In celebration of diversity, freedom and human rights, Saturday, Oct. 11, will mark the 21st international running of National Coming Out Day.
NCOD is aimed at raising civil awareness for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.
“I think the significance of it is just a way for us to celebrate being out and not having to be ashamed of who we are,” Michael Henderson, 19, sociology major and member of the Gay/Straight Alliance, said. “It’s nice that there’s a whole month as well as a whole day.”
NCOD was founded by Dr. Robert Eichberg and Jean O’Leary in 1988, one year after 500,000 people marched in Washington D.C. for gay and lesbian equality.
“Our society has built up this world where you need to be heterosexual to get by and live a ‘normal’ life. There’s no real definition of normal; it’s like we have to fit in, we have to be straight,” Henderson said. “If they’re not straight, there’s something wrong. There’s this whole stigma about people being gay.”
Homophobes and extremely conservative individuals represent an opposing view to the homosexual lifestyle that adds to the difficulties of maintaining the choice to be gay or lesbian.
These difficulties escalate when murders of homosexuals are reported.
“There was a kid, Lawrence King, who was an openly gay boy at his school and he was murdered,” Michael Henderson, 19, sociology major and member of the Gay/Straight Alliance, said. “He asked a boy out to a dance and he was murdered; he was in middle school.”
King lived in Oxnard, Calif. and succumbed to fatal gunshot wounds from a weapon that 14 year-old Brandon McInerney used on Feb. 12, 2008.
McInerney had said to be bothered by an advance by King, but speculation over the ultimate cause of the brutal slaying looms.
He is being charged as an adult with premeditated murder, is being held in lieu of $770,000 bail and faces 50 years to life in prison if he is convicted.
According to 2007 report by Stonewall, a UK gay rights organization found that the British face more extreme homophobia as young people than as adults.
According to its research, two thirds of gay, lesbian and bisexual pupils had experienced bullying while attending British schools.
92 percent of those young gay people had been subject to verbal abuse and 41 percent have been physically assaulted.
“The thing I deal with most is my family and not so much my friends because all of my friends are really cool with me being who I am,” Henderson said. “If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be their friend.”
Family denial and acknowledgement may inevitably play a role in an individual’s quest for acceptance from loved ones, Henderson said.
Vanessa Durand, 19, English major and member of the Gay/Straight Alliance also feels that family tension has been one of her worst experiences as an openly lesbian woman.
“Instead of taking the time to get to know what you’re about and what being gay or being in a relationship means, they just tend to push you away a little,” Durand said.
Whether or not one has strong religious fervor, has had little to no contact with homosexuals or simply cannot relate with the gay community, nothing justifies the violence and hatred that individuals of the gay community face on a daily basis.
Before, there was unrest over the idea of interracial marriage; now, some in society are trying with all their right to eliminate gay marriage for all Americans.
With Proposition 8, California has the opportunity to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, threatening to end any progress that homosexuals have made over the years to gain acceptability.
Were it not for homosexuality, we’d not have our Oscar Wilde’s, David Bowie’s, Ellen DeGeneres’ or our Morrissey’s; all gay people who society has so loved, that they now enjoy riches and fame.
