Let Freedom Ring

It was almost forty years ago that I was standing on a street corner outside a bar talking with some friends, hand on hip, and was told I shouldn’t have “hand on hip”, I could be arrested for being gay or to use the more clinical term, homosexual.

I was twenty one and had just returned from serving my Country in Vietnam. A few months later, celebrating my twenty second birthday at the same bar, I happened to meet the person with whom I would spend the rest of my life. He too had just recently returned from Vietnam in service of our Country.

We spent our lives in suburban Philadelphia going to work every day, worked hard, paid our taxes, and did our best to be good citizens. In later years we sheltered my mom until she died and were able to give her a home that she never would have had if not for the generosity, patience and understanding of my life partner.

We were always burdened by the fact that as much as we tried, some of the legal contracts that we made to protect each other could be broken by a distant “blood” relative. It never occurred to us that in our lifetime some folks, just like us, would have the protection of the State.

We know, of course, from the mean spirited vote that occurred in Florida in the past election that it is unlikely that we will have those protections in our lifetime in Florida. But the wonderful news from Iowa makes us realize that truth and understanding is taking hold in our Country, the Country that we both served in war. Ignorance and intolerance is diminishing, at least in the Heartland and maybe someday it will reach into the South.