We've Told Them: "It Gets Better." Now Let's Make It Better.

The voices of reasonable, caring people from all over the country have succeeded in pressuring Clint McCance to apologize and to resign. I am grateful to everyone who sent a letter or made a phone call to McCance or to Arkansas’ Midland School District, and to everyone who has participated positively in the dialogue about how we as a society can (and must!) support and affirm LGBT kids and keep them safe at school.

We have succeeded in making sure this rogue school board member will not represent his district with his vitriolic message of hate. But our work is not done. We must all do more to ensure that LGBT teens do not ever hear the message that they are unworthy of full participation in our communities. This post is a “to do” list for humanists and others who know we have a responsibility to these kids.

First and foremost, we need to talk about LGBT issues in our daily lives. This is important because many of the people who are adamantly opposed to full human rights for LGBT people think the “Gay Rights Movement” is an extremist faction led by immoral, weird sexual perverts. And they believe in these mythical gay extremists because they’ve been isolated from real gay people—and from real people willing to defend gay people. We need to talk about the kind, loving, good kids who are kicked out of their homes and abandoned by their churches because they are gay. We need to talk about the suicides. We need to make it safe for LGBT people to “come out”—so that they can live their lives authentically, and so that our straight friends and neighbors can see that LGBT people are just regular people. We need to make this personal; it’s not an abstract issue. Real children are suffering deeply because we are not protecting them. Real families are torn apart. Real communities are not benefiting from the full participation of LGBT people who are afraid of being exposed and rejected. This must end.

We need to talk about religion’s involvement in LGBT rights—which is that religion has no right to disenfranchise LGBT people. We need to be clear that ultimately, LGBT rights are not about who's gay but rather about who's human. LGBT people are human beings. They deserve human rights. It doesn’t matter if you believe God thinks homosexuality is a sin, because in the United States of America, you shouldn’t lose your human rights over any religion’s concept of sin. Think about it. If you’re a biblical literalist, there are tons of things you believe God says are sinful, and you still grant human rights to people who sin; we don't disenfranchise people who eat pork, women who speak in church, people who divorce, people who covet, people who, like Christine O'Donnell, dabble in witchcraft. In this country, we protect the human rights of people who have different religious beliefs than our own.

We need to lobby for equal marriage laws—both at the legislative level and in the hearts of our friends and neighbors. Maybe we can’t make religious people understand that homosexuality is a valid way of being (although many religious people are taking a stand on this), but we need to make them understand that their religious belief cannot dictate law in the United States. Marriage, from a legal standpoint, is a state-recognized partnership contract that makes two consenting adults responsible for one another; it offers certain legal and social benefits that help these adults fulfill their contracted responsibility. This arrangement is good for our communities. It provides stability. It protects children. It helps the economy. There is absolutely no secular reason to exclude two same-gendered people from entering into this legal partnership. And if you belong to a religious community that believes God sanctified marriage between a man and a woman, you have a right to that belief in this country; and you can choose not to enter into a same-gendered marriage, you can choose not to perform such a marriage, and you can choose not to attend one. But you cannot choose to make your religious belief the law of the land.

In addition to the issue of the unconstitutionality of legislating a religious sacrament, denying LGBT people the basic human rights of marriage and family is sending a dangerous message—one that is killing our LGBT teens. We are, as a nation, telling our children that if they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, then they are not valuable human beings deserving full human rights. We are telling them that their sexual orientation negates any positive contribution they may make to their world. We are telling them that being a loving, compassionate, responsible member of the community is not enough to warrant full inclusion in US citizenship and the rights and benefits therein. How can we reasonably tell a suicidal LGBT teen that their life is worth living if, at the same time, we are telling them that their life is worth nothing?

We must, together, change this message. And in particular, straight people must not sit in the complacency of privilege and let this be someone else’s problem—because this injustice belongs to all of us. It’s harming all of our children. It’s harming all of our communities. It’s tarnishing the values of this country.

I hope you will help me be part of the solution. We need to start fighting for LGBT children. We must fight for their right to grow up and participate fully in adult life. We must fight for their right to marriage, we must fight for their right to equal employment, we must fight for their right to serve in the military, we must fight for their right to be safe. I hope you will contact HRC’s Welcoming Schools or the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to help make schools in your district safe for LGBT students. I hope you will contact Secular Coalition for America (or in Arizona, the Secular Coalition for Arizona) and find out how you can help make marriage equality a legislative priority. I hope you will find ways to tell the LGBT kids in your life that it does get better, and then please, take action to make it better. Don’t let these kids down. They need us—and we need them.