Editorial
Editorial:
Believing in the Light
The light is dying away in the December evenings, the darkness growing toward its longest reign. That’s a simple fact of astronomy, of living in the northern hemisphere.
And yes, it might be a metaphor for the national election results to those of us who distrust the Bush administration’s demonization of Iraq’s oil-rich dictator, an admittedly easy target for demagoguery. Not to mention the ongoing erosion of privacy and civil rights for all citizens being orchestrated by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
But if I believe in anything, it’s that the light will return, beginning in the physical world on December 22 (perhaps not measurably, yet, but within a week or so, we’ll have gained a few minutes).
In the meantime, we light candles and shield those fragile flames from guttering gales.
We hold onto the historic election of the first woman – unabashed liberal Nancy Pelosi – to national party leadership in the US House of Representatives as one potential candle.
We got a lot of candles in the form of Vermont legislators committed to upholding the civil unions law as currently written, including Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force Executive Director Mitzi Johnson, from Grand Isle. As one political activist told me, “In terms of the effects on our daily lives, I’d rather have the Republicans at the top of the ticket where they can’t do too much harm, than in a majority in the legislature.”
We in Vermont are a candle for the rest of the country, lighting the way toward equality in rights for gay and lesbian couples. Cities in other states have lit their own candles against the continuing hate-crime murders of transwomen and transmen by passing legal protections for transgender individuals.
And yet, we are not all safe or warm, we do not live in a glbt-friendly paradise in Vermont. Repressive neighbors too often provide the gusts that blow out our candles of hope and joy. Steven George Smith’s Franklin County neighbors hurl anti-gay epithets at him on the street, and some of them allegedly assaulted him at his not-so-friendly neighborhood bar. Rachel Erickson’s school board can’t decide whether she can show that her classroom is a harassment-free zone – a safe space – for her students.
Even now, after all our struggles, and in spite of legal protections, some of us cannot get justice. You can only protect your civil rights if you can afford a lawyer and there’s someone to sue. Steven George Smith doesn’t have that luxury. He’s a classic outsider, disabled, poor, gay and alone, with no network of close friends and allies to support him. His story is an object lesson in how far we still have to go.
If you are not poor and disabled and living in a hostile community this December, count your blessings. If you have not had to try to find justice in a system where the gears grind slowly and all too often grind up the hapless victims it should help, feel glad that you live in the light in a dark season in a dark world.
Light some candles this month: for how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. For trans teen Gwen Araujo and the other 24 known transgender dead through hate violence; for Rachel Erickson and her questioning students; for Steven George Smith and all our brothers and sisters who live with the darkness of other people’s souls.
If you are safe and warm this December – as many of us are – light a candle, whether it’s for Chanukah, Solstice, Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or just because we need more light in a dark world. If we light enough candles, the darkness will retreat.
Euan Bear
CORRECTIONS
In case it wasn’t obvious, the candidate endorsements by Vermonters for Civil Unions on the back page of last month’s issue were paid advertising. We should have labeled that page as such.
And, obviously I’m still haunted by the hobgoblin of inconsistency regarding Leah Wittenberg’s last name. I’ll keep trying to get it right, Leah.