If You Love Someone LGBT, Quit Throwing Them Under the Bus

Meanwhile, I’ll focus on the good and take the high road

Photo by Philipe Cavalcante on Unsplash

For years, decades actually, I’ve let my family off the hook for votes that hurt me as a gay person. Those days are over.

It is not as if my family and I are best friends. I moved from my home state of Minnesota to my now-home of California many years ago and return only every year or two for a wedding, graduation, or reunion. Our relationships, while not deep, have been warm and pleasant. It turns out that’s not enough. People think that to feel love is enough. But don’t abusive husbands love their wives?

Love has to be shown.

Ironically, thanks for my newfound spine go to Donald Trump. Past administrations hurt, but a basic level of civility made it hard to draw a line. I was swayed by, “We love you but there are other issues involved.” Now, obscene levels of megalomania, callousness, corruption, xenophobia, and gaslighting have given me the push I needed.

Since first coming out 40 years ago, I have made little effort to advance the conversation. Maybe it was guilt for foisting my gayness on them. Maybe my self-esteem was in the crapper. I never expected more from them than I was certain I would do myself, which, conveniently for them, we will never know. I focused on the good and took the high road. “When they go low, we go high.”

But going high doesn’t mean accepting mistreatment.

Do my conservative-voting loved ones understand what their votes do to my life, in their luxurious perch of never having it happen to them? If it was up to one political party, I wouldn’t be allowed to get married. Now, after 12 years, my marriage is in jeopardy of being ripped away from me. Marriage grants 1,000+ federal and state rights and protections: the right to file taxes jointly (lower tax liability and higher income thresholds), Social Security survivor benefits, automatic heirship, spousal insurance coverage, and medical decision making power are a few examples. Poof, gone.

And for what? Will it advance lives or uphold freedom if my spouse and I are forcibly made legal strangers?

In 1950 a senator from Maine named Margaret Chase Smith, the only woman in the senate at that time, did something remarkable. It was the era of careers and lives devastated by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “red scare” Communist accusations. Those charges were often baseless, yet denial was hailed as the evidence. People who knew it was wrong said nothing for fear they would be next. It was bonkers.

Margaret Chase Smith had enough. On June 1, 1950, she gave a speech on the Senate floor known as her “Declaration of Conscience,” reminding them that rights to criticize, protest, hold unpopular beliefs, and maintain independent thought without reprisal were fundamental to Americanism.

She knew speaking up wouldn’t change McCarthy, and it didn’t. He went merrily on with his witch hunt while mocking her and stripping her of an important committee position. Nevertheless, she followed her conscience and spoke up, and history ultimately vindicated her while McCarthy fell into disgrace.

Aren’t freedom and equality fundamental to Americanism?

Why every patriot in America is not up in arms over attempts to take away someone’s freedom to be married is something I do not understand.

It’s not just marriage. The executive branch wants to censor LGBT history at National Parks. A person makes a notable contribution and is lauded for it, but if I do it it’s so destructive for humanity to know about that the federal government needs to step in and erase it.

There are legislative initiatives in half the states in the country to restrict discussion of sexual orientation in schools. Under threat of penalty, schools would be barred from teaching that I exist or what science and medicine have to say about it. Merely knowing about me is harmful.

Worst of all, Republicans have made political hay stoking vile claims about me all my life.

Michele Bachmann (Minnesota) described homosexuality as “a very sad life, it’s part of Satan” and a “personal bondage” that “enslaves” and “destroys” people.

Connecticut Republican Jadon MacCormack said gays have “corrupted our families” and “eroded the foundational values of our society.”

Rick Santorum likened homosexuality to “man on child, man on dog” relationships.

Mark Robinson, a candidate for North Carolina governor, said, “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”

Iowa State Representative Steve King said support for LGBT rights would lead to the destruction of the nation, adding, “I don’t want special protective status for a pedophile.”

Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles posted that “homosexuality has no place in America.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene said teaching facts about homosexuality is “mental/emotional child abuse.”

Mississippi State Representative Robert Foster said LGBT people “need to be lined up against a wall before a firing squad to be sent to an early judgment.”

Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern said homosexuality poses “the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism.”

Roy Moore, Senate nominee and former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, wrote that homosexuality is “a crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act of sexual misconduct.”

Charlie Kirk invoked a Bible verse about stoning gay people to death and called it “God’s perfect law.”

These are not isolated. To hear them tell it, LGBT people are: unnatural, unlovable, perverted, rejected by God, pedophiles, mentally ill, the list goes on. How long am I supposed to overlook that?

More to the point, what does it say about me if I do? I’m reminded of this from writer Mary Quinn:

There are times when you must speak, not because you are going to change the other person, but because if you don’t speak, they have changed you.

This is my declaration of conscience, an inner voice telling me to distance myself from that which holds me back in favor of that which lifts me up. I can’t control a business that wronged me, but I can refuse to shop there. I can’t control what’s on TV, but I can refrain from watching. I can’t control how people vote, but I can steer clear of the ones who cheer my harm.

My family can no longer have it both ways …

supporting attacks on me then smiling and saying, “But my vote is for other reasons so let’s be friends.” Why would I want to be friends? This isn’t Coke vs. Pepsi where we can agree to disagree. They disagree with the legitimacy of my existence.

They disagree with me having the same rights and dignity they have.

Why should I believe they wouldn’t throw me under the bus again the second it becomes expedient? If I can’t trust them to withhold support from people trying to hurt me, why trust them with anything?

At this point, I have turned the other cheek for so long that, in a way, it seems radical to make a fuss now. But it’s not radical. This is a fuss I should have made 40 years ago. When someone treats you badly and you accept it, you say to yourself you deserve it. I can’t run from having told myself that in the past, but I am done facing disappointment in the mirror at seeing someone who so easily accepts what he knows is wrong. I have been a coward for 40 years.

I can already hear the response. “But you know we love you.”

Yes, I do.

“And you know we want you and Shawn to be happy.”

Yes, I do. Those should be reasons not to throw me under the bus.

How would you react if a political party in the only country you’ve ever known ran on notions like that about you, not based on anything you’ve done but on a harmless aspect of your identity you neither chose nor can change? That’s the heart of this: the utter perverseness of expecting people to live in chains over an innocuous characteristic of their existence.

Green eyes? You’re not allowed to get married.

Under five feet tall? You are a pervert. Children aren’t safe around you.

Left handed? You are an abomination to God. We need to prevent your kind from slithering into normalcy.

If you don’t think you would be wildly offended then I don’t think you are being honest with yourself.

Now imagine the loving family who hug you at Christmas supporting that, bragging about it, cheerily ready to do it again. Would you want to be around them?

I went down this road once before in 2014 when my stepmom refused to be at my wedding. Shock, confusion, and heartbreak crippled me, but I found my courage and spoke up. I am proud of how I handled it. I miss her, but not enough to accept her terms. My sadness is far outweighed by the breathtaking liberation of living my truth. That is the Dale Richner I want to see in the mirror.

But wait, what about the “other issues” that are so important to them?

If a person believes Republicans will do better with the economy, national security, or foreign policy, should they ignore that? Wouldn’t their own integrity then suffer? I can only answer for me, but I will say this: while I agree with many Democratic policies, I would not vote for any Democrat if their party said — about anyone — what Republicans say about me.

Is there really a difference? In the current Democratic platform, LGBT subjects take up almost two pages in a 91-page platform document. This excerpt gives the gist:

“For generations, LGBTQI+ Americans have summoned the courage to live authentically and proudly, even when it meant putting their lives and livelihoods at risk. LGBTQI+ Americans continue to inspire and bring hope to all people seeking a life true to who they are, and to enrich every aspect of American life. But the fight for equality is far from over, as the LGBTQI+ community continues to face attacks and bigotry in states across the country. Democrats are committed to defending LGBTQI+ rights.”

(Incidentally, I don’t understand some of the issues or terms encompassed by the extra “QI+” and that’s okay. One need not understand every nuance to know right from wrong.)

The Republican platform is considerably shorter, 16 pages versus 91. Their reference to LGBT people is also shorter: it doesn’t exist. The closest it comes are three vague references suggesting the opposite of concern for LGBT Americans:

• Section 7.6 vows to fight “gender indoctrination.”
• Section 8.1 professes to promote the “sanctity of marriage,” which we now know means excluding gay people.
• Section 9.5 states that Republicans will “end left-wing gender insanity,” which sounds like a blank check to punish nonconformity.

What is their obsession with gender?? If the person next to you is a man who looks or talks like a woman, or a woman who acts or thinks like a man, or someone transitioning from one to the other, so what?

So. What. It’s their life. Human is human.

What is stopping some people from simply wishing them well and going about their business?

Policy details can be worked out. Nobody should fall blindly in line. There is legitimate debate to be had about LGBT issues. But a platform that evades all mention of a marginalized group of citizens and brags about seeking further marginalization should be a red flag.

It is not as if I will never see these family members again.

It’s bound to happen, and when it does I will handle it. But I won’t be initiating contact. No more groveling for scraps. I will be spending my time with people who show me respect and have my back, who demonstrate the love they profess, people who wouldn’t do that to another human being.

There are some I don’t plan on turning away from, at least not yet. It comes down to a crucial difference: their love has been demonstrated. I feel it in the way they treat me. I feel it so strongly that I’m left seeing them as people who lost their way but who might come around. The rest I see as fair-weather family.

While writing this, an unexpected tailwind came to me. In a piece reposted by my friend Cathy titled, “They’re Shocked We Won’t Pretend Anymore” radio commentator Thom Hartmann said:

“If you’re a white person who voted for this administration and you’re now telling your gay nephew or your Korean-American daughter-in-law or your Mexican-American grandkids that you don’t see what the big deal is, you’re asking them to make peace with the fact that the people running the country have, on the record, in their own voices, described a future in which they don’t exist here.”

Until I read those words, a part of me wondered if I am alone in the way I feel. I’m not alone, and neither are you.

We live in a strange time of emboldened meanness. People don’t even try to hide it. The only response can be emboldened self-care, emboldened solidarity, emboldened empathy, and emboldened demonstrations of love.

A powerful political party is asking for your help to erase people from our society over harmless, immutable, unchosen aspects of who they are. Consult your conscience and check your mirror.

Then cast your vote.