Today, January 18, 2010, is a Federal holiday, held in honor of the Civil Rights advocate Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. It is one of eleven Federal holidays, the other ten being New Year’s, Inauguration Day (when applicable), Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Three of these days are cultural (New Year’s, Thanksgiving, and Christmas), three are related to war (Memorial, Independence, and Veteran’s day), two to foundational fathers (Presidents and Columbus days), and two to Civil Rights struggles (MLK and Labor days). It is unusual in that it recognizes a single individual rather than the entire movement—Labor day honors all workers, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day seems initially to only honor just one of the Civil Rights leaders.

While it is true that Dr. King is probably the most influential (and definitely most remembered) leader of the Civil Rights movement, it is important to remember the he was assassinated in 1968—after the passage of the Civil Rights act of 1965, but a decade before the passage of the Community Reinvestment Act. And though history may seem to show that the Sixties are the defining decade of the Civil Rights movement, it surely must also show that the Sixties didn’t fix everything.

We have this notion in America that the Civil Rights movement is historical—it is something we study, it is something we have a museum dedicated to. This is an utter fabrication. Inequality in America is still widespread. Though we have, for the first time, an African-American President, we also have just one African-American in the Senate (Roland Burriss, the controversial appointment to fill President Obama’s empty Senatorial seat). To this day, there have only been six African-American Senators. There have been two African-American Justices of the Supreme Court, and, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one Hispanic. There is still racial inequality in education, in prison, and economically.

And that’s assuming that Civil Rights is just about race. Women are still, to some extent, marginalized in politics. And, as a gay man, I am subject to some of the few existing constitutionally viable discriminatory laws. Whatever your rationale is for opposing Gay Rights, it is fundamentally denying a right to someone—exactly the problem that has always plagued marginalized groups in America. You may not think that I deserve the right to marry a man and adopt a child, you may know it to be a fact. But 100 years ago, people knew for a fact that African-Americans were inferior and thought that women did not deserve the right to vote. To say that no one believes these things today would be false, but to say that to believe them publicly is to cast oneself in a light of ignorance and hatred would be true.

And yet, it is a lesson that no one ever seems to learn—you may deny people in this country fundamental rights, you may enforce against them an increasing number of oppressive laws, but they will fight, and they will win, and history will view you as hateful, oppressive, bigots.

By celebrating Martin Luther King Jr., Day as a remembrance of his service to the minorities of this country, you are acknowledging that the fight for Civil Rights is over. It isn’t, and it never will be. Don’t just go to a vigil for Dr. King. Keep alive his message by fighting oppression everywhere—discrimination is still enshrined in law in this country.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

Let’s help make them equal.

See also my post on the Civil Rights Museum

This past Saturday, Fayetteville, AR, held a local event as part of the Great Nationwide Kiss-In. I know this not only because I attended, but because I coordinated it. I had never planned a protest before, and didn’t quite know what to expect. It was pretty easy. I made a few phone calls (the City, the Town Center, and the Farmers’ Market), let them know about the event, and asked kindly for reservation. The City called proved superfluous, as I was not asking for any roads to be shut down. The Town Center just needed a heads-up on the use of their plaza, and the Farmers’ Market gave us a booth for free.

Being affiliated with a 501(c)3 really helped out. As the event was sponsored by the NWA Center for Equality (dues paid member, represent) I had a built-in net of help; the booth at the Farmers’ Market used their tent, table, and members. Our ribbons and other supplies were purchased by the center. I didn’t buy anything, just planned. A friend wrote our press release, and sent it to all of the news outlets. I made the facebook invite, and invited some friends. They invited some others, who kept the process up. Last time I checked, 1014 people had been invited. 101 had confirmed their attendance (these numbers never pan out, and we never got a full count, but the paper estimated 100 people showed). I sent out emails asking for volunteers, gave them all a couple of hours to work at the booth at the Farmers’ Market, and planned on being there the whole morning.

The night before the protest was spent mostly cutting ribbons and decorating our poster. That morning we set up at the market and began to wait. Eventually Saundra, an Avon lady, dropped off the box of lipstick samples she had promised us, and the real fun began.

Boyd Logan's kiss

The samples were in response to a question many people had raised on the facebook invite: “how can I participate if I don’t have someone to kiss?” We threw some ideas around (a kissing booth), and eventually I had that “A-ha!” moment: we’ll get a poster and some lipstick, and people can show their support by kissing the poster. This turned out to be very popular, and a lot of people at the market came to our booth and kissed our poster. My favorite kiss was by Marley, an 18-month-old whose (straight) parents encouraged her to kiss. A lot of people picked up our rainbow ribbons, too (we ran out!), and some of them gave us donations for the ribbons! Not once did we ask for money, but we ended up making $34!

People started showing up about 30 minutes before the protest. And with the people came the media; all three local news stations sent cameramen, both papers sent reporters, and a CNN iReporter drove down from Bentonville to cover the event. I had a couple of TV interviews before the event. At 5 till, I got everyone to congregate around the steps—where we had placed a pride flag—and I took the “KISS” poster with quite a few kissprints on them. I did a countdown using my watch, and saw everyone smooch for a second. I walked down into the crowd asking where my kiss was until the boy appeared out of nowhere, pecked me, and let me get back to interviews.

After the kiss proper, I was questioned by both papers. I gave pretty simple information—I’m doing this cause I feel safe to be gay in Fayetteville, and I want everyone to know that I feel safe. Right as I was winding up, Barbara Rademacher, the CNN iReporter, asked me for an interview. By now I was familiar with what to do—I spelled my name and repeated my spiel (somewhat quickly) about why I planned the event. I helped take down the booth, then went home, napped, and caught myself on the 6:00 news. The night was filled with celebrations—Casey Willits congratulated me on a good first protest, saying that I really got the numbers out.

Front Page of the Times, baby!

But it was Sunday morning that I was waiting for. I got copies of both papers and took them down to the center. There were a few of us there, and we looked over the articles together. The NWA Times had put us on the front page, with a nicely-sized article and a kind of obscure photo. The Morning news put us a few pages in; no article, just some captioned photos, but they actually showed two women kissing (a same-sex display of affection was not to be found on any other report). We were all pleased by the coverage. A few hours later, we found the CNN iReport, and felt that that gave a good depiction of the day’s events.

On Monday morning, I awake to a text message from Casey Willits: “Fwd:The Fayetteville kiss-in is featured on CNN.com today.” My only response: “Holy shit.” I quickly ran over to CNN.com and, lo and behold, found a link to MY interview. It’s not just any Kiss-In that’s featured on CNN, it’s the FAYETTEVILLE event. By this time, I’m getting pretty damn excited. I pimp it out to everyone I can think of—Twitter, facebook, text messages. Random friend requests start coming in on facebook, with messages like “Jonathan, I saw you on CNN and as a gay southern man who has a home in Little Rock, I am so proud of you and I hope that we can become facebook friends! Hugs! Michael” attached to them.

In my excitement, I call my mom. “I MADE THE FRONT PAGE OF CNN!” I tell her. Her response: “your grandfather is pissed off.” She doesn’t share my elation at the success of the event. This has been the only negative reaction I have received so far. Overall, the iReport has been viewed almost 30,000 times. Combine that with everyone who reads the paper and watches the local news, and it’s probably safe to estimate that I was outed to around 45,000 people. And damn, it feels good. All of the reactions, save the one from my mom, have been incredibly positive and really inspiring. My favorite reactions are as follows:

• While staffing the booth at the market, I ran into my 8th grade guidance counselor, with whom I was very close. She told me she was proud of me and donated $20 to the center without being asked
• The next day, Karla Caraway—practically a surrogate mom due to the amount of time I used to spend at her house during middle school and jr. high—told me “Saw your pic in the paper this morning.  Good going–proud of ya!” on Facebook
• Karla’s husband, Steve, works at the Morning News, and emailed me a copy of the photo of me they ran
• All sorts of showings of support on twitter and facebook poured in. Lots of texts from friends telling me how awesome the CNN front page was

A lot of the comments the CNN story received went along the lines of ‘I didn’t realize how open-minded Arkansas had become!’ While this isn’t necessarily the case for the whole state, it certainly is for Fayetteville. Practically the whole city now knows my sexual orientation, and not a single bad thing has happened to me because of it. As far as protests go, I can count the Fayetteville Kiss-In as a smashing success. It did exactly what I wanted, by showing that Fayetteville is an open, safe, and accepting place.

I shall preface this review with a caveat: I went into Brüno expecting to dislike it, and very likely formed my opinion before actually seeing the film.

I was dining with a friend a few weeks before Brüno debuted, when he said something along the lines of “can you believe what those gay activists are complaining about with Brüno?” I asked him to elaborate; he said that they did not understand that it was a satire. It appeared that, no matter what protestation I presented, his opinion of their opinion was unswayable; he could simply not understand why on earth someone could be offended by a negative portrayal of them, even if it was satirical in nature. Here are but a few of my defenses, conceived after viewing the movie, for my point of view:

In the beginning scenes of the movie, Brüno and his partner are shown having sex. They are both in full-body jumpsuits with zippers to reveal selective parts of the body. Their sex is depicted as wild—involving slingshots, anal insertion of champagne bottles, and an exercise machine rigged to operate a dildo. None of this is played against any bigots, there is no revelation of Americans’ prejudice here, except perhaps with the audience. The entire time the theatre was a chorus of laughter. Not only does the film present gay sexual behavior as deviant and eccentric, but it plays it off for laughter. (An aside—the screen is filled with a penis later on in the film. Once again, there was a chorus of laughter, which began before the ‘penis dance’ began. Why can an audience not take a penis seriously?)

A couple of scenes in the movie deal with Brüno adopting a child, and having his child be forcefully taken away by the state after he is shown to be an unfit parent. The kid is taken into custody to a chorus of cheers while Brüno tears at the security officers holding him back. This is perhaps the most disturbing part of the movie. This scene, like the rest of the movie, was played off for laughs. This is, however, an incredibly serious and very unfunny issue. The state in which I live, and have been for my entire life a citizen, currently forbids adoption by same-sex couples. If my boyfriend and I were to decided that we wanted to start a family, we would be unable to. Furthermore, if my partner had a child, and he were to pass away, I could not care for this child. I would be in the same situation as Brüno—my adopted child would be forcefully taken away from me. Hilarious, right?

The same applies to the marriage scene at the end of the film—Brüno’s partner dresses as a woman to attempt a marriage. This of course fails, to the raucous laughter of the audience. Again, someone please tell me what is hilarious about being stripped of one’s right by a vote of one’s peers.

Furthermore, the character of Brüno encapsulates a completely irreverent picture of gay men. I fully understand that the character is a parody of gay fashionistas. The problem is that I do not see this undoing any stereotypes. The Alabaman hunters, for instance, have only had their prejudices against gays reinforced by his actions toward them, and his behavior during the ex-gay church scenes completely passes over how psychologically damaging such programs can be. I can easily imagine being a closeted high school student basing some of my ideas on what a gay man should be on Brüno, and forming an identity based on a complete stereotype. I was once told that I was “an insult to homosexuality” because of how un-gay my behavior was. I was peer pressured into acting gayer. In addition, I can just as easily imagine a somewhat feminine but otherwise self-actualized high school student who has had the courage to come out be taunted by bigoted class mates for whatever traits he might have in common with Brüno.

In closing to my disjointed review, I simply wish to say this:
For those who say that I have been too easily offended, I want you to imagine that, instead of pretending to be gay, Sacha Baron Cohen had instead donned blackface and highlighted continuing racial tensions in America while attempting to play off the discrimination encountered by African-Americans for laughs.