I've been recruited by...Clint??

Okay, I admit it. I'm a little jealous. I'm a little jealous of all the moho's that gathered at Scott and Sarah's yesterday for some gay movie watching. I hope you had fun, but for my sake, just tell me it was miserable so that my jealousy can be quelled.

In order to compensate for my unavailability to fly to UT, I decided to have my own gay movie watching night. About four months ago, Clint blogged about the movie Milk. For those of you not familiar, it is about Harvey Milk, an openly gay elected official in San Francisco during the 1970's. When I first read Clint's post, I wasn't too enthralled by the power of the message. It seemed like a nice post and all, but it didn't move me to stand up and proclaim my gayness from a watchtower. But it did intrigue me enough to want to watch the movie.

After watching the movie, though, the power of the message truly comes to light. The main political battle that Milk and his supporters fought against was protecting the basic rights of homosexuals. More specifically, maintaining laws that protect an individual from losing their job solely on the basis of sexuality. Perceptions, stereotypes and myths about homosexuals were rampant among the general population. Harvey Milk knew that the best way to change how people felt about the gay population was to show every person that someone in their life they know and love is gay. And so he says:

“On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country ... We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets ... We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives.”

I have been going back and forth a lot lately as to how open I want to be with my sexuality. Some days I don't want anyone to know, other days I want to tell everyone in sight. It's pretty safe to say that I'll end up somewhere in the middle. But I do think it's important to let at least those close to me know that I am gay. Even some members of my family and close friends hold misconceptions of what it means to be gay. If I can help to cultivate understanding and tolerance, than I am more than happy to out myself to those who need that understanding.