An Outsider No More.

Do you know what it's like living your life as an outsider?  Often hated out loud by institutions that call themselves religious, but preach hatred and exclusion.  

• I marched in the 1963 Civil Rights protest in Washington DC because I believed in the United States Constitution.
• I participated in the Detroit riots on 12th Street in 1967 because I believed in the United States Constitution.
• I was hosed during the Democratic Convention 1968 in Chicago because I believed in the United States Constitution.

I was not alone. Thousands of citizens who were disenfranchised or segregated or just not recognized as existing marched. We were called 'Nigger', 'Spic', 'Greaser', 'Wop.' 'Kike', 'Faggot', 'Diesel Dyke', 'Aggressive Castrating Bitch', 'Too Big for our Britches', and much worse, but we continued.

We were beaten, some were killed. We were arrested and jailed.  Local government officials and police stood in the streets and clubbed us with billy clubs. And those officials were applauded, cheered and they swore we defectives would never grace their facilities. 

I was one person out of many thousands.  Slowly the barriers disappeared or started to disappear.  Inclusion was slow, so very slow.

We wrote and printed underground newspapers and surreptitiously distributed them on campuses all over the country. We held women's consciousness raising groups in basements, in kitchens, in bars, wherever we could so women finally realized they were people in and of themselves and did not have to submit to anyone or get approval from anyone else to be a self actualized human being.

Women have broken the glass ceilings imposed by corporations.  Minorities are being freely elected to government positions. Segregation is officially a thing of the past. (Unofficially, we have a long way to go.) Homosexuals can serve their country, again officially.

And on Monday, 21 January, 2013, I was officially recognized by the president of the United States, who said, "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

For the first time ever, I am a part of this country and recognized as such.  The rest of you have no idea what that means.

Thank you, President Obama. May the citizens of this country agree with you.

And on June 26th 2015, SCOTUS declared us citizens of the US with full rights and privileges. Finally!