..::Nebraska Democratic GLBT Caucus

The punishment for being gay in the United States is often meted out in violence: Gay bashing, school bullying, harassment, job loss, and local, state and national legislation designed to prevent same-sex couples from gaining any legal recognition of their partnerships, to foster or adopt children, or share something as simple as medical and pension benefits. The now infamous Fred Phelps of Topeka, KS, who has gained notoriety for making a public nuisance of himself at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, believes gay people should not only be locked up but should receive the death penalty. He has made his way, once again, into the media spotlight by daring to disturb grieving families trying to bury children and spouses killed in Iraq. To help protect the grieving families, a group calling themselves The Patriot Guard was formed to stand as a barrier between Phelps and the gravesites of the soldiers. In addition to the Patriot Guard, a number of states are now attempting to pass legislation to force Phelps to keep a certain distance from the funerals - a legal buffer. Phelps is largely protected by his right to free speech and it is doubtful that this legislation will hold up under appeal.

Phelps believes that America is being punished for its moral decline and its failure to stop and/or punish gays and lesbians. This punishment, he argues, is being meted out by God in the form of American soldiers killed in Iraq This message is largely lost on the media, which prefers to focus its cameras on Phelps and the mourners. A recent appearance by Phelps on MSNBC was shut down by the anchor when Phelps insisted on gay bashing, Bible quoting, and sermonizing and refused to address the anchor's questions. Not once did the anchor mention that Phelps and his family are motivated by homophobia. His only concern was the effect Phelps was having on the grieving families. Not once did he mention the effect Phelps might be having on gay and lesbian families. Phelps' actions are not new. In the 80s and 90s he picketed the funerals of AIDS victims, loudly proclaiming that AIDS was God's punishment on gay people. While this garnered some media attention it did not precipitate the creation of a Patriot Guard rushing to protect grieving families of AIDS victims, nor did it cause a flurry in any state legislature in an attempt to keep Phelps at bay.

Phelps' beliefs about gays, morality and America are not unique. Pat Robertson made similar statements on his show the 700 club when he described natural disasters as a form of Godly punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality. Last year, Robertson stated that "Gays and lesbians are "self-absorbed narcissists responsible for no-fault divorce and abortion." The website, Hatecrimes.org, documents homophobic speech made by prominent media, religious, and political figures and includes quotes from Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, Reggie White, and Dr. Laura. While Phelps has become the poster child for homophobic speech, his beliefs are echoed, in no less virulent and hostile terms, in our schools, courts, and Congress.

The names of our dead are a part of the American cultural landscape: Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena, and Sylvia Rivera. When citizens take it into their own hands to eradicate what they perceive as threatening, diseased, wrong, or different what results is social punishment at the most violent and chaotic level. It is a form of vigilantism. Radical? Yes. Unexpected? Not really. Where do everyday citizens get the idea that it is acceptable to kill gay people? Where does the idea that gay people are a threat to "normal" individuals and the American way of life come from? We don't have to look too far. These ideas are spread via television, radio, the Internet, the pulpit, courts of law, and legislation supported at the local, state, and federal level. Phelps' message is echoed in contemporary American culture, society, politics, and law.

All of these venues, in some form or other, spread the message that America is in a moral decline and that gays and lesbians post a significant threat to specific areas of American life; namely, children, family, marriage, public health, public morality, moral stability, and heterosexual sexual mores and norms. A cure is being offered to the American public in the guise of a form of legislative punishment designed to prevent any formal legal, governmental, or religious recognition of gays and lesbians.

Induced by the fear that gays and lesbians pose a threat to American culture and way of life, American politicians aren't standing at the gravesides of AIDS victims screaming vulgarities like Fred Phelps. They are participating in something far more insidious and effective, they are writing, sponsoring, and voting for laws designed to punish gays and lesbians because, at the heart of state Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) laws, such as the now overturned Nebraskan 416 amendment, rests the belief that gays and lesbians are responsible for the moral decline of America and must be stopped.

If we can't be killed, a la Fred Phelps' wish that gays and lesbians receive the death penalty, we can at least be legislated out of existence. It is a sort of death by vote. The thinking behind this goes as follow: "if we don't choose to recognize you, then you will mo longer exist." Under Western law, if you are not recognized as a legal entity then you have no official form of existence. Women suffered under this form of legal erasure and non-existence for centuries. In 1700s Britain, a woman could not get divorced because she had no legal standing. If she wanted a divorce it had so be negotiated between her father and her husband because, in legal terms, she did not exist. This same sentiment is now being applied to the legal recognition of gays and lesbians. Since we have little or no legal standing, and our partnerships have no legal standing, then we do not exist in the eyes of the law. Without legal recognition our lives and our families are devalued as little more than a 'lifestyle choice.'

Phelps' website is called Godhatesfags.com. I've been to the site only once. I could barely stand to look at it. It hurts. It's nasty, it's cruel and it's mean. When Phelps comes to Omaha or Lincoln, or any other town in America, there is often a call to just ignore him. Don't' engage him in conversation, don't scream back, and don't take pictures. It is thought that he is just an attention seeker, and by ignoring him and placing a media blackout on him, he will go away, thwarted and defeated. Ever since Phelps turned his nastiness on American soldiers, the media and local and state governments have been trying to find ways to keep him at bay. Some states, including Nebraska, are attempting to pass bills to keep Phelps at a distance from the gravesites in order to minimize his presence and to maintain dignity and quiet for families. Again, it is a form of see no evil hear no evil. If we don't have to see or hear Phelps then perhaps we can pretend he doesn't exist. Sound familiar? If we don't have to publicly recognize gays and lesbians perhaps they and their demands will all just go away.

America is not just fighting one war; we are fighting a political war, a legal war, a culture war, right vs. left, heterosexual vs. homosexual, red state vs. blue state. These lines have been drawn by the media, the government, courts and churches. Fred Phelps and his gang are not the cause, they are the effect. That Phelps and his family travel the country doing what they do should come as no surprise, they have the philosophical, legal and religious backing of so many - maybe not in word, not in the literal standing shoulder to shoulder at the gravesites of Aids victims and Iraq War veterans, but they have backing whenever someone, politician or citizen, votes for a Doma law, turns a deaf ear to child bullying, prevents their child from speaking to the gay or lesbian neighbor, refuses to hire someone for being gay or lesbian, refuses medical treatment to a trans person, and on and on and on.

June is here. Gay pride month. The month we set aside to say we are not going away and we won't be quiet. This is the month where we walk down the middle of Main Street - the trannies, drag queens, fags, dykes, butches and femmes. The point, to let the world know that despite the laws, the sign waving, the rhetoric, the DOMA laws, the anti-adoption laws, the bullying, the harassment, and the name-calling, we can't and won't be legislated out of existence.