At a recent speaking engagement, I asked a group of people, “What would the world be like if, from the day you were born, prejudice had never touched your lives?”
I encourage everyone to try this exercise because it is surprisingly difficult and because I believe it is the pathway to our most potent tools in response to government-imposed second-class citizenship: A sense of urgency and the willingness to sacrifice to harness the transformational power of living “as if.” “As if” the laws had already changed. “As if” society were just.
Sitting at a lunch counter that bans your presence is living “as if.” Keeping your seat when ordered to relinquish it to someone the law has designated your superior is living “as if.”
So where are the places where we contemplate the consequences of living “as if” equality had already arrived. Housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, adoption/custody issues and hate violence are constant threats in LGBT lives, but not in inevitable or predictable ways. Where are the “sit -in” opportunities for the LGBT movement that can expose the contradiction between what our fellow Americans believe they stand for and what they allow to be done in their name?
Certainly discrimination in marriage laws and the military provide the most direct opportunities. These are the places the law defines us specifically as unequal, where we can make a reliable appointment with discrimination and be certain it will show up right on time.
Service members who come out while on active duty and fight for the right to continue to do their jobs are a model for this kind of personal commitment and sacrifice. They decide not to participate in their own discrimination. They and the organizations fighting for them are shifting public opinion in dramatic ways.
What is the civilian equivalent? What can we do that demonstrates not only the rhetoric of equality but the personal sacrifice that will awaken the conscience of a nation?
What if those of us who are married lived as if our marriages are universally legally recognized? What if we literally refused to deny our spouse on any form, under any circumstances, ever?
When the government asks legally married couples in Massachusetts to file as “married” in their state and then mark “single” on the federal tax form, they are asking that couple to participate in their own discrimination so that the government doesn’t have to dirty its hands.
They are literally demanding that we lie, to tell an untruth about our marital status, so they can avoid confronting the difference between the hate-based discrimination they impose on us and the reality of our loving families.
Imagine the ripple effect of government-issued letters to married gay couples ordering them to deny their spouse on federal forms.
We have to compel these moments by deciding that our lives will be about honesty and self-respect. Even if it comes at a price.
Rosa Parks showed us that even one family refusing to participate in their own discrimination will have an impact.
But thousands of us, all of us, can decide to leave the discrimination up to the other side. We can refuse to collaborate in our own discrimination.
If we refuse to deny our spouses even when the law tries to force us to lie. If we insist on paying our taxes as married couples, even though the federal government assessed our taxes as though we were single.
If we risked being detained at the border by customs agents who insist we mark “single” on declaration forms despite the marriage certificate we hold.
Even with expert legal guidance detailing the risks, a good dose of uncertainty would be inevitable for anyone taking such a stand into uncharted territory.
Am I willing to take that risk? Are you? Are we all? Every civil rights struggle in this country has required people to sacrifice.
The country is watching. Are we ready to do the same?
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