lgbtq

Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.

I feel that for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro will take a bigger and tougher America than any we have yet known. I feel that America's past is too shallow, her national character too superficially optimistic, her very morality too suffused with color hate for her to accomplish so vast and complex a task. Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the ride and direction of American culture. Frankly, it is felt to be right to exclude him, and it if felt to be wrong to admit him freely. Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion. If the nation ever finds itself examining its real relation to the Negro, it will find itself doing infinitely more than that; for the anti-Negro attitude of whites represents but a tiny part - though a symbolically significant one - of the moral attitude of the nation. Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness. Am I damning my native land? No; for I, too, share these faults of character! And I really do not think that America, adolescent and cocksure, a stranger to suffering and travail, an enemy of passion and sacrifice, is ready to probe into its most fundamental beliefs.

Saying something is 'politically correct' is often a way of dismissing the voices of the oppressed.

Reducing a group to a slur or stereotype reduces us all.

Bigotry and sexism destroy the unity needed for a nation to live.

Now is not the time for bigots and racists. No time for sexists and homophobes. Now, more than ever, is the time for ARTISTS. It__ time for us to rise above and to create. To show humanity. To spread hope. We must prevent society from destroying itself, from losing its way. Now is the time for love.

In late 1985, the Reagan White House blocked the use of CDC money for education, leaving the US behind other Western nations in telling its citizens how to avoid contracting the virus. Many Americans still thought you could get AIDS from a toilet seat or a glass of water. According to one poll, the majority of Americans supported quarantining AIDS patients.This heightened awareness set off waves of anxiety across the country, which was often express through jokes (Q: What do you call Rock Hudson in a wheelchair? A: Roll-AIDS!) and violence. Between the years 1985 and 1986, anti-gay violence increased by 42 percent in the US. Even in San Francisco, where Greyhound buses still dropped off gay men and women taking refuge from the prejudice of their hometowns, carloads of teenagers would drive through the Castro looking for targets.In December 1985, a group of teenagers, shouting __iseased faggot_ and __ou__e killing us all,_ dragged a man named David Johnson from his car in a San Francisco parking lot. While his lover looked on in horror, the teenagers kicked and beat Johnson with their skateboards, breaking three of his ribs, bruising his kidneys, an gashing his face and neck with deep fingernail scratches.

Sundays normally were hell. Or just the church pat of it, actually. It wasn't that I was afraid of God, or had anything against Him. It was just that having to be there for two to four hours made me cross, hateful, and blasphemous. Plus it seemed to me that the regulars, the good God-fearing folks, who didn't have diddly-squat, liked to pretend they had a lot to flaunt -- whereas the ones that had a whole lot showed up on holidays and funerals, in fancy cars and dressed to kill, all made possible by money they didn't tithe away every week. That's where Sunday-based faith got you -- broke and with a sore butt!

«This summer's been a dream,» Ethan murmured.«I know.»«I just hate that we've only got one week before it ends.»«You've got it all wrong, Eth,» Alek said, gently running his hand through Ethan's surfer hair. «This summer's not the dream. We are. You and me. And it doesn't matter what time of the year it is, as long as we're together.»«I like that, Polly-O.» Ethan smiled.«We'll wreak havoc, you and me.» Alek told him.

There is nothing 'honorable' or 'reasonable' in giving a pass to those who want to discriminate.

Kids without dads are desperate and jealous. Those with dads can be uppity and sharp.

Are you?" I said. "Gay, I mean?" -I hoped he wasn't offended by my asking, but after everything that had happened, I really wanted to know."No," he said. "I thought I was for about a w-w-week once. But now I know I'm not."If there was ever an answer that sounded like the truth, that was it.

Lord knows why I find you attractive, Michael, when you generally smell like weed and broken hobo dreams.

Inside my chest, my lungs are wild animals, clawing at the cage."Oh, man," Autumn mumbles from beside me. "His smile makes me stupid."Her words are a dim echo of my own thoughts: His smile ruins me. The feeling makes me uneasy, a dramatic lurch that tells me I need to have him or I won't be okay.

It's not 'over-sensitivity' to ask to be treated with the same dignity and respect shown to others.

I'm surprised I could actually talk with how much I was grinning.

Political correctness_ is a label the privileged often use to distract from their privilege and hate.

He looks at me. His face is dotted with raindrops but I think there are tears too. 'I love her. I always have. You know that.' 'And me?'And I known he means how I feel about him and me kissing him.'You're my friend, Gabriel.''Do you kiss all your friends like that?' But he asks it without the harshness of his other questions. It's a real question.'Just you.