Self-Organizing Man

If we assume, as this blog has of late, that activism is not identity based (as in i am a LGBT activist because I am LGBT) but behavioral basis (as in i am a GLBT activist because it is the right thing to do) then I guess we totally loose the concept of allies, because identity does not separate us.  (I’m thinking here of non-GLBT folks who have taken up the struggle with us.)  While I can jump on the idea of behaviorally based social activism, I think I will see non-LGBT folk as allies for a little longer.

Today I want to tell you about one of my/our allies.  Her name is Ann-Marie and she is dying rather quickly of lung cancer.  I sat with her in the hospice for 3 hours yesterday so her family could get a break.  I also sat with her because she is a dear friend.  She wraps up in her being so many of the things I want to be.  She is an anti-racist/pro-reconciliation activist and a GLBT rights activist among the many other things she supports.  She is 82 and a Christian who welcomes all people at the table.  Yesterday she was asking me if I knew that Jerry Falwell makes all his students at Liberty University sign an anti-homosexual pledge.  Then she said, "I would scold him if I could and tell him God doesn’t make trash."

She doesn’t have a gay son or daughter.  She doesn’t have a personal investment in the Queer rights movement except for the friends she has sought out in it.  What she does have is a deep commitment to the belief that all people, just as they are, are created in the image of God, queer or not.  At 82, her theology is a great deal more "cutting edge" than the majority of Christians in this country.  She is a powerful ally because of the influence she has had in the senior residence where she lived.  Every day, she lived an example of radical inclusivity in a population that didn’t have any "out" people living in it.  This is the kind of ally we desperately need.  I celebrate her existence and witness in my life and the lives of so many others.

Ona Marae