Subject: SUPERHEROES (op/ed/essay)
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 10:12:28 -0400

For Immediate Release
Opinion/Editorial or Essay
Please feel free to edit for space.
Tear sheet requested.  Contact: Kathy Worthington, (801) 288-9294.
Please send tear sheet to 848 E Bristle Pine Pl. Apt 31 SLC UT 84106

EDITORS: IF YOU PRINT THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING NOTE IN
ITALICS: PREFERABLY AT THE BEGINNING, BETWEEN THE HEADLINE AND THE TEXT
OF THE ARTICLE: 
"Please note: I use the word Gay inclusively: to mean homosexual, bisexual
and transgendered
people."  (print in italics, but without quotation marks)
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SUPERHEROES
by Kathy Worthington

Most Americans at some point in their lives have played at, or dreamed of
being, a superhero.
Who the superhero was depended mostly on when we were children: was it Roy
Rogers or Dale
Evans? Sky King?  The Lone Ranger? Superman or Batman?  Wonderwoman? A Power
Ranger?

We've watched war movies or read about World War II and the Holocaust and
we've imagined
that WE wouldn't have been Nazi supporters or collaborators, WE would've been
heroes,
members of the Resistance, war heroes.  WE would have helped the Jews like
Schindler. If we'd
been a Jew we would have resisted or fought back, like the Jews in the Warsaw
ghetto.

When presented with Right vs. Wrong, the good guys vs. the bad guys . . . if
courage and risk
taking is ever called for, WE'LL rise to the challenge, take a stand, make a
difference. WE'VE
never been able to understand about ordinary German citizens during the
Holocaust who just
minded their own business, did nothing, hoping someone else would take the
chances, hoping
SOMEONE ELSE would DO SOMETHING.

As Gay Americans in the 1990's, we have our chance to be heroes, even
superheroes.  On a
daily basis we have opportunities to be courageous, take a stand, make a
difference.  There are,
I think, some clear cut issues of right and wrong at stake here and it's OUR
Lives, OUR Rights,
OUR future that are on the line  . . . as well as the lives, rights and
future of other Gays across
the country and around the world.

If there's one thing that Gay leaders and activists across the country agree
on, it's the importance
of coming out.  From small town activists to leaders of the nation's largest
Gay rights
organizations we've heard it: the single most important thing Gay Americans
can do is to come
out. One of my heroes, Martina Navritilova, said it at the March on
Washington in 1993. Yet
many Gay Americans don't even come out to their own parents and families, let
alone to
coworkers, neighbors, classmates and strangers.  It's too Hard, too Risky.
Too Scary.

Here's the challenge, Gay America:  Come OUT!  Do it now.  Do it everyday.

Tell your parents, your coworkers, your friends and neighbors.  Hold hands
when it feels
appropriate.  Put a photo of your partner on your desk.

Call your Congresspeople or legislators and tell them your name, tell them
you're Gay, that
you're a constituent, and that you vote.  Better yet, go visit them.  If
you're a couple, go as one.
Sit down, tell them what you do for a living, how old you are, where you
live.  Do you have kids?
Tell them.   Let them see the real people whose rights they're thinking of
voting away.

It'll take courage.  It'll be hard.  It will take time, effort, sacrifice. It
might even cost you your job,
could get you rejected and ostracized.  You might lose a friend, lose your
parents' approval.  It
happens.  In extreme cases you might get harrassed or beaten up.  Worse case
scenario: some
weirdo may show up on your doorstep with a gun.   It doesn't happen often,
but it's possible.

That's OK.  YOU'LL take the chance.  YOU'RE Courageous.  YOU'RE a Superhero,
remember?

			# End