Have we all stepped through the looking glass? ~ Dowager Countess, from Downton Abbey
Thinking about this topic and the long distance we’ve come over the last few years, I can’t believe I’m experiencing this in my (relative) youth. I truly believed that Thomas and I would be in our sixties or seventies lined up at the courthouse to be legally married. We were one of the first couples married in our county in Missouri here before the Supreme Court decision two years ago.
I enjoyed seeing all the pictures of the same-sex couples on social media that got to go to Prom without petitioning the school board for permission. They celebrated a right of passage along with their straight friends, I hope without the fear of being assaulted.
And yet, we still see pictures of gay couples being assaulted for public displays of affection. Just when I think we are moving forward, I see stuff like that. I don’t even want to get into the transgendered bathroom issue. I need to get the badge that says, “I will go with you” and wear it all the time.
I suppose that’s why I love writing historical books. I am so grateful that, for the most part, I’ve never had to hide in the closet. Sometimes I really have to scheme to figure out how to get the characters together in a plausible fashion that works for their times. In A Place to Call Their Own, it’s the unsettled Kansas Prairie. In Disappear With Me, it was a housekeeper’s need to get home to her family. Need Your Love is about the struggle in the 60s that two professional men have to figure out their way in the homophobic world.
So this year, let’s celebrate what we do have, that life is pretty good for most of us. Let’s continue to push for reform that makes the rest of country, and the world, a safer place to be for all of us.
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