The Ryan Thomas Collection

My ordinary Wednesday ended with the best feeling of victory, for me, my friends, my family and the country. News that President Obama signed the first major piece of gay rights legislation broke. October 28, 2009, almost a year after the Prop 8 debacle, the Matthew Shepard Act officially became law with the signature of our President and I could not be more elated. Tears of sorrow I shed following Election Day 2008 and the passage Prop 8 are now tears of joy for a real sense of victory and a sense of justice. I kept faith in my vote for President Obama and I truly believe this is just the beginning. Some patience. Some protesting in the streets. Some blind faith in America. Finally, a touch of equal protection under the law has come to fruition.
 

The story of Matthew Shepard and the vicious crimes committed against him always resonated with me. A high school student at the time of his death, I remember the fear it instilled in me. I remember coming to terms with the fact that this could happen to me any day and I remember the paranoia I lived with for so many years. Growing stronger than that fear and that paranoia was quite a journey, and in reality, I am still on this journey. Today, I remember Matthew Shepard and his story. Today, I celebrate that he did not die in vain and I thank him for helping me be a stronger member of the gay community.

A lot of people questioned President Obama’s Nobel Peace prize, but my friend pointed out that today’s act is the reason why he received the award. Providing civil rights to the citizens of his own country works towards equality and justice. If an injustice is a threat to justice everywhere, then today, President Obama has reduced the threat to justice and in turn, brought our quest for peace one step closer. We know and he knows that there is far more work to be done at the federal and state level, but for now we celebrate the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act, the LGBT inclusive hate crimes law. Harvey Milk said that “You gotta give them hope” and with the enactment of this legislation, President Obama has given me an even stronger sense of hope.

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Kylie Minogue embarked upon her first US tour on September 30th in Oakland, Ca and visited a selection of major metropolitan cities. She finished her two week American tour in NYC on Tuesday night and one can only pray that she’ll visit us Americans again very soon.

Kylie has been making pop music for about twenty years, hitting stardom in Europe and Australia in the 80s acting on TV series and then producing great pop hits and albums. She’s always had minimal success in the US, with hits like “Locomotion” and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” More recently, she hit some US headlines with her battle and conquer of breast cancer a few years back.

Worldwide, Kylie has had great success releasing album after album of great pop music. Kylie can sing; she can perform. Kylie is adorable; she is a star. Like a lot of great foreign cultural goods, Americans have yet to fully grasp the greatness that is Kylie. She has a presence like most American women in pop, with more of a Cher like performance quality.

I can see why she has had minimal success in the US. Her music is a lot more “pop” than a lot of the harder sounds I hear in popular American music. Her albums have had less R&B influence and I haven’t heard too much rap artists featured on her albums. Kylie is in my mind quintessential British/Aussie pop (she is Australian for those who don’t know).

If you don’t know Kylie, find her and explore. She has 20 years of consistent and indulgent pop. This should not undervalue what she produces, because lyrically she goes from songs about simply dancing and others explore deeper emotions. Think Madonna, but softer on the edges with less of an ego and need to be considered “an artist.”

Kylie USA 2009 was a brilliant theatrical production. Incorporating performance sets from her previous worldwide tours, about eight dancers accompanied Kylie through performances of hits spanning her entire career. Lasers shot from the stage. Scantily clad dancers hit the stage floor with slick choreography. Kylie’s voice was clean and actually live for those who think women in pop tend to lip sync. Kylie’s no Britney! For the small theatre stage, this tour used every inch magically. The show was intimate and sitting in the audience you could sense she was thrilled to finally be touring America and the audience was even more thrilled to have her here. She even said in her first show in Oakland that she had been waiting twenty years to do it and I have been waiting for almost half that time myself.

It is my sincere hope, now that we have leadership in Washington that looks to reach out to the world, that Americans, as a whole, will reach out more to our foreign reigning princesses of pop. I had to wonder if President Obama bringing in new American ideals about global citizenry helped persuade Kylie to finally bring her concert to American soil. In the end, I don’t care what brought her here; I am just happy she came. From what I have heard, Kylie’s tour has converted quite a bit of people who never knew her contribution to pop music. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a healthy career in the States.

Kylie, thank you for visiting America. It was a lot more convenient for me to cross the Bay Bridge than the Pond to Europe. Come back soon! For those reading and have some curiosity, Kylie’s “Ultimate Kylie” greatest hits collection is a great place to start.

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Lady Gaga used her celebrity to get press around the National Equality March. She performed at the HRC Event Saturday night and briefly spoke at the rally on the Capitol on Sunday. She attacks Barney Franks comments about the march and more importantly asks President Obama an important question.

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I do not have faith in Jesus Christ. I do not have faith in Allah. I put no faith in religion or its deities. I really never have and I am not sure if I ever will. The one thing I have always had an undying faith in is the Constitution of the United States, the fundamental and structural core of this nation’s government. It has been altered and misconstrued. It has been abused, and it has been tested. In the end, the central principles our Founding Fathers incorporated into this living document have survived and proven to provide justice more often than not.

The Constitution has always seemed genius to me, in that, unlike the Bible, it recognizes the need to live, grow and adapt. I have an unaltered faith that the Constitution, and those in power to defend it, will realize the necessity of standing up to social injustice and provide equality to all citizens of this nation. Until this happens, I march. We march. We assemble peaceably to remind the nation of the core principles of this nation, liberty and justice for all. Like Jehovah Witnesses in a suburban neighborhood, we knocked on the White House’s door. We knocked on the Capitol Building’s door. On October 11, 2009, an estimated 200,000 people knocked to say, “Equality across America.”

In September, I got word that an equality march was being planned in Washington, DC to bring attention to gay and lesbian rights, or lack thereof. At that point, my friends and I had marched on San Francisco’s City Hall. We drove to Sacramento to march on our state’s capitol. We decided the time had come to fly to our nation’s capitol to march for what we deserve, our full civil rights. Travel plans were made and off we went to explore the core of our country’s government. Off we went to stand up to social injustice, for ourselves, for those who cannot speak, and for the future.

We did not know what to expect in numbers for the march; the effectiveness of such a march continually ridiculed by many on both sides of the political spectrum. As days neared to the march, news was released that President Obama would speak at the Human Rights Coalition (HRC) event the night before the march. This had to be a sign that the march was going to be something worthy of getting President Obama to speak the night before. In a sense, a victory had been won without anyone actually marching. President Obama speaking at the HRC got the cause of equality in the headlines for the weekend; it got people talking. The conversation fueled once more. It seemed from an outsider’s standpoint that the march we were to embark upon must have helped, even just a tad, in convincing President Obama to speak at this important event. He spoke and it was, more or less, the same rhetoric he used in his campaign, but at least we know he has not forgotten and more importantly, he knows we have not forgotten.

October 11, 2009, National Coming Out Day, our day to march on the nation’s capitol, had arrived. We walked to the gathering point of the march and waited for it to begin. As we waited, we looked up to see a huge rainbow in the sky; an actual rainbow adorning us from above. It had to be a sign that we were doing something special. Thousands of people gathered. We stood waiting for an hour thinking we were held up from marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House and to the Capitol. Unsure of the reason for the wait, we maneuvered through the crowd only to find that the turnout had the streets so filled that it took an hour to get all the marchers down the route to allow us to start moving. It was massive. Rainbow flags everywhere. Massive signs calling for equality and justice. People of all colors, all ages, all sexual orientations. It was a colorful and powerful display. 200,000-250,000 people marched in front of the White House and then stood before the Capitol Building. A spectacular site to be seen. Although, the turnout was smaller than that in marches in 2000, 1993 and the late 80s, something was done and someone heard.

Barney Frank, D-MA, said that the National Equality March was “only putting pressure on the grass” and that such peaceful assemblies do little to persuade Congress into making decisions. He said the march was more of an emotional release for those marching. I certainly agree that participating in the National Equality March was an emotional release, a powerful release of all sorts of emotions. I felt empowered, and knew that the same document that gives me the freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble will one day work to give me the equality I so rightfully am due. We had to bring attention to Maine’s Prop 1, the Prop 8 of Maine. Washington state has pending legislation to remove domestic partnership rights from the state. This was not just about pressuring Congress to act, it was about bringing attention to each piece of social injustice happening in our nation.

None of us marching expect Congress to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) in the next couple weeks. Lady Gaga’s speech at the steps of the Capital Building put it perfectly, “President Obama, I know you are listening. ARE YOU LISTENING?” We marched on Sunday, October 11, 2009 to remind Congress, to remind the President and to remind America that we are not done. We marched on Sunday to get one more person to listen and say, “Enough is enough. These people are right.” This march keeps the conversation alive and in our system, the conversation must be kept alive because one day, one or all of the branches in Washington are going to acknowledge, provide and protect equal civil rights for the LGBT community. Until this day happens, I will put “pressure on the grass” for me and for my country, because as FDR said:

We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

Below, artists use movement, color and music to spread their ideas at the National Equality March.

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