Why I won't "call in gay"

Look, shirking work for a charitable cause is not a bad idea, per se, but ditching work and refusing to buy anything in the hopes that the country will notice that a lot its citizens are gay seems weak and petty to me. I'll leave that as my opinion, because the thing here is that we cannot change anything overnight. One day of not working and not buying anything might make some people say, "Huh. Somethin' weird's going on." I don't think anyone is going to say, "Gosh, we'd better give these queers their rights because they have such a vital impact on the economy," especially because on Thursday, everything will be right back to normal.

The way I see it, if we choose to withdraw from society, society will find a way to get along without us--in fact, there are plenty of people who would prefer that, don't you think? Sure, we'll be missed for a little while, but there are plenty of people, especially now, to take our places in the workforce. And then we'll be the ones who are fucked, alienated and more on the fringes than ever before. I'm not saying that this is what "Day without a Gay" is advocating, but it is what it's symbolizing--removing ourselves from society. But we don't want to be separate--that's why we're so mad about the passing of Proposition Eight, why we want marriage, not civil unions, because we are not separate. We want inclusion, equal rights, responsibilities, and privileges, so why would we voluntarily withdraw ourselves? This day is symbolic, because it won't actually change anything, so why do we want our symbolic gesture to be removal of ourselves from the rest of society? That's poisonous.

What will cause change--gradually, unfortunately--is making sure the people who would deny us our rights know we're not going anywhere, know that we're their neighbors, their daughters, their nephews, their teachers, their doctors, their soccer coaches, their elected officials. That's how they'll realize how many of us there really are--if we just keep telling them and refusing to back down.

Our best weapon against ignorance and bigotry is coming out. I know it's hard, and it's awkward, and it's uncomfortable, and there's a very real possibility of negative consequences, but in the end, it's the only way to fix this. Do what you can to make sure everyone knows that we are here; we are queer; we are not going anywhere, even for one single day.