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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Getting visible’ essential to getting accepted

Jill Wagner Correspondent

If Matt Lauer of the “Today Show” is asking Mayor Jim West “Gay? Not Gay?” on national television, it should be no surprise last week’s Pride events were infused with discussion about the mayor.

Spokane’s gay community, however, is not asking the question that West failed to give Lauer a straight (uh huh, the pun is intended) answer to. We instead used the story to further our discussion about visibility.

The real question, suggested Barbara Gittings, is what about our culture still makes a man feel he has to hide so completely behind hypocrisy? Gittings was in town for a screening of “Gay Pioneers,” an inspiring documentary about a handful of men and women who solidified the gay rights movement in the mid-1960s by regularly picketing Independence Hall, the White House and the Civil Service Commission. Gittings was one of the handful.

Since her first picket 40 years ago, Gittings has seen enormous shifts in the landscape of our country. Picket lines have turned into festive Pride parades, gay and lesbian characters and couples are now staples in movies and on television, same sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts. And still, we hide.

Gittings described the gay rights movement, which she first joined in 1958, as a steady knocking down of obstacles. Just as one hurdle was cleared, another popped up in the path. First, there was invisibility, she said, then the notion that being gay was a mental illness, then the rampant police raids on gay bars, and now the growing fervor of right-wing conservatism.

In my estimation, it is this conservatism that takes us full-circle back to the invisibility quandary of the 1950s. Sometimes to stave off conflict, or even just an uncomfortable moment, it is easier to avoid personal questions from co-workers or to be introduced to a partner’s family as a “friend.” It is just easier to hide.

West parlayed his hiding into a rather successful, by a Republican standard, political career. His public disgust for gay people and his repeated attempts to pass laws that blatantly discriminate are precisely the reason thousands more in Washington’s LGBTQ community still find it easier to don the invisibility cloak.

During discussions about these issues last week, Spokane’s Pride Week slogan “Let’s Get Visible” took on for me something much more profound than rainbow bumperstickers or “Out and Proud” T-shirts. I was awed to learn more about the work of organizations such as Inland Northwest Equality, Equal Rights Washington, Quest Youth Group and the Inland Northwest Business Alliance. For the first time in my life, I am moved to truly get visible by getting involved.

I have chosen mostly to live rather quietly, to hope by example I could make a difference in how friends, family and co-workers view gay people. Now though, with the religious right turning up the volume, it is time for me to do the same. It is time for me to be an example more publicly.

To believe that I, my fiancée and our two sons deserve equal treatment under the law is one thing. To work for equality for all of us is a brand new thing that I can’t wait to start.