HOW DO YOU TAKE BACK WHAT YOU ARE?

From our comrade Cornell Lews

I traveled to the University of Connecticut in Storrs to attend a conference. When your place of employment makes conferences mandatory, it is a surprise as to the content of such conferences. The shindig on the campus of U-Conn was hosted by an organization called True Colors. Workshops were designed to discuss issues dealing with LGBT people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) and how society is reacting to open displays of sexuality among so called queers. I read a headline on a document “True Colors XV: A Global Perspective” and a listing of interesting workshops on LGBT concerns.

A group of eight young people started the program by talking about “coming out” as LGBT and what kind of approval or disapproval they encountered; mostly stories of rejection or physical assaults over time. One young man named Grady Keefe talked about announcing himself as gay in the eight grade, then being beaten or ostracized by peers and adults. “I was beat up almost everyday after school” Keefe said. Then Keefe said “some people told me to take it [saying I’m gay] back.” Now how can a person take back the very essence of whom they are? This is a theme which can be found throughout history; oppressors make people recant a belief, once this is done the oppressor usually continues dolling out punishment in some manner. I hope Keefe does not think taking it back will end the humiliation and name calling. In life there are people who –under pressure- will deny the very essence of their being. And who is to say such a person will stop with a denial of self. Just maybe a person capable of self denial will deny my humanity too.

Well, this young man named Grady Keefe did not deny being gay, on the contrary, he became even bolder in open displays of being different. The existential question has been framed in a way to depict a lone solitary figure standing before a hostile universe. This figure is engaged in a soliloquy of anguish, fist in the air, seeking to affirm essence or self. Yet, the forces of the universe are strong and can cause a solitary figure to deny the essence or essential self. I wonder what it will take for any person to deny a true belief. Did not Jesus ask God in the Garden of Gethsemane to “take this cup (toil and specter of death waiting in Jerusalem) from me, and then accept it later?”

My grandfather use to say “pressure will bust a pipe boy, so you know what it will do to your head.” People do not understand the pressures faced by young people who have a different sexual orientation. For that matter does society show tolerance for LGBT people intoto? You know the answer.

During the question and answer period I asked young Keefe a question about his faith in proclaiming to a hostile world his gayness. I said “Keefe, at any point did you ever think seriously about recanting the statement you are gay?” Keefe said “on some days when the beating was really bad, I would pray to God for it to stop (beatings). Finally, it got to the point where I just wanted it to end. Yet, in the end I did not take it back. I said to all listeners my truth about being gay.”

I looked at the face of this youth; it was shining with the truth of a prophet of old. This youth, seeking to become a man stood before a hostile universe vowing to fight on.

I have not seen this much courage in quite a while.

Grady Keefe has the heart of a lion.