Activists build coalitions around gay, civil rights
By Audrey Kuo
April 19, 2009 11:36 p.m.
When he first came out as a 14-year-old, James Neiley was sexually harassed by three classmates in the locker room at his high school.
The event was traumatic enough that he retracted his coming out.
“It really broke me down for a while,” James said. “It was really hard because I was really insecure with myself.”
By the next year, though, James said, he had gained more confidence in who he was and officially came out as gay.
By mid-March this year, James, now 17, was speaking to Vermont’s House and Senate Judiciary committees about being attracted to other guys, as his home state debated a bill on same-sex marriage.
“I want Vermont to let me feel right … because there’s nothing wrong with being gay,” he told the Senate. “That really is what we’re debating here.”
And on Sunday, James took the stage in Wilson Plaza as part of 1Fest, a festival organized to bring together Californians “to celebrate marriage equality and civil rights.”
“In Vermont, we fought for same-sex marriage, and now, along with sleet, snow, hail and light, it is ours,” he said.
The legislature voted on April 7 to legalize same-sex marriages; the law will take effect on Sept. 1.
James offered a brief version of his arguments before the Vermont legislature, that the recognition of same-sex marriages is important because it chips away at prejudice against gay people.
“I’m 17,” he announced. “I’m fighting for marriage equality not only so I can be proposed to under the stars, but also because it means that we’re one step closer to easing the tear-jerked pain of saying, “˜I’m gay,’ for the first time.”
James called on those in attendance to fight for marriage equality “because the youth voice cannot and will not be silenced.”
Throughout 1Fest, the youth voice was displayed on stage and in the booths filled with activists championing different causes.
David Valk, the executive director of 1Fest, created Won Together, the organization behind the festival, after Proposition 8 passed in California, amending the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
Valk hopes to involve young people in a broad civil rights campaign.
“You need to build coalitions. And that’s what we’re doing,” he said.
Included among the queer student organizations and other California groups advocating marriage equality were groups like Bruins for Animals!, which promotes vegan diets and animal rights, and Alliance of Dreams, which advocates citizenship status for undocumented students.
“These groups usually don’t have the opportunity to work together, and they’re literally sitting at the same table,” Valk said.
Cleve Jones, the gay rights activist who worked alongside Harvey Milk in the ’70s and founded the AIDS Memorial Quilt in 1985 also urged students to become activists and build coalitions.
As the crowd sat in the shade on the steps of the Student Activities Center, Jones called for a national movement across class and racial lines.
Your generation, Jones said to the high school and college students gathered at his feet, has to reject the past strategy of working city by city to secure rights.
By doing so, gay rights activists have ended up with very little, “fighting for fragments” and “compromising for crumbs,” he said. “It’s only when a lot of people demand everything immediately that you get something eventually.”
In Jones’ view, winning the lawsuits challenging Proposition 8 would only be a partial victory because even legally married same-sex couples are denied federal marriage rights.
And, he said, focusing on victory state by state ignores the struggles of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in other states.
Ellen O’Brien, James Neiley’s mother, acknowledged the disparities nationwide in how gay people are treated.
She said she was glad her family had moved from Iowa to Burlington, the most metropolitan part of Vermont, because she thinks it would have been much harder for James to come out and accept his identity in Iowa. She added that she was shocked when the Iowa Supreme Court voted on April 3 to allow same-sex marriage, that she never thought it would happen there.
“It’s lucky that we’re in Vermont because I don’t think that there are many towns our size that have organizations like that,” Ellen said about Outright Vermont, the queer youth center and gay rights advocacy group where James is a member of the board of directors.
She and James both said his high school was and has been extremely supportive.
James said he is lucky to have a family that has been entirely accepting of his sexual identity. His mother went with him to his second appearance in front of the Vermont legislature ““ his parents wanted to attend both times, but he told them he would be too nervous with them there.
When James first came out, Ellen said, she and her husband wondered if he was old enough to know his sexual identity and whether he should declare himself so early in life.
But in the same breath, they told James that whoever he was, they accepted and loved him and were happy with his decisions.
Still, they were both concerned that he wouldn’t understand the ramifications of declaring himself a minority.
“Looking back, I think we didn’t realize how mature he was,” she said. Again and again, she said she was proud of her son and his confidence, adding that his older sister Alice has told her how amazed she is by her little brother’s self-awareness.
Ellen said she hopes the legalization of same-sex marriage in Vermont and other states will help other young people nationwide to become that comfortable with themselves.
“It’s a no-brainer, as far as we’re concerned,” Ellen said about her family’s support for her son.
“What matters about a person is how they live in the world.”
E-mail Kuo at [email protected].
