If Red Wins, Pink Exodus Should Occur
People in the USA, particularly the LGBTQ community, have become numb to the very words leaders are using to describe what is going on politically and socially. Donald Trump is repeatedly called the biggest threat to US Democracy; a national security risk and an outright criminal. The GOP has groomed members for years to be hateful of gay, bi, trans and to use all their power against any idea of equality. Ron Desantis has openly declared war on drag queens, trans people, gay and bi people with the district that controls Disney World striking down all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion provisions at the beginning of August 2023.
And O’shea Sibley, a vibrant young Black dancer, just 28, was stabbed by a 17 year old Aug. 1, a kid groomed by parents, politics and church to hate gays so much that he killed one for dancing. Not in Alabama. Not in the Deep South. In New York.
The writing is on the wall: America is no longer a safe place for gays. The Human Right’s Campaign issued its first ever warning, an Emergency Declaration, after 75+ anti-lgbtq bills were signed in to law in just two years. A state of Emergency.
Soon, the gay community of America will qualify for refugee status in other countries.
But most go about their lives, thinking things will change, can change, must change, but what if they can’t? What if they don’t? How long do we wait to be safe and happy? I’ve waited a lifetime.
One of the smartest men in the world, Albert Einstein, didn’t believe Hitler was going to be of much consequence. In 1930, September, 6.4 million Germans elected the National Socialists, Hitler’s Party. This was nearly 10 times the votes they got previously. They won 107 seats. That made them the second largest party in the Reichstag. Nazi wasn’t an insult or slur any more, the group was downright respectable, well, almost.
But Einstein and many others still saw Hitler as transitory, as barely holding on. Even when Hitler rushed to power, Einstein didn’t see him as an enduring threat. He was asked what he thought of Hitler in 1930 and he was quoted as saying “I do not enjoy Herr Hitler’s acquaintance. He is living on the empty stomach of Germany. As soon as economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important.” He thought Germany had a “childish disease of the Republic” and that was causing Hitler’s rise. He even told Jewish organizations that “any special reaction to the election results would be quite inappropriate.”
Hitler did have some setbacks after 1930 and Einstein was encouraged. But war was looming, and Germany was rearming. After WWI they could only have 100,000 troops, no heavy armament, by treaty. Hitler saw things differently. And Einstein could see the writing on the wall. In December of 1932 he left for America and never went back to Germany. When Hitler took the oath in January of 1933, Einstein and his first cousin/wife Elsa were in Pasadena, CA.
The next year he would leave Pasadena for Belgium. He saw a pamphlet that reprinted his photograph in a collection of enemies of Nazi Germany, with the caption “Not Yet Hanged.” He made his first anti-Hitler comments then, saying “As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevails. These conditions do not exists in Germany at the present time,” with the implication that they would not so long as Hitler was in power.
It can be easily argued that civil liberty, tolerance and equality of all citizens no longer exists in the USA, and, quite frankly, never has. I am 60 and gay, and never have I been equal in business, in government, in societal eyes. The Democrats, holding the House and Senate 17 times in my lifetime, have not codified any laws to protect me in earnest, and soon gay marriage will be repealed by the body that politicians rely upon in the USA to do their heavy, controversial lifting, the Supreme Court. The court gave marriage, and it can take it away, just like a woman’s right to choose, affirmative action and so much other positive change. It can all be undone, and is.
So when do we, as a people, say enough, it’s time to go to a country like Ireland, a union like the EU, or even Mexico, where our rights, our lives, are protected and respected? How long do we keep hoping America will change enough for us to be safe on the streets, in our clubs, in our jobs and neighborhoods?
Are we like Einstein, simply refusing to believe until Trump wins again and suddenly all our protections are removed? How many times to we have to be killed, voted against, legislated against, demeaned on national TV by major political figures, or attend yet another funeral before we get it? America, as a whole, is not a safe, welcoming place for us.
Many are quick to site polls that say a majority of people agree with same sex marriage, disagree with drag bans and want trans lives protected. Well, those sentiments are not reflected in actual policies and protections because lawmakers refuse to enact them. In fact, they are passing anti-LGBTQ legislation, not pro.
I know, financially, the thought of leaving the USA to most just seems out of reach. I’m sure it did to Jews in Germany in 1930. And many couldn’t, they ended up in camps, dead, or shot in their homes or on the streets. Or they had to flee to neighboring countries on foot, like refugees at our Southern Border now.
I, for one, am ready to go. Blue states can’t protect us from an out of control electorate, from killers, haters, bigots, religious zealots. And I am tired of fighting the same fights over and over again when other nations get it more right than we do. They are not perfect, but the LGBTQ community of Canada, Ireland, the EU, they don’t live the same way that we do. They don’t suffer the same way that we do. They don’t die in the numbers that we do at the hands of groomed bigots all under the silent approval of an out of control party called Republican wrapped in the protective cloak of religion.
Republicans openly carry swastikas at rallies; they idolize Putin, whose best friend in Chechnya has opened concentration camps to put suspected gays in, has killed an openly gay pop star for shaking his hand and does so with impunity. The world is not stopping him. As more of the world turns against the LGBTQ community, including in Italy and Spain, and let’s not mention African nations, the GOP actually sends envoys to help them with their hatred. We are exporting hate.
The gay community has suffered enough. It’s time for as many of us can, to think about leaving should the GOP take power again. Even Einstein knew when it was time to go. And I may not have his equational savvy, but I can read this formula, see the similarities, and know the outcome.
If Red Wins, Pink loses.
Start exploring places to go in the world where your life will be easier. Start looking for jobs, for houses, for ways to make it work. Band together with friends if you have to, pool your economic resources.
The wealthy and able Jews, like Einstein, left. They got out. If you are able, I’m telling you, it’s time to be prepared to leave. You may think it unfathomable; but what’s unfathomable is staying in a country turning to fascism, theocratic rule and White cis-gendered male ideologies of old.
They don’t want us here, and maybe it’s time we evaluate, truly evaluate, why we stay.
Is America today worth fighting for? Dying for? If you are gay, is your life here, this country, worth sacrificing your freedom, your happiness and your actual life?
These are real questions facing our community and our leaders should be asking them. Our leaders should be talking about the exodus that will need to happen if the Red wins. Instead of congratulating this or that straight person for saying something nice, instead of debating Sam Smith’s new single or the price of the tea dance in P-Down or Fire Island, it’s time to pull our heads out of the collective sand and realize the America we want, and need, has always been a myth; it doesn’t exist. And the GOP has no desire to make it a reality.
Einstein left, and survived and thrived in his later years. Hundreds of thousands of Jews left, the rest were literally left to slaughter. Learn from History. We are in a very dark chapter in our history where a former President can be accused of 74 felonies that verge on treason and still fund raise and have as high an approval rating as the seated President trying to undo the damage. Why? Because over 70 million Americans hate us, still, think we are groomers and pedophiles again and they are winning elections.
In 24 months I hope to be in Vancouver, Canada. My family came from Canada two generations back and beyond, and before that, France. I would love the Marais District in Paris, but can’t afford $1m for a condo. If I had over one million, I would leave now, before the next election. Or Dublin, Ireland, owning a nice pub where I serve vegan pub food, have a stage for performers and base a reality show out of it. Ah, to dream. But if we don’t start dreaming now, we will find ourselves in a nightmare.
Because I may not be Einstein, but I’m smart enough to know that I don’t want to live the rest of my years in a country filled with division, hatred and bigotry towards me; I don’t want to live in fear of being shot by a crazy person with an AR-15 in general, or sought out because I’m gay and in media. I have gotten death threats for 30 years as a talk show host, and I’m tired of it. My crime? I promote equality, diversity and inclusion.
There is a better life for gays out there if we are brave enough to admit this country, for us, is over. In fact, it never, ever welcomed us as a nation. Even at its most liberal, it didn’t protect us under the law, at least not laws passed by Congress. And never silenced those that hate. It let them groom an entirely new generation under freedom of speech and religion.
Einstein’s equation would be used by Oppenheimer to create a weapon that ultimately ended WWII. He hated that, and spoke out against it later in life, both of them did. His equation, by the way, that was actually proven by a gay man named Arthur Eddington.
If Eddington were in the USA right now, Einstein would tell him to be prepared to leave.
Just as I’m telling you.
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