An American friend and activist who is not on this list had this to say about this post:
""" It comes down to this: Come out of the closet. In the USA, we had a persistent period of outness in the gay community that started with the "Silence = Death" reaction to many deaths due to AIDS. Some of us were political and business leaders who just made sure that all our constituents and colleagues knew we were gay. As a student leader in the 1980s, at some times I felt absurd, like when I introduced myself to people in a US Student Association convention saying, "Hi, I'm Dan Greening, President of the University of California Student Association and I'm gay." This sort of thing happened throughout the society: many people coming out to family members, colleagues, friends with a persistence. It caused a lot of personal "growth", if you will excuse the expression, as we discovered who our personal friends and enemies were. We discovered we had many closeted enemies who were gay, which then led to a then-controversial, now-widely-accepted practice of outing hypocritical anti-gay closeted gay people in leadership roles. Many of us came out to hostile family members, and then had to figure out how to construct our own families. To get where we are today took many decades. Advances and losses took place on many fronts: legal, societal, personal. We had many moments where we discovered, as you are now discovering, that supposedly well-meaning political organizations "on our side" abandoned us when they saw that their candidacies were in jeopardy due to their support of gays. What worked, in the end, was hundreds of thousands of people being open about their status. With everyone in our society knowing someone gay, it became unfashionable and unsustainable to maintain anti-gay discrimination. Ultimately, the US gay marriage ban is falling for this same reason, with some US states seeing voters, by referendum, passing laws in support of gay marriage. Of course we need and appreciate powerful friends, but if we are too weak ourselves, they will not commit what they perceive to be political suicide on our behalf. Obama has become a great friend to gays in his second term, but this arose because we have term-limits for Presidents in the US. He can't run for a third term. So he is now doing what he wants to do personally, he doesn't have to worry about the political fallout from supporting gays. And, too, the society has changed in the past 4 years. We have a couple of prominent news anchors who are gay, talk show hosts, we just had a up-and-coming football player come out, we have congressional representatives who are gay. In short, come out. Get your friends to come out. And prepare for a long slog. Create support groups for gays. Donate money and time. Did I mention coming out? """ Best, Aditya Bondyopadhyay (Sent from my iPhone) > On 17-Feb-2014, at 9:46 am, Aditya Bondyopadhyay <adit.b...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Dear all, > Ok, I'll say it aloud..!! Queer people should reconcile themselves to ZERO > PROGRESS in the fight for queer/LGBT rights in the next 5 years..!! > > The AAP has lost its way, at least on the liberal agenda front, and is going > down the "khaps are beautiful, mohalla mob zindabad" path..!! > > Congress has zero chance of winning and doing anything positive, given the > fact that it's being led by a dynastic moron..!! > > The BJP with the NDA seems most likely to form the next government, thus > making any progress on LGBT rights impossible..!! > > It usually takes about 5yrs for India to realise the folly of giving power to > fundamentalists, and so there is hope of change after 5yrs..!! > > The highest court in the land has given up scandalously on it's very reason > of existence, namely to protect the fundamental rights of the minority from > majoritarian tyranny..!! > > We must use this time build on our collectivisation and strengths, to > cultivate our ideological prowess, to empower our members with knowledge and > resolve..!! > > In the long struggle, 5yrs will pass in a blink, so let's not loose hope..!! > > There is no going back..!! > > Aditya Bondyopadhyay > (Sent from my iPhone)
