Day Without A Gay

I heard about Day Without A Gay last month, right before the protests across the country. Early on, I admonished people who were wishy-washy about calling in gay. Now on the day before the event I’m backing out, and I’m not sure if that qualifies me as a hypocrite.

The basic idea is for LGBT folks to not work at their jobs tomorrow and instead do community service. Day Without A Gay is the brainchild of Sean Hetherington and Aaron Hartzler, a couple in Los Angeles.

The reason I won’t be participating is…Well, this event is built for places with large gay communities. Can you imagine coming to work tomorrow in San Diego and finding everyone from one minority group missing? Same with universities; I’d imagine that this will be a major success there too. Or how about all the charity work that’s scheduled to be done tomorrow (in part two of the plan, which many media reports are downplaying)? The army of gays donating their time and talents will have a HUGE impact.

Organized by Sean Hetherington and Aaron Hartzler. Thanks, guys.

But I live in the country, and there’s no focused gay community to speak of in any of the towns or cities within at least an hour’s drive. I’m probably the only fag within at least a few square miles of my house, and in the protests in November, there were less than 1,000 participants in all of Ohio. (No wonder so many people move to Southern California after they come out!)

As far as work goes, I’m the only out person in our office, and while I could take off, would there be any real impact? Seriously, I doubt anybody would notice I was gone, let alone make the connection to a protest.

It’s not that I think this is a bad idea. Quite the contrary, this is the kind of imaginative leadership the LGBT community needs. It’s just that built on the assumption of a larger local community that just doesn’t exist here.

So tomorrow, I’ll be at work with all the breeders. Please, if you’re in an area where this can make an impact, call in gay for me. I’ll keep plugging along here on the blog and doing what I can in my life.

Thanks to the Sean and Aaron for dreaming this up. You’re a great example for the next generation of gay rights organizers.