Got MLK? For some, that glass still isn’t full

My husband and I marked our 23rd anniversary this weekend. Before going out to dinner, we went to the art museum in hopes of catching the big touring Gauguin exhibit before it closed. It was sold out for the day, but that was ok – we stayed to revisit the fabulous permanent collection.

While we were wandering through the Winslow Homers and Thomas Eakinses,  I heard someone call my name and turned to discover a friend of mine named Tracey coming into the gallery with her partner. I hadn’t seen either of them in a long time and, in the course of chatting, I mentioned that we were celebrating our anniversary. Tracey said, “It’s our anniversary, too!” and asked how long we’d been together. When we asked the two of them the same thing, Tracey said nine years and her partner said 10. We all laughed a little about that, and then Tracey said, “Well, our date isn’t is as exact as yours.” 

Tracey and her partner are gay.  They love each other, have made a home together over many years and have the same deep bonds of affection, life experience and mutual reliance as any long-wedded couple. But in our state, they are not allowed to marry.

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we can be astonished at how far our nation has come in the struggle for civil rights for all people. But as long as we deny some of our fellow citizens their freedom from prejudice, deny them equal treatment and opportunity, our work is not done and our  society is not a success.

In this, as in so many things, creativity is an answer – a path to tolerance. At Geniocity.com, we talk about the many benefits of  creativity and innovation, from scientific advances and wiser laws to more adventurous art and better-educated children. But the greatest result of creativity is open minds.

That should be reason enough to encourage it. And yet, I know it won’t be sufficient for those who like their progress to be lucrative. If you’re among them, you may be interested to hear that the reverse is also true: Tolerance is a path to creativity. The more accepted and encouraged people feel, the more imaginative and productive they are. The freer they feel to live, think, speak and experiment, the more great inventions, discoveries and artistic expressions they create. And the more creations people bring forth, the more we all prosper - materially, intellectually and spiritually.

Equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people will be our nation’s next big breakthrough - a throwing open of doors in our brains and hearts that have long locked in fear and locked out sense. It’s going to happen eventually, so let’s speed it up and stop wasting the talents of Americans who’ve been repressed, threatened and cheated out of the peaceful open life that could allow them – and us as a nation – to flourish.

I’d like to live in a country where fine human beings such as Tracey and her partner can have a wedding anniversary as other couples do. I’d like them to have the freedom to imagine and dare that comes, paradoxically, when you feel that you truly belong. I’d like the word American to mean a people and a culture that value, yes, the content of each individual’s character, but also the vision, the originality of thought and the skill that fill our individual heads - and that don’t care which consenting adults our sexual organs attract us to.

What about you?