I am going to wear my purple!

Last night I had two horrific dreams about hate crime. Here I sit, an hour early before my personal ‘wake-up call’. I got out of bed, brushed my teeth and thought about those dreams and realized that today was Spirit Day. I began to Pray immediately.

Millions of Americans wear purple on Spirit Day as a sign of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and to speak out against bullying. Spirit Day was started in 2010 by teenager Brittany McMillan as a response to the young people who had taken their own lives. (www.glaad.org/spiritday)

This day has been the quintessential equivalent to Civil Rights in my opinion. Here we are in 2011 and we are still fighting for rights to simply exist as human beings. People believe that LGBT community are freaks of nature and do not deserve the same rights as the ‘straight man’. The phase that gets me the most about Gay Marriage is when I hear people say “If we allow Gay Marriage, what’s next? They would want to marry their dogs?” I cringe at those statements because I realize that there are people that do not consider the LGBT community humans. Why in SAM HILL would you put a person and dog in the same HUMAN rights category? In my opinion, that is the TRUE problem that we need to address; LGBT as human beings first. Shame. Shame on you.

Black people, at one point, had the same issue. Blacks were not considered humans but mere property that one could own or dispose of at any given time. Because of this, Blacks did not have any human rights and many were killed for the simple desire to be treated as human.

Here we are today. Some are scared to be who they are because they witness people being beaten, ostracized, and even killed. Some ‘hide in the closet’ for years and it causes a mental strain and frustration that sometimes results in suicide. The passing to be heterosexual reminds me of the ‘passing for white’ for the Black community. During slavery, it could mean ‘freedom’. There are many documented instances of fair-skinned slaves who posed as white to escape. In modern times, it meant being able to vote in the South.

We all have to come together and take a stand. This has been going on for far too long. We have lost so many good people to this ‘hate’. We fear and want to destroy what we do not understand. WHY is that our only option? Why not agree to disagree and let ALL humans have the same rights and exist in peace (as much as possible) on this earth together.

I am not here to change anyone’s mind. I am here, on this earth, to take a stand because my heart cannot take another suicide, another killing and another act of bullying simple because someone does not understand the LGBT community. Why does anyone have to die for your lack of understanding?
I wear my purple today for the people that have died and for the people that are currently suffering to be who they are because this cruel world will not allow them to be. Let’s end this senseless bullying. The time is now!