There are two pieces to this story:
1) How much we need to educate others about the role gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans folks have made to our great country.
2) The weird ways in which we can do that.
I’ll start with #2. You see we named our two puppies after gay men. Alex, named for Alexander the Great, who was the larger puppy, and Rustin, named for Bayard Rustin. Bayard didn’t roll off the tongue easily enough, but Rustin seemed to fit the other pup just fine.
We tell everyone where their names came from. Today, a straight friend sent me a link to this article. He says he probably would have missed it except that he remembered that is where Rustin’s name came from. This is a great guy, very accepting and comfortable around LGBT’s, but he didn’t really know this bit of history. Our puppy brought it to his attention. How cool is that?
The boss was Bayard Rustin, the march’s chief organizer and the man widely viewed as the only civil rights activist capable of pulling off a protest of such unprecedented scale.
And he was gay. Openly gay. That year again? 1963.
Now for #1. The anti-gay forces are busy working against the new California law which includes the teaching of LGBT’s who have been important in history. People like Bayard Rustin. They have all sorts of lies and misinformation they spread to counter this important law. But the truth is out there and it is getting told and it needs to be told everywhere. Gays,, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Trans persons have made invaluable marks on our history. People like Bayard Rustin.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom will be forever known as the day that ensured the success of the civil rights movement and launched the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into the highest pantheon of American champions.
But for hundreds of civil rights veterans, Aug. 28 will also always be Bayard’s Day, the crowning achievement of one of the movement’s most effective, and unconventional, activists.
The anti-gay forces are fighting so hard because they know that the truth is a death blow to their hate. When individuals or any age learn abut the positive impact LGBT’s have made, their ability to paint us as demons and evil doers is diminished.