Once upon a time a long time ago there was a witch who wanted to be queen. So she got rid of the king’s wife and married the king herself. The king had this daughter who was kind of pretty and the queen was insanely jealous. So long story short she knocked out a job description to have some dude kill the daughter. Unfortunately for the witch-queen he failed his KPI’s and the girl ran away to live it the forest with a bunch of guys who were already happy enough.
The witch-queen tracked her down and it all turned to custard. Eventually another good-looking dude came over and kissed the dead daughter (don’t even go there) and she woke up and they all lived happily ever after. Except, typically being a story about heterosexual triumph we never really found out what happened to the little guys in the forest, who once again lost their significance as soon as the straight people were done with them. Obviously these guys living together were gay, but the heterosexist norms of the time made sure their sexuality remained invisible.
And so on it goes. Are we as a Rainbow Community the modern day representatives of the “Seven Dwarf Syndrome”? We only seem to get noticed when it is important for people to be seen to be noticing; or if they want something from us, like a tick in a box on a ballot paper; or if there may be some sensationalism associated with the stories of our victimised members?
We have a history of standing up and being counted when we thought we had a lot to gain. And now when we have so much to lose it is sad that many are happy to sit back in contentment, totally oblivious or deliberately blind to the insidious undercurrents creeping our way. It is easy to forget that there are people out there with agendas to take away what we fought so hard to achieve. Our society still creates people who think it is ok to bash someone because they are gay. The same society still makes jokes of our lives and uses ‘gay’, ‘fag’, ‘dyke’ and ‘tranny’ as terms of derision.
It was Aesop, the Greek Fabulist, that said “United we stand, divided we fall!” It was Edmund Burke who observed: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.”
As individuals it’s easy to be overwhelmed with the challenges. But we are good people and we deserve better. There is no need for us to stand by as individuals and do nothing when we can work together and make a difference. We have done it before; we can do it again.