Megan and I went to see Milk yesterday. Aside from being a terrific movie in general–moving and sad, of course, but also something of a rallying cry–it’s coalesced what I’ve been pondering lately. Things came together for me.

I’m angry, sad, hopeful, and determined, and I don’t quite know what those things look like together yet.

Those people who thought that Prop 8 would pass and us gay folks would roll over and take it? Please. They obviously don’t know history. I plead with all you straight folks that I know–go watch Milk. Pay special attention to the opening. The old black and white tapes from when the police would go into gay bars and round up the gay men to arrest them because they were congregating in one place (there were points in time when it was illegal for us just to be around each other). Look at the misery–them turning their faces from the cameras, holding their hands in front of their eyes. Their quiet and horrific way the presence of police is hardly unusual. That punishment for their existence is a matter of course. That pain defined many lives.

It is never the “right time” for change. It is easy to remain the oppressor–either because you sincerely believe that being a part of the majority grants you special rights or because you don’t know or acknowledge your own privilege. It is easy to say this is not your battle when it’s not about your own survival.

And this is about survival.

Any time you take a group, marginalize them, and mark parameters around their humanity, you quite literally kill members of that group. Whether that means people kill themselves rather than live in a hostile society or that means people kill members of the marginalized group for whatever reason, it doesn’t really matter.

Being gay is a somewhat unique marginalization. We come from everywhere, so there is no cultural, economic, ethnic, racial, gender experience that ties us together as a whole. That also means we have no inherent support structure. We have what we have built. We have the communities we have built. And the fact that so many of us flee the places we were raised to come to a place where we feel safer is a testament to the success of some of these structures.

We are imperfect and imbued with all the issues that affect the world. People with significant power in the gay community are often white, male, and wealthy. This reflects the world in which we live–where people with significant power are often white, male, and wealthy. This also means that the people with power are scared of change.

I’m not.

And I’m not with my radical friends in saying that marriage is unimportant, and maybe not a priority. I get where they’re coming from, but this is where the coalescing happened.

Without respect for our basic humanity, we have nothing. No rights. If we are second-class citizens, anything we’ve gained can be taken away. Without marriage, we’re second-class. Our relationships are second-class. Our lives are second-class.

By rejecting something the dominant society doesn’t want us to have, we are being neither radical nor activist. We are finding ways to justify capitulating. We are finding ways to reject society before society can reject us.

I’ve been out for 12 years. I come out to people as quickly as possible after I meet them. It’s actually quite easy to do without making a big deal of it. It’s as simple as saying “Oh, you have a cat? My girlfriend and I have two cats. They’re so sweet.” Sometimes it takes more effort. “Oh man, I totally had an ex-girlfriend who was like that.” I make sure people know.

Why? Gay people know why. The more people find gay people unexceptional, the easier our lives are. I worry about holding Megan’s hand the further we get from the city. And I don’t worry what people think. I worry that someone will hurt us or do something to my car or whatever. I worry about violence.

I should not have to worry about violence for holding someone’s hand. But this is a simple fact of life.

Similarly, I should be able to expect–after 12 years of being out myself–that whoever I choose to be with (Megan) is acknowledged fully and unequivocally as my…girlfriend?partner?significantother?lifepartner?domesticpartner?…language is an enemy here. And yet, my mother has a hard time calling her anything other than my “friend,” though she damn well knows who Megan is and invites her to family gatherings. I chastise her fairly substantially every time she does it, but she still hasn’t worked it out yet.

I feel like gay people are often patient to a fault here.

When mom offered that maybe Megan would like to go up to the Range to visit my grandma with me, I was actually a bit surprised. It threw me off so that her following sentence knocked me off my feet. “Now, if she comes, you have to say she’s your roommate.”

I said “I am hanging up the phone now,” set the phone down, and heaved.

And so here is the thing. No straight member of my family would be asked to do that with someone they’d been dating for even the briefest amount of time. And so, yet again, I am reminded of my status as second class. I’ve been asked to pretend that Megan is nothing more than someone I share the bills with. Nevermind that no one drags a roommate several hundred miles to meet a grandmother.

Whether or not we got married, if gay marriage was legal and normal, it becomes that much harder for people to try to force you into a closet, it becomes that much harder for them to try to force your second-class status.

I have paperwork that OutFront was handing out at Pride this year. It’s living will paperwork. I’ve put it off, it’s hard to think about death and what I would want done if I were seriously injured. I also felt like I could put it off, that my parents understood that Megan would get to make decisions for me.

I don’t actually believe that now.

I had become complacent. A lot of us have become complacent. Things now are not so bad as they once were. We know that. And so maybe this was as good as anything was going to get.

But what on earth is that? Gay people still get killed for being gay. The decisions of our “partners” could be overturned with the commitment of litigious parents. “Faggot” and “gay” are still popular insults.

I like that I won’t get fired for being gay. But that’s not enough for me anymore. That shouldn’t be enough for any of us anymore. Full equality. Nothing more, nothing less.

Straight people, I am recruiting you. If you think we deserve rights, get some education and talk about it. I will use every bullhorn I can, but I don’t think we’ll be successful without straight compatriots who aren’t afraid to talk about gay people when talking about gay rights.