I was directed to this Christian website with the headline “Normal People Do Not Behave Like This — Boston Dyke March 2008.” The site devoted to exposing our homosexual agenda writes: "This in-our-face dyke movement — a combination of radical feminism and homosexual militancy — has zero to do with civil rights and everything to do with attacking normality by promoting perversion.” Included are a seires of photos from the March with the lead-in: “Vulgarity on Display at Boston Dyke March June 13. All photos shown here were shot by MassResistance.”

Funny how these same images mean such completely different things to different people. One’s persons normalcy is another one’s perversion and one person's perversion is another’s celebration.

Some 231 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Wikipedia cites Abe Lincoln for popularizing the Declaration of Independence. The document was largely forgotten during the war of Independence and it’s popularity slowly grew over the subsequent years. Lincoln used it as a moral guide in his own quest for American civil rights. In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln wrote: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

A friend told me I should write about the Willams sisters at Wimbledon. I looked over the headline earlier and didn’t give it a second thought. The sisters have faced each other eight times in Grand Slam matches and this is at least their second Wimbledon final together. My friend reminded me this is about the affects of civil rights and de-segregation in professional sports. Earlier this week, Tiger Woods walked off with his 13th professional major championship win before taking a hiatus for knee surgery. Tiger is behind the U.S. record holder Jack Nicklaus who holds the career title of 18 major championship wins. Tiger is only 32 years old. The first black professional tennis player was not Arthur Ash, but Althea Gibson who won Wimbledon in 1956. Tiger is the first black Asian-American golf champion in the history of the sport. Astonishingly, some national golf clubs did not allow blacks on the green until 1990.

America’s greatest export is our culture. The world may hate our politics and our cars, but they sure can’t get enough of our TV, films, music, fashions and attitudes. That almost every lesbian across the globe watches The L Word is an awesome phenomenon. Our culture flourishes under our civic freedoms. Here’s an equation: freedom + equality = happiness.

This country was founded on the fundamental principle of freedom... freedom from persecution, freedom from British rule, freedom of speech and religion, freedom of the press, freedom from slavery, freedom to vote. American history is a series of battles for equality and liberty, from our founders through the civil rights movements.

Queer equality and the first black President of the United States seems to me the next logical evolution of America’s cultural contribution to the world.

Have a safe and happy Independence Day.
xo,
G Moon