I understand good intentions, we are human and most of us, believe our good intentions carry some weight, but mostly, I believe our good intentions only remove a weight from our own shoulders, and honestly do not go any further. On Monday, Joe and I attended a vigil for all of the individuals murdered or placed in harms way at the Gay bar in Orlando, Pulse. Joe had finally reached his limit of understanding of yet another rampage with an assault weapon and thought perhaps with our good intentions we should attend this vigil. We live in West Hollywood and the Mayor of our city, and a few of the City Council Members were there. The Mayor was pleased, with her good intentions of calling this gathering last minute, and was happy to see the meager showing of perhaps 40 people. The Mayor of West Hollywood and Council Members were in attendance, and yet we were all told to stand on the sidewalks, no effort to close that part of the Boulevard, no attempt to anticipate a larger crowd, and no attempt at anything but good intentions. We listen to the officials who click and clamor resting their speeches assuring us they are grieving along with the nation. Then we are told to call our representative, (who has already is a proponent of better gun laws), and we were given a whole bunch of web sights to search for MORE information. All of this was done with good intentions. Then we had our perfunctory moment of silence, followed by the ever handy candles to light. We were told by one speaker raise your candles high and say we are one and never again. All said and done with good intentions.
The vigil was over and the spokesman said lets now go into Mickey’s a gay bar where the vigil was held, and lets play music and of course drink. Monday night for me was nothing but an emotional waste of time; the politicians did their we love the Gays routine, some people from WEHO said we are proud to be Gay, we silenced ourselves and lit our candles. And nothing else happened or in my mind will happen. Today on Facebook I see wonderful pictures the LGBT community and some straight friends with the rainbow flag in the background saying we are Orlando. All of this is with good intentions. No argument about the intentions but sometimes good intentions are not enough.
I want to know what happens when the moment of silence ends, and all we hear is cacophony of noise. I want to know what happens when the flame of the candles evaporate, all we see is the din of darkness. I want to know when we finish our prayers with AMEN, does God say back attacha, and we go on with our lives. I want to know why we don’t ACT UP. I want to know why we ring our fingers moan to our friends, complain about the hypocrisy of the those who think life begins at conception but death is no big deal? When HIV-AIDS infected millions of homosexuals, we as a nation looked the other way, until some brave souls in NYC decided to ACT UP. One more massacre,one more scapegoat, one more moment of silence, one more candle lit, one more prayer said,and what do we get….to do it all over again. It is time for all Americans to ACT UP, be loud, to demonstrate to participate in Civil Disobedience, and to not only be brave, but ACT brave! As long as we remain passive the bully will win. It is time to ACT UP AMERICA!
