The election cycle is gearing up and already I’m experiencing the inevitable: anti-homosexual rhetoric. Politicians are working on getting elected and one of their favorite galvanizing issues is marriage equality. The reason: This subject gets the party base out to vote. The result: LGBT communities are used as pawns — political footballs if you will. Let me explain why this is highly offensive and ultimately hurtful to me, a lesbian, my life partner, and our daughter, who happens to be five years old.
In the last few months, four different incidents, seemingly unrelated, have occurred in my life and the lives of those 3,000 miles away from me. What makes these situations/events mentionable is that they have a common theme: homophobia.
This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2011.