The International Writers Magazine:Comment:
THE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS OF A BUDDHIST AMONG BAPTISTS
• Reverend Father Antonio Hernández, O.M.D., A.B.F.
Founder of the Independent Order of American Buddhist Fathers

---

SO PROUDLY WE WAVE, THAT WE EVOLVE - RIGHT IN YOUR FACE! Rev. Dr. Antonio Hernández Never speak of revolution, but of evolution. -Dr. Albert Schweitzer to a serving officer in Korea [The gay community] needs an Abraham Lincoln. -Paul Monette

With so many horrible, painful occurrences in the gay community and in America, I decided enough is enough. My two decades of fighting and my half dozen articles at "Hackwriters" that are gay-themed are nothing more than pussy-footing around; I've resolved to do something more.

I'm going to have a tattoo made on the upper part of my left arm: it will be as close to lavender as the artist can get, and will consist of three simple letters in block. It will read GAY.

That's right, folks, I'm doing it. It is my hope that others will do it too. I also decided we should have an American Gay Day, a day we will celebrate here, and hold as true as the 4th of July. Forget World Pride Day, Diversity Day, and D-Day. Gay Day will be the event of the millennium. Why? Because if we don't stand united and do something now, we will be segregated as surely as the black community was. Don't believe me? Get the tattoo, let everyone get a good look, and see what happens. One summer evening I was heckled by a bunch of teenaged bums because of the gay PRIDE sticker on my car. Better yet, try to make an obscene phone call to anti-Justice Antonin Scalia. (It might be successful, as long as it isn't gay.)

We gay citizens should do peacefully proud civil things, like the tattoo, and let everyone see. Some of the things I have done in the past, to show my gay pride, have mostly met with admiration for my bravery. I always respond that it isn't "bravery". It's just me, it's who I am. Why do I get these apparently nutty, radical ideas? Because we gay people do not show our gayness in our skin or with our physical build. That is the exact thought I had just before I had the idea for the tattoo. Sorry, the tattoo is the best I can think of: Jews get circumcised, gays get the tattoo. There should be more than a coincidental link there.

We don't necessarily show our gayness in the way we dress - I've seen some affirmed straight people wearing rather gay attire, which can be horribly misleading. The tattoo is the gateway to peaceful but loud gayness. And it has to say GAY, because I've seen many straight people sporting rather queer-looking tats, as well. We could also include a small number beneath the word GAY, any number we like. My number is already picked. To that end, I've often thought we need a flag, something other than the silly rainbow flag, which after all was not originally a gay idea. It's scary, but I'm beginning to sound like a militant separatist. That's the point: I'm not a secessionist nutball, I want to be here, to be fully American!

We must seize every channel, every method, every statement, every new idea and make it GAY. This government treads upon us daily, because they know we will always be a per capita minority. This is how they elude admitting that we are a minority. We must do what the countless millions of repressed, segregated and hated groups failed to do: WE MUST DO IT ALL. Most importantly, we should never entertain the thought of criminal acts; anything else is free game, because the Constitution says so. It will be the gay community that reminds the rest of America what the Constitution says.

My Buddhist prayer book is full of notes and reminders. I have decided to add a special chant, composed in rather mangled Mandarin Chinese, designed especially for the gay community- and by extension, for all downtrodden people. It's amazing that most Buddhist orders do not really have such a chant in their prayer books (though some of them include what amounts to a school anthem).

And so the same will occur with my Buddhist calendar, upon which I will inscribe with pride the day to celebrate American Gay Day. Because I cannot get to a holiday-riddled calendar as yet, I can't decide on the date. Perhaps I'll let ego rage for a while and make it the same day as my birthday. It will take time to compose good Buddhist chanting to accompany the prayer, and I want to design the flag myself. I promise to keep my two or three loyal readers apprised of my progress.

Ah, no, my ideas (except the tattoo) are nothing novel. There's no bite-ya-in-the-keester notion that might galvanize Gay American Citizens. But who has ever really pulled these ideas together, and tried to implement them properly, simultaneously? Though no one wants to see another Stonewall, as a friend of mine says, why can't we get positive results like Stonewall's - on a national scale? Are we so afraid of losing something? After all, the Stonewall riot did change the nation. Shameful, that it took an ugly 1969 riot outside a gay hole-in-the-wall bar to get us as far as we've ever gotten. Perhaps we eliminate some of the joke-like circus atmosphere from the World Gay Pride events. And I for one do not propose a riot... at least, not just yet.

Meanwhile, if you're gay, if you're straight, if you're nebulous, no matter - think seriously about all this. If you're gay, you should have thought about something like this already. And remember, if you stop and think for too long, someone's going to come along and paint a target on YOUR back, too. Why not bravely put it there for them, and prove to the nation what lousy shots the target-painters really are? You wish you had a nickel for every time they've missed me.

We Are Family

More Comment here


Home

© Hackwriters 1999-2005 all rights reserved