The Flint Hills Observer
February 1997
From the Top
by Penny Cullers, FHA President
We are in the midst of a revolution. It may not seem to be a revolutionary time and you may not feel like a revolutionary, but the revolution is happening around us and through us. In this revolution there are few loud and angry voices, there are almost no protests, there are no tear gas canisters or bullets to stop us when we gather together. No, our current war is a quiet one. In the past the war has been less subtle. Thousands of lesbians and gay men and bisexuals and transgendered people have been raped, beaten, hung on pillories, drawn and quartered, burned alive in town squares, crucified, and vivisected. Our war seems so quiet now with only the occasional beating or slaughter. Thousands of us are not being massacred. Compared to the past injustices over the 2000 years of the Christian era, ours seems a peaceful and placid era. But it isn't .
The war waged by heterosexual piety is now being fought against us with words and attitudes and the denial of personal freedoms that we as human beings should have been granted since the beginning of time. We have Fred Phelps telling us that God hates us. We have the issue of our right to marry those we love debated by every Tom, Dick, and heterosexual who has breath for an opinion. We have to listen nightly to news broadcasts about what new law the U.S. Congress has enacted that tries to strip us of our right to even exist. We have to hear the whispers behind our backs of coworkers or fellow students speculating on whether or not we are "one of them", with the inevitable derogatory joke and laughter that follows. But worst of all we have to listen to the silence, the numbing, bone chilling exclusionary silence that screams and screams and screams at us that we are not included in society, that we do not exist, that we are so low on the evolutionary spectrum that we cannot be represented in television shows, films, school boards, offices, therapist seats, in front of classrooms, in the legislature, or in any walk of the main spectrum of American life from whence we came and from whence we exist on a daily basis.
That is our revolution, my friends. It isn't as easy to see as the burnings in the town square from yesteryears gone by, but it is out there chipping away at the self respect and esteem to which each and every human being is entitled by birth. We are in a revolution by being who we are. We are all of us revolutionaries. Each and every act we do as lesbigay persons screams back at the silence that we do exist, that we do have a right to be here, and that we are here to stay.. When you send your beloved a rose on Valentine's Day, this is a revolutionary act. When you hold hands with a spouse this is a revolutionary act. Sending an email in support of Ellen is a revolutionary act. Holding the hand of a friend dying of AIDS is a revolutionary act.
It is difficult to scream over the silence of our heterosexual peers as this silence I believe is meant to be a catalyst for our own silence. There is no reason to be silent any longer. For those who have been crucified, beaten, and tortured, lift up your voices and fill that silence with who all of us are. Sing. Sing out loud.
