Truth is Knowledge
Ok so I finally watched Milk last night. I know, it took a minute for me… We tried going several times with failed attempts due to a pre-dinner which ended with a bar tab and so forth, but alas, we finally went.
And let me tell you, I wish this movie came out (pun intended) prior to that horrendous Prop 8 passing. It was perfect for the moment, perfect for a Gay American like myself, perfect for any American for that matter.
Yes, guys kiss in the movie… yes Sean Penn makes out with James Franco and yes, it’s gay gay gay at times. But at the same time, it’s so much more. It’s history as it repeats itself and it’s invigorating and it shows the actual struggle that went on for our rights and directly mimics the struggle we’re currently going through now.
Yea, it might seem like all is fine in your world because you know some happy gay guy or couple, but deep down, there are still hundreds of barriers to face and walls to climb.
Harvey Milk is our Martin Luther King Jr.
Now before you go thinking that this is an absurd simile, stop and do some research. Yes ok, maybe the magnitude is different because let’s face it, blacks had gone through hundreds of years of oppression, but is it really all that much different? Is one hate different than the other?
Gay people couldn’t hold hands back then without facing death or jail. Shit, we still can’t do that now in most places without feeling ostracized and ridiculed.
The only difference in racial prejudice and homosexual prejudice is that you can’t hide the color of your skin. I’m going to put it out there and say that if homosexuality was marked by say, pink lips, who knows if I’d be alive today.
The fact is, we hide it. We hide it everyday in some point or another. I don’t kiss Mark goodbye outside our home as we leave on our Vespas. I do it before we go out in the garage. We hide it and that’s how we got away with it in the past.
That’s the difference. You can’t hide your skin color, but you can hide your sexual preference and that’s why we’ve flown under the radar. But we’re here. We’re everywhere and we are a part of life, just like you are asian, black, white, indian, mexican, etc. There is no changing of my preference nor was there an influence.
It’s who we are. So if you’re reading this and you’re not out, I urge you to be.
Because truth is knowledge.
And that’s what Milk is about. Being heard and being you.
