless others, watched as the conservative right launched a massive campaign and passed prop 8. No amount of rallying that I did in the few weeks before the election could compare to the audacious galvanization of Prop 8 supporters in the months and years prior. Lesson learned.

Now the Giant is awake. I found myself, on November 5, 2008, sitting in the intersection of Crescent Heights and Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, California, completely stopping traffic.

Then hundreds of us stood up and continued marching for miles and for hours. This would launch a slew of organized marches, vigils and protests throughout California and would quickly swell into a long overdue national re-launch of the Q community's Civil Rights Movement. We have seen tens of thousands stand in solidarity for love and equality.

But this sleepy giant needs more momentum.

Have you lost your voice in protests and conversations this week? Have your thighs and feet felt the soreness of marching and standing for hours? Are your shoulders still tired from holding that banner for three hours on Wednesday's march?

With this momentum we can ensure that no group will overturn any more existing rights for minorities. With this momentum we can ensure that New York and New Jersey feel the pressure to take drastic measures towards equality. And with this momentum we can strike an everlasting chord throughout our nation that, in this great union, we protect those who are subject to the whims and the religious anti-gay, anti-trans and anti-different rhetoric of the seeming majority. And regardless of your schedule, your beliefs on marriage, or your location you must ask yourself "is this moment in time a landmark in history that I choose to sit out?" Or will you stand and be heard?

Progressively Yours,

Brandon Rolph Kneefel

* Note: Q represents all who do not find themselves in the constructs of a hetero-normative patriarch, i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, ally, pansexual, polyamorous, and so on.

Comments

[Stephen Mead]

True, impassioned and eloquent. Thank you.