Empathy Makes Us Better People

We were sent an article by a straight white guy in Florida who, we think, is one of the most straightforward and clear statements on why people should care about gay people and gay rights, if the simple "love thy neighbor as yourself" basics are still complicated to do. We've written a statement to the author in support of his support as he needs to know that IT MATTERS that he is "out" as a straight ally. How can we expect allies to support us if we aren't supporting them? I've pasted the article at the bottom of this posting.

This also reminds me of a conversation I had with our personal trainer, Machelle. She and her husband met us at a gay club on the rare occasion of Luane and I actually going out for a night of dancing. I LOVE dancing, but I've DJ'd many times in my career and it's hard to make me happy musically and most clubs play the best music for the warm up period and then settle into a hip hop or house theme with the same beat for hours on end. We leave after the warm up.

I digress...Machelle's husband Ryan brought a friend from work who's in his fifties I believe and just six months ago came out to him. Machelle and Ryan are straight allies and they don't get what the big deal is around accepting gay people. They are spiritual people, very fit as they are both trainers, normal law-abiding community members. Ryan's colleague came out to him which gives a great testament to Ryan's character and love for his fellow man. I'm proud to know these people. Ryan's colleague actually recognized Luane and I from a cover story photo in the local newspaper. That does happen to us but we aren't in public much. I think of us like the Loch Ness monster...rare sightings.

I'm still digressing...the main point I wanted to make was my conversation with Machelle. I acknowledged and honored her for bringing Ryan's friend, being supportive of him and of us by coming to a gay dance club and being straight allies. I then explained how crucial it is that they are vocal in average conversational opportunities, that they "come out" as allies. I stressed the power she has in being a witness to other straight people. She had a hard time believing that people would listen to her more readily than me on this subject, since it's my life and after all I did make a documentary on it. Alas, I emphasized how she is remarkably powerful just by being straight as to many in society, I'm the morally depraved, perverted freak who twists God and the Bible around to fit my sexual desires. I don't have the credibility as I'm merely "one of them". Machelle isn't and if she says it's cool, others are more apt to listen.

So, to the closeted straight allies, please be a Machelle and Ryan in your town and don't be shy about it. Talk about it. You're helping people at a scale you don't even know....

I recently exchanged emails with a straight ally who brought us out to her University during this last tour. I told her I wish I was straight so people would find me more credible as I'd fit the "norm". She emailed back saying "that's funny, I wish I was gay so I didn't have to deal with a lot of this male gender stuff..." Perhaps we're talking about the same thing. The grass is always greener but we're who we are uniquely and with purpose...and I'm off to continue mine....

Leonard Pitts: Empathy makes us better people
By Leonard Pitts

Published 12:00 am PST Friday, December 15, 2006
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B7

This is for a reader who demands to know why I write about gay issues. His conclusion is that I must secretly be gay myself.

Actually, he doesn't express himself quite that civilly. To the contrary, his e-mails -- which, until recently, were arriving at the rate of about one a week -- evince a juvenility that would embarrass a reasonably intelligent fifth-grader. The most recent one, for example, carried a salutation reading, "Hi Mrs. Pitts." We're talking about the kind of thing for which delete buttons were invented. So you may wonder why I bring it to your attention, especially since acknowledging a person like this only encourages him.

It's simple, actually: He raises an interesting question that deserves an answer.

If from that you conclude (or fear) you're about to read a stirring defense of my manly male masculinity, no. The guy is free to believe what he wishes; I really don't care. And here, let me digress to confess that, though I refer to him using masculine pronouns, I actually don't know if he's a he because his notes have been anonymous. Still, I assume it's a guy because the level of sexual insecurity the e-mails suggest strikes me as -- boy, am I going to get in trouble for this -- rather guy-specific.

Anyway, to get back to the point, I'm not here to argue sexuality.

I just find myself intrigued by the idea that if you're not gay, you shouldn't care about gay rights. The most concise answer I can give is cribbed from what a white kid said 40 or so years ago, as white college students were risking their lives to travel South and register African Americans to vote. Somebody asked why. He said he acted from an understanding that his freedom was bound up with the freedom of every other man.

I know it sounds cornier than Kellogg's, but that's pretty much how I feel.

I know also that some folks are touchy about anything seeming to equate the African American civil rights movement with the gay one. And no, gay people were not kidnapped from Gay Land and sold into slavery, nor lynched by the thousands. On the other hand, they do know something about housing discrimination, they do know job discrimination, they do know murder for the sin of existence, they do know the denial of civil rights and they do know what it is like to be used as scapegoat and boogeyman by demagogues and political opportunists.

They know enough of what I know that I can't ignore it. See, I have yet to learn how to segregate my moral concerns. It seems to me if I abhor intolerance, discrimination and hatred when they affect people who look like me, I must also abhor them when they affect people who do not. For that matter, I must abhor them even when they benefit me. Otherwise, what I claim as moral authority is really just self-interest in disguise.

Among the things we seem to have lost in the years since that white kid made his stand is the ability, the imagination, the willingness to put ourselves into the skin of those who are not like us. I find it telling that Vice President Dick Cheney hews to the hard conservative line on virtually every social issue, except gay marriage. It is, of course, no coincidence that Cheney has a daughter who is a lesbian.

Which tells me his position is based not on principle but, rather, on loving his daughter. It is a fine thing to love your daughter. I would argue, however, that it is also a fine thing, and in some ways a finer thing, to love your neighbor's daughter, no matter her sexual orientation, religion, race, creed or economic status.

I believe in moral coherence. And Rule No. 1 is, you cannot assert your own humanity, then turn right around and deny someone else's. If that makes me gay, fine. As my anonymous correspondent ably demonstrates, there are worse things to be.

About the writer:

* Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Reach him at lpitts@herald.com. His column routinely appears in The Bee on Fridays and occasionally on other days. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.