“I’m not homophobic, but…”
I just wish they wouldn’t be themselves around me and my family.” I have heard many versions of this statement since the incident at Chico’s Tacos, where five men were told to leave after a security guard saw two of them kiss. The men refused and called the police. The police officer who arrived sided with the restaurant, citing a state law that he didn’t know was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas in 2003, and who was clearly unaware of the local ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, among other things, in places of public accommodation (like restaurants, hotels, and other businesses). Each time I hear statements like this, I wonder if people realize that what they are saying is not at all different from what used to be said to justify exclusions, prohibitions, and inequality based on other identity markers (race, gender, etc.).
This latest incident has reminded me that segregation and discrimination are nothing new in El Paso. In the 1940’s, my grandmother was a big fan of visiting El Paso from Cd. Juarez to shop at The Popular. She was young, blond, green-eyed and an impeccable dresser. And she was ‘chaperoned’ around the store from department to department by white saleswomen because after they greeted her in English, she could only reply in Spanish. Such affronts were infuriating, but, she told me, what could she expect as a visiting Mexican when even African-Americans were asked to sit in the back of the trolley “in their own country.” Until fairly recently, being treated ‘less than’ based on your nationality, race, gender, religion and disability was not only culturally accepted, it was legal. Most recently, our courts and our communities have been asked, should you be treated ‘less than’ based on your sexuality?
Well, just how different is segregation and discrimination based on being gay or lesbian from segregation and discrimination based on your nationality, race, gender, religion, or disability? Don’t all who segregate say, “You are not welcome here because who you are is offensive to me”? Don’t all who discriminate say, “You don’t deserve the same rights as me because you are less than me”? Not very different, are they?
So how do you get your “non-homophobic” self to truly be at peace with someone “being” gay or lesbian in front of you? If you’re too young to remember legally enforced segregation and discrimination based on race, nationality, gender and religion, find someone who isn’t. Ask them what it felt like to be made into a second, lesser class, and not understanding why. To be prohibited from enjoying the same rights as others, and not understanding why. To be told that their very presence, their very existence, was offensive, and not understanding why. Then ask yourself, how is this different from telling two gay or lesbian people that they cannot be themselves (e.g. they cannot do what other couples do) in public?
Some of you might say that unlike those gays and lesbians, you didn’t have a choice. You were born a Chicano. You were born a woman. You were raised Jewish. You were born or became disabled. All through no fault of your own. Find a gay or lesbian person and ask them why they chose to be gay or lesbian, in El Paso of all places, where they can’t even go to Chico’s Tacos and be who they are without being escorted outside by the police. Then tell me that they had a choice in the matter.
But what if gays and lesbians are allowed to be who they are and your kids see them? I’ve heard lots of people suggest that you teach your kids “tolerance.” We tolerate a bad cold, mosquitoes in the summer, bone-chilling weather in the winter. These are things we put up with – someone’s identity merits much more. Start by teaching your kids the truth. The law does not ban homosexuality. The law does not ban public displays of affection between gays or lesbians. To the contrary, the law prohibits treating gays and lesbians differently in places like restaurants. Teach them about equality and acceptance. Tell your kids that gays and lesbians are, and should be free to be who they are, anywhere they choose, just like everyone else in this country. And please, please, choose the language you use around kids carefully and wisely. Your non-homophobic little heart might pray with all its might to the contrary, but one of those kids listening to you may be gay or lesbian. How truly tragic if one of them grows up loathing who he or she is because of something you said or did. That – and the consequences it may bring - is something you should be concerned about.
***
Verónica Carbajal is a lawyer and graduate of Brown University and the University of Texas School of Law.
