Open Letter to Barack Obama

Okay. I've held my tongue long enough.

Senator Obama,

As a gay man, I'm tired of being told by a black man that I should be in the back of the bus, that I can't eat in the front of a restaurant, or that I must drink from a different water fountain.

Okay, perhaps that's not entirely true, but as a man who pays an equal share of taxes as a non-gay person does, I'm certainly not feeling that I am getting an equal share of the liberties my fellows on the 'straight' side of the fence receive.

We've been told we shouldn't be teachers, or be allowed near children. We've been blamed for AIDS and condemned and damned because of a virus which can affect and is affecting anybody. We are told we can't hold office, we can't have our jobs or our housing rights protected. We are even denied the rights to life, liberty and happiness - which are, supposedly, unalienable.

I - and the entire gay and transgendered community - am being treated like a second-class citizen. Take those few steps back in time, when you and the black race were treated as described above. How did it make you feel? Like an American, or just somebody who paid full price for a piece of the dream and got nothing in return?

Take a few more steps back, when you would never have been allowed to hold the office of Senator, nor could you have run for the office of President of the United States. Just don't step back too far, or you just might find yourself in chains. Or worse.

Last week in Oregon, you stated "We’ve got a war that is bankrupting us. And we’re going to argue about gay marriage? I mean, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Hmm. Interesting. The Vietnam war began in 1961. The Civil Rights act was passed in 1964, the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and in 1967 the Supreme Court made the ban on interracial marriage illegal. The Vietnam war raged until April 30, 1975. So, perhaps those unimportant issues which improved the lives of the black citizens of this nation should have been ignored while we were so deeply involved in war. They could have waited for a later time.

I am certainly not suggesting such a thing. I believe it is a sad "birth defect" that, despite the powerful words of our own Declaration of Independence, it took nearly 100 years for the slaves to be granted freedom, and another 100 for the civil rights act to be passed to protect that freedom.

But that does not mean that another select group of American citizens should be denied full equality. Nor does it give you the right to use your religion to support such denials of liberty.

Faith created the stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV/AIDS, and continues to do so. Faith was the problem, and is not the solution. A virus has nothing to do with religion. Period. In fact, a virus is perhaps the most secular thing there is. Keep religion out of AIDS; we remember the damage they already did to the fight against this disease. I remember.

The President of the Unites States must be secular. To oversee a nation of such diversity requires that one not put their religion before the equal rights of all people.

The America I grew up loving and believing in is one where every person has the same rights, the same opportunities. Nobody should feel themselves restricted in living their lives. Nobody. Not you, not me. Not anyone.

So consider your words carefully. How would you react if, back in the 1960's, somebody said "We’ve got a war that is bankrupting us. And we’re going to argue about CIVIL RIGHTS FOR BLACKS? I mean, that doesn’t make any sense.” What if they said that today?

A bit of perspective, walking in another man's shoes, is good for the soul. And, perhaps, the sole as well.

If you want to be a force for change, then truly change how Americans are treated in this nation. The words "with liberty and justice for all" are powerful, and mean a lot to the people of this nation. Make is so. Ensure that we truly are the land of the free, the land of the equal.