Continued Denial of Rights Due to Moderates?

With the current angst many of us are feeling with having backed Obama in the 2008 election only to see him do nothing in terms of delivering on his campaign promises, a post by Andrew Sullivan that in turn linked to another post looking at Martin Luther King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" seemed to sum up where the movement for LGBT equality is at the moment. Our enemies will always hate us and seek to keep us inferior and/or subject to discrimination. The real rub comes with moderates who in all candor hear our story but would prefer that no one rock the boat since their rights are not in jeopardy. Here are some highlights:

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“You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.

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I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

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The LGBT movement needs to find more ways to get the moderates to understand that the discrimination we live with is real be it being fired from a job, not having our relationships legally recognized - the list goes on and on. It is the vast middle where future support for LGBT equality must arise so that it moves from indifference to open support. One way to make this happen is to come out and talk about your life. We are living, breathing people even if our enemies seek to depict us otherwise.