I’m here, I’m queer, let me tell ya about it…

In recent years when making New Year’s resolutions, I’ve had people throw wacky resolutions into a bowl and then draw what you have to do before the new year.  Off the top of my head, I can remember being forced to “wear more flannel” and “sell more Amway products.” 

This year I decided to truly dedicate myself to a task, but really only because it is part of an online global project.  www.hundreddays.net  “One Hundred Days to Make me a Better Person” asks people to do ONE thing ONCE a day for ONE hundred days.  People have dedicated themselves to drawing one cartoon a day, smiling at a stranger once a day, taking and posting a picture once a day, etc.  I was introduced to this project by my friend Greg Wohead who has the coolest one that I have found so far!  Greg, to my knowledge, has christened the term “twitter playwright” and is writing 140 character plays daily.  It’s incredibly interesting and I encourage you to follow his progress at http://twitter.com/gregwohead

In thinking about what I could do for one hundred days (which is much more attainable than 365), I thought about what fulfilled me the most – after all, this project is designed to benefit the participant.  Easily, one of the most important and rewarding events of my life thus far was telling my friends and family that I am gay.  In the years since, I have become increasingly more active in the LGBT community, recently attending the National Equality March in Washington DC.  At that rally at the foot of the Capitol and others I have attended, it has been repeated that in order to create change, you have to tell people you’re gay.  Friends, family, coworkers.  You have to let them know that they know someone who is gay.  You have to put a face on who the inequality is hurting.  A 2009 Gallup poll shows the importance of personalizing the issue of equality (http://www.gallup.com/poll/118931/knowing-someone-gay-lesbian-affects-views-gay-issues.aspx) 

Therefore, for my Hundred Days project, I will tell one person daily that they know someone who is gay – me.  This will mainly be people from my past who knew me as a good student, a good Boy Scout, a good volunteer, etc. – and now they need to know that they know a good gay.  I’m talking 3^rd grade teachers, hometown pastors, family friends, high school friends, my favorite bank teller, strangers I meet at the supermarket, elected representatives – anyone.  When an equality issue is voted down at the polls, I always hear that there are still so many people who “don’t know someone who is gay.” That is simply not true. They just need to know that they ALREADY know someone gay.

Locally, I embark upon this project with the hope that I change minds.  Loftily, I hope those minds will eventually change laws.  That’s what I hope.  In all honesty, I’m not really sure what to expect from this experience.  I’m not even sure what I will document in this blog – my struggles as I progress?  How I choose who I tell?  Any responses that I get?  What I do know is that this really feels like something I need to do.  Something we need to do.