A Call to Action to Secure Equality Under the Law for the Gay Community

Friends and families, gay and straight, Mormon and not...I admire and applaud your passion for justice here today. Your presence here signals that our great country is not a uniform sea of discrimination, but a land with people that respect human dignity and affirm the rightful place of justice in our society.

We are all here today because we accept that our neighborhoods, our cities, our states, and our great country are not living up to their promise of liberty and justice for all. In light of a historic victory this week for the United States and the world, we stand in the shadow of discriminatory initiatives in three states, the most painful of which is Proposition 8 in California, because, as you all know, this wonderful church here before us played a role in denying fundamental rights to an entire group of law-abiding people in a state hundreds of miles away. Whether you stand here today out of hurt or you do so out of the conviction that these wrongs must be righted, have the courage to know that we WILL SECURE THESE FREEDOMS FOR ALL OUR PEOPLE.

The fight for the rights of gay Americans is more than just THE seminal social justice issue of our time: it is also one of immediate concern; of unparalleled gravity; of continued stress and strife for an entire group of people; and deserving of our urgency and talents as individuals seeking to improve as many people's lives as possible.

I believe in strong families, and safe and nurturing communities. I don't know anyone, gay or straight, that disagrees with that. People should be able to build strong families. They should be able to secure the means to provide a safe, healthy environment for their children. Communities should have the supports--in the form of excellent schools, caring leadership, and infrastructural resources--that reinforce bright futures for our youth. And no one should have the latitude to deny communities and families these tools, because doing so hits society where it hurts the most: our children.

Denying equal rights to same-sex couples and gay individuals does more than just violate my worldview. It delays the large-scale, long-term progress of our communities and, by extension, our nation and world. Fifty years from now, people may still disagree about the moral standing of homosexuality, but surely we can, and MUST, agree--now--that equality under the law must be extended to all law-abiding citizens, and that every responsible adult, gay or straight, has the right to raise children, to build strong families, to be a part of the safe and nurturing communities we all want for our kids.

So I present to you a vision:

We live in what is now, after this week's great Election, the third reddest state in the country. We live in the great state of Utah, and we are about to embark on a journey--right here--to help secure equal legal rights for same-sex couples and gay individuals. And if we succeed here...we can succeed everywhere.

We are going to reach out to local GLBT organizations and gifted volunteers in the gay and straight Utah community, and found a campaign that will unify people--gay and straight, Mormon and not--around the cause that protecting the rights of all Utahns builds stronger communities for all of us, and that even if we disagree with the lifestyle choices or sexual orientation of others, we cannot, on that basis, deny them any of the political fruits of living in the United States of America or the great state of Utah.

You might be wondering what it will take to get there.

We--and make no mistake, when I say we, I mean all of us committed to this cause, regardless of our own backgrounds--we must target apathy and prejudice in those that would seek to stop us from securing equal rights for our gay neighbors, friends, families, or strangers...but we must do so in a way that honors the same spirit of cooperation and acceptance that defines our movement for equality under the law. We must forgo the path of retribution, and instead embrace at every step of the way a stubborn understanding that to be victorious, to get our message across and get our legislative ideas in action, we need every single Utahn by our side, even the ones that misunderstand us, fear us, deplore us, or disagree with us. By organizing with a focus, with message discipline, with leadership and with the integrity to see this thing through to the very end, we will be able to sway people's hearts, and where we can't sway their hearts, than we must do everything in our power to convince their minds:

We can show our churches and church leaders that they have in their ranks highly devoted and doting parents with gay children, and that those children deserve the same privileges and protections that our straight children receive.

We can show our extended friends and families in Utah that Utahns and members of the LDS community, too, have been persecuted, simply because of their beliefs.

We can show our small business owners that they benefit from an industrious, well-educated workforce, and that securing equal rights for their gay employees brings them the stability and promotes the industriousness and innovation that pays great dividends in the workplace.

We can show our city courts that although churches play a valuable role in the spiritual integrity of our society, no church should ever promote public policy or use its influence to manipulate political outcomes, because doing so is unethical and, more importantly to the courts, against the law.

We can show our colleges and universities that when gay students feel safe in the academic community, they not only fulfill their personal academic potentials, but also stimulate the holistic and inclusive atmosphere of knowledge that makes strides in learning possible for all college students.

And in doing so, we can make advocates out of individuals and institutions that may not be emotionally invested in our rights but accept that only by affirming those rights can their interests and our society move forward.

I know I am not the only one with this dream. Join me in forming a campaign for human progress here in Utah. Let's fight together. Let's fight for the day when no one will ask you if you are gay or straight, because the answer won't make a difference in how they see you. Let's fight for the day when, if a gay son or daughter or niece or nephew or grandchild is born into your family, they will not be persecuted, and you will not have to fight for their rights, because we fought today for the day when we can cry and celebrate together as so many of us did this past Tuesday night, knowing that an important milestone in human history had passed--and that we were a part of it.

Be a part of this dream with me.

campaignforhumanprogress@gmail.com

There Has To Be A Way: A Primer on Human Progress

I want to make people's lives better. As an undergraduate, I studied Neuroscience because I thought I could one day help save lives in the ER. But a few years into my college experience, and a few service trips later, I had seen enough socioeconomic injustice and learned about enough racial disparity to realize that the problems of our great country extended far beyond the margins I had grown up noticing in the white, middle class suburbiaplex of my adolescence, and in the pristine, insular community of my sprawling college campus. So every so often I wonder to myself, "What will it take to make people's lives better on a massive scale? There has to be a way."

A few weeks ago, Europe dazzled the world (and scared a few misinformed concern trolls) with the biggest and most advanced science project ever: the Large Hadron Collider. I figured this technological behemoth--what with its 17-mile circumference, 1600 magnets capable of accelerating protons to 99.99% the speed of light, and 6000 scientists from 80-something nations working together to uncover the mystery of mass--I figured this thing would be freaking expensive.

It cost less than $10 billion USD. That's less than the cost of a month in the Iraq war. Pittance.

Now, I know this stuff doesn't move headlines, but it does make me think: what is it that society values, and what costs would it incur if it decided to really push the envelope in the name of progress? I mean, there has to be a way, right?

From an old New York Times article on perspective:

For starters, $1.2 trillion [one estimate of the final cost of the war in Iraq] would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

Wow, you mean we could save millions of lives around the world; put a serious dent in the #1 and #7 leading causes of death in the U.S.; insure every American with quality healthcare; virtually eradicate poverty in U.S. cities; provide every lil' tike with a headstart on their intellectual development; and even throw in a nice do-over/fiscal prize to rebuild the honorable city of our brothers and sisters from New Orleans--all for the price of one Iraq War that was predicated on falsities (read: should never have happened to begin with), has worsened our moral standing in the world, and has arguably lowered, not heightened, our long-term safety?

I believe in the fundamental good in human beings. I respect the sanctity of life, and as such believe human beings (not necessarily zygotes, mind you) have a fundamental right to it. I believe humans have a fundamental right to have their health secured when they cannot secure it for themselves, and I'm not just talking about Americans. I believe human beings have a fundamental right to intellectual development and opportunities for self-actualization as furthered by equitable access to literacy and a just education system. I believe human beings should have a fundamental right to freedoms of choice, freedoms that improve the quality of their lives without morally infringing on their fellow human beings. And I believe--fully, irretrievably believe--that humanity will not reach its global potential until the larger sociopolitical engine works for it, and puts into place the infrastructure needed to bring about that potential. That, in a grand, expensive nutshell, is what it will take.

And to me, this is what this election is really about: Who among our candidates for this land's highest office can bridge the nowheres, and excite and motivate the masses to make the hard decisions, the sacrifices needed to make people's lives better in the long run? Who has the vision to look into the past in order to oversee and implement the progress of the future? Maybe we do need a big government guy like Senator Obama. And a big government gal like Senator Clinton.

Because I'm not happy with where we are. I want us to change. We have a real need. And I want to believe that we can achieve what large hadron colliders never could: use our minds to build the infrastructure needed to improve people's lives.

There has to be a way.