-
My dear friends,
You’
r
e honored me
this evening to a degree I feel I don’t yet
deserve.
When
I
read
about
the
work
of
my
fellow
honorees,
I
felt
humbled,
and
certain
that
among
us,
I
am
the
one
with
much
to
prove.
I
believe
I’ve
received this award
not so much because of what I’ve done,
but because of
the way I was born and
raised. I was born the younger sister of a gay
man, my
older brother Mike, and the
daughter of parents who were both empathetic
to and loving of the LGBT
community
. In my household, being gay
was and is
no big deal. When my brother
came out we hugged him, said we loved him,
and that was that. When he brought home
his first boyfriend now husband
home
for a couple of weeks one Christmas, my father’s
only comment to my
mother was:“Pleas,
try not to mix up our underwear
.” We
had no idea that I
would become
recognizable because of my work and that we would
become
publicly
labeled
as
having
an
“alternative
family
lifestyle”.
Just
for
the
record,
we
don’t
feel
that
there’s
actually
anythi
ng
alternative
about
our
family values. So for
semantic reasons only
, it’s with some
hesitation that I
accept
the
HRCLI
award,
I
don’t
consider
myself
just
an
ally
to
the
LGBT
community
, I
consider myself your family; and so, I’m doing,
what we should
all
do, with
our families. I’m loving you, I support you, I
completely accept
you as you are as I
hope you do me, and if anyone, ever
,
tries to hurt you I’m
gonna give them
hell! There are people who’ve said that I’m being
brave for
being openly supportive of
gay marriage, gay adoption, basically of gay
rights,
but with all due respect, I
humbly dissent. I’m not being brave, I’m being a
decent human being, and I don’t think I
should receive an award for that, or
for merely stating what I believe to be
true that love, is a human experience,
not
a
political
statement,
however
,
I
acknowledge
that
sadly
we
live
in
a
world where
not everybody feels the same. My family and I will
help the good
fight continue until that
long awaited moment arrives. When our rights are
equal, and when the political limits on
love have been smashed. This award
does
not in anyway represent the pinnacle of my
relationship with the LGBT