So, I put it to you now. Don’t simply maintain the community we have; break the mold. No matter your age, start dreaming big and let those marvelous visions be the seeds of the community you want, and it will bear fruit to sustain the baby queers running around in Osh Kosh, whose parents are telling them they are wrong for kissing other little boys instead of little girls. What voice will they inherit from us?

I’ve also learned that one of the worst things the Christian faithful can do is behave in a way that causes others to turn their backs on God. Sometimes, I get angry thinking about the queer kids who’ve allowed their spiritual beliefs to shrivel into an understandably defensive posture because some “Christian” told them that God does not love them. I know that Christianity doesn’t work for everyone. There are many other ways to find inner peace and your own personal truth, but, for those who choose to follow the path of Christianity, being hateful and bigoted in the name of God is wrong on every level imaginable.

There has already been a ripple effect, and other states are now looking at the strong language that came out of the Iowa supreme court. It’s so strong that it almost seems like the Iowa justice as throwing “shade.” Folks, this is what real leadership looks like, “Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to [the equal protection] provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.” Now what? Y’all think y’all can hang with Iowa? Bring it!

The right is openly laughing in the faces of the LGBT community as they systematically eviscerate our rights. They are no longer going after our ability to exercise those rights. Their current campaign is designed to remove the actual right from existence.

We do not have to sit by quietly and watch. As a community, we have the power to change the course of our future. You have to understand that we have not even tapped into our full potential, yet, in the face of overwhelming adversity, we are still here.

How much “oppression” does the LGBT community actually face, and how much of it occurs because we just expect it and don’t bother trying? It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a defeatist way of thinking we are teaching our young people by telling them, “You are gay; don’t try! You will fail or get hurt!”