Out Love, not Out Rage

I saw Outrage on Friday.  Besides being supportive, I was curious.  I am always looking for agreement, camaraderie, unity.  I found the movie’s premise lost under the weight of the title.  Even watching the movie makers on the View that morning, it wasn’t readily obvious that author and blogger, Michael  Rogers was objecting to closeted people voting against their very people they have relationships with.  Closeted gay men in politics are voting against HIV/AIDS funding, against gay marriage, against making crimes against LGBT people a hate crime.  It is the chasm between their sexual orientation and their visible, measurable, callous voting record.  Frankly, for me, it begs the question, would they be less stalwart if they were straight.
 
The characters in the movie, opening with Larry Craig, were all recognizable.  Those of us who read gay news are aware of these men and their voting records.  I have to admit, I have zero idea what this looks like to straight people.  Heck, I got emails this week asking me if Adam Lambert is gay – straights see things very differently than I do.  Governor McGreevey was bright, radiant – no really – like someone who just discovered deep spiritual relief.  Governor Crist was slimy and resistant; what is the opposite of present? 

A paragraph  on women ~ Elizabeth Birch of the Human Right Campaign was terrific, moving and honest.  Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was open and relaxed.  Oh but the wives, the terrified wives, standing next to the pathetic closeted husbands at counterfeit press conferences; Mrs. Craig, Mrs. McGreevey, Mrs. Crist.  Actually there are thousands of straight spouses who are trapped infraudulent lives,  holding their families together.  How the gay spouse can do this is really beyond me.  I kissed a girl, I liked it and I came out; all within about 5 seconds.   And it is no secret that there are many, many lesbians and bi women in politics ( no I have not slept with all of them) but I can tell you that I have never seen them vote against LGBT rights or human rights for that matter.
 
But what really bothered me, deeply bothered me, was one clip of Larry Kramer, beloved founder of Act-Up.  Certainly this brave hero of the LGBT movement said dozens of quote-ables during the taping but what they chose to show was Mr. Kramer saying that activism comes from rage, from anger.  For me it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard.  I have spent over 40 years working to deepen my understanding and practice that successful, lasting activism comes from love.  You cannot convert the opponent by burning his car, breaking her windows, clubbing their kids.  Fear will never create conversion.  (aren’t we having a national conversation about torture on this right now?)

However, more importantly, the oppressed will become poisoned by the violence.  The minority has to find love in their heart and become irresistible.  That is the only way to create a healthy movement, a true lasting conversion and extinguish fear.  I was fortunate to spend some time with Jeremy Gilley, the British filmmaker who is creating International Peace Day, through his film-making of Peace One Day and The Day After Peace.  I told him that I am not as worried about those who die by gunshot as I am about those who pull the trigger as they live on with their hearts broken.  Violence is intoxicating, contagious and another disease – like homophobia.
  
Tuesday, May 26 is California’s Day Of Decision.  On Facebook, the White Night Riots video has been viraling around.  I want to tell people that clearly those 1979 riots did not work or we would not be rising up for our rights in 2009.  Releasing of violence may be billed as good for you but it isn’t.  It is not some limited energy that must be spent.  It is a viral, burgeoning disease that only attracts itself.   If you are angry, you deserve to be loved.  If you are homophobic, you need to love and be loved.  No matter what happens on Tuesday, extinguishing  anger with love is the only way that will last.  

Comments

[sharron]

i so totally agree with you, zoe. i've had this debate with friends and strangers so many times. when i read your post, the first thing that came to mind was the debate between wiley college and harvard from the movie, the great debaters (i believe in real life they debated a college in California). it's a different minority . . . a different oppression . . . but in name only. only the oppressed, the "right" or lack to it, oppressers and the names of those who sit silently by change.

thanks for your courage and all the work you've done and do to bring equal rights to all.
sharron

James Farmer, Jr: Resolved: Civil disobedience is a moral weapon in the fight for justice. But how can disobedience ever be moral? Well I guess that depends on one's definition of the words -- word. In 1919, in India, ten thousand people gathered in Amritsar to protest the tyranny of British rule. General Reginald Dyer trapped them in a courtyard and ordered his troops to fire into the crowd for ten minutes. Three hundred seventy-nine died -- men, women, children, shot down in cold blood. Dyer said he had taught them "a moral lesson." Gandhi and his followers responded not with violence, but with an organized campaign of noncooperation. Government buildings were occupied. Streets were blocked with people who refused to rise, even when beaten by police. Gandhi was arrested. But the British were soon forced to release him. He called it a "moral victory." The definition of moral: Dyer's "lesson" or Gandhi's victory. You choose.

Gandhi believes one must always act with love and respect for one's opponents -- even if they are Harvard debaters. Gandhi also believes that law breakers must accept the legal consequences for their actions. Does that sound like anarchy? Civil disobedience is not something for us to fear. It is, after all, an American concept. You see, Gandhi draws his inspiration not from a Hindu scripture, but from Henry David Thoreau, who, I believe, graduated from Harvard and lived by a pond not too far from here.

Majorities do not decide what is right or wrong. Your conscience does. So why should a citizen surrender his or her conscience to a legislature? For we must never, ever kneel down before the tyranny of a majority.

In Texas, they lynch negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck -- and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes; and worse -- the shame. What was this negro's crime that he should be hung, without trial, in a dark forest filled with fog? Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who were we to just lie there and do nothing? No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing -- just left us wondering why. My opponent says, "Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral." But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow South, not when negroes are denied housing, turned away from schools, hospitals -- and not when we are lynched.

Saint Augustine said, "An unjust law is no law at all," which means I have a right, even a duty, to resist -- with violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechthegreatdebaterswileycollegevsharvarduniversity.html

[Sahar Andrade]

Hey Zoe:
What a great article/ blog. I would take the moral lesson given by Ghandi anytime over the one from Henry David Thoreau though I totally understand that some may see civil disobedience as a way to have their voice heard. I believe that anger generates anger and violence gives birth to more violence.
Ghandi has always been my idol, his fight, his philosophy, his actions and his victory even if he didn't live long enough to see it.
Love conquers at the end no matter how long it takes it is the right thing to do if peace is achieved by anger it will always be volatile. The best revolutions are the ones that had no blood shed or violence involved there are many examples in history.
I support LGBT rights though I am straight but I believe we are all entitled to what we believe/ practice, isn't that the beauty of this country isn't that why a lot of people work hard and fight to be here and to be heard, and most important to be free.
People that are in the closet and acting against those out of closet are hypocrites, pure and simple.
If they don't want to get out of the closet we respect that and now it is their turn to respect others life styles/ opinions/ rights.
Love, Love and love.
Remember what Ghandi said: Change in yourself what you wnat see changed in others
Peace!
Sahar
http://tinyurl.com/px7b8h

[Divalicias]

Sharon -- The Debaters is a true story -- about the debaters in Wiley college in Texas. James Farmer was about 14 or 15 years old at the time of the Harvard debate. Later in his life, he moved here to Fredericksburg, VA where he was a professor at University of Mary Washington. UMW honors his legacy with the James Farmer Multicultural Center.
http://www.umw.edu/multicultural/about_james_farmer/default.php

Zoe -- Great blog. Love does outlast anger. I can also understand Larry Kramer's anger -- it was really anguish. His beloved friends were dying and the government was refusing to recognize it or deal with it because AIDS was isolated to the gay community at the time.