I don’t know what it’s like to be gay. I can only guess
what I would experience if I walked in their shoes. I can’t possibly understand
all the hardships and hate that those in the LGBT community have endured for decades.
But I’ve come a little closer to a full appreciation,
thanks to Todd Heywood.
A Lansing-based newspaper reporter and LGBT activist,
Heywood wrote a heart-wrenching blog about his reaction to Saturday’s federal
court ruling that briefly made same-sex marriage legal in Michigan. I won’t
spoil the ending for you, but I want to share a good portion of  Heywood’s thoughts after hearing  the judge’s ruling come in and watching the
reaction from a roomful of celebrants:
“… There I was, trying to tell my editor (by phone) at
the weekly gay newspaper what happened in the room — about the cheers, the
tears, the utter happiness of a room of LGBT people and allies — and I choked,
my eyes burned, and the tears came. Right there on Capitol Avenue in downtown
Lansing. I was three blocks from the Capitol Building, and standing in front of
the Student Services Building at Lansing Community College. I was literally
standing on the same spot where, some 20-plus years ago, I held a press
conference to discuss my pending, possible expulsion from the college for
daring to pass out condoms without permission.
“I was standing in front of the building where, weeks
after the college relented and did not punish me for passing out condoms, the
student government adopted a then comprehensive nondiscrimination policy
including sexual orientation. I was standing less than a block from where the
Board of Trustees voted months later, unanimously, to adopt sexual orientation
officially into the college’s nondiscrimination policy — becoming the second
community college in Michigan to do so.
“Around the corner from where I was standing was the Arts
and Sciences building where I took my first tentative steps towards telling
people that my partner had HIV. And there in that building I was standing in
front of, an amazing young journalist had written David’s story for the college
newspaper with care and great delicacy. A story for which she won awards from
professional journalists.
“I was standing just a block from where Perry Watkins,
the first openly gay U.S. soldier ever ordered readmitted to the military by
the U.S. Supreme Court, debated a former Navy man and vice president of the
college about inclusion of gays in the military. Perry would die a year later
from AIDS, but he had been there.
“I was standing across the street from a parking lot that
once housed a grand old building where … (I took) the oath of office to become
Michigan’s first openly gay male community college trustee. …And (in) that
board room where a decade before my election another board had approved sexual
orientation, I helped lead the board I was humbled to serve to adopt gender
identity protections as official nondiscrimination policy at the college, and
where we became the first community college in Michigan to offer domestic
partner benefits to same-sex partners of our college employees.
“So today, March 21, 2014, as I stood on the campus of
LCC, and I tried to speak of the emotional response of a new generation of ‘queer’
leaders to learning the federal court in Detroit had upheld their basic human
rights, I choked up and I cried. Not because we had marriage equality, but
because we were one giant step closer to full equality. I cried because over 20
years ago, I was the only openly gay student leader on campus; today there are
dozens. I cried because over 20 years ago, the idea that LGBT people should not
be discriminated against was so alien it took three years to get that idea
enshrined in college policies. I cried because 20 years ago, an ‘out’ gay man serving
in political office in Michigan was considered a dream …”
Click here to read the entire piece.