Burning Beliefs
by Addison Godel

You ever have things you, technically speaking, believe in, but which never resonate inside you the way it seems like things you believe in should? Men sailed to Troy, the Holy Lands, and Normandy because there was something they believed in so fundamentally that it was worth dying for. In my life I've always felt a little unsatisfied when it comes to beliefs like that. That is to say - I was, for example, in favor of gay rights, but without any burning insistent reason why. For a long time I assumed I just lacked the passion needed to get myself worked up over anything. But gradually, in the past couple years, I've found certain values sinking deeper into me - softly etching their way into my mind and leaving me ready to get red in the face, heart racing, when they were challenged.

A while back, I was dating this girl whose name I unfortunately can't use here. I say unfortunately because her existence, symbolized by her name, is one that I wish I could scream from the rooftops of the world. She's one of those who's constantly overflowing with endless patience and compassion for everyone but herself; she's one of those who almost intimidates you at times by being so extraordinarily brave when you're just ordinary. If you've ever known someone like that, then you know how much it can shake you when their strength leaves them shortly, and they're left bare and vulnerable. I was talking to this wonderful, intense paragon of a woman on the phone one night - late, when you lie back on the scratchy carpet and mentally play Tetris with the books on the shelf, relaxed and happy just to hear the sound of her voice. And the night is quiet and just barely shivery-cold, and you hear everything in that voice perfectly.

We'd been talking of our lives, as I remember it, and we made a headlong tailspin, as we often did, into politics. We chewed a few issues over lightly, and gradually I became aware that something else was on her mind, one of those slowly-burrowing thoughts that waits for the right time to emerge. All of a sudden, in the warm lateness, in the gap that should have separated two happy, laughing moments, I heard her voice slide away until it was very quiet and small, and deathly close to weeping. As the most courageous person I've ever known whispered, "I'm scared, Addy," it was all I could do to keep from crying, and to tell her it was okay, and ask what she was scared of. It was the next sentence that broke and recrystallized my heart.

"I'm scared people hate me without even knowing me."

Her tears were there now, palpably real, I could feel them running down my own face; I knew that there was something fundamentally wrong about what she was saying - things couldn't be that bad, things were getting better, people are much more comfortable about bisexuality these days - and I told her all that, but I felt something in myself shaken, and it was hard to keep myself focused enough to work her through to a smile even as I was trying to catch my breath in the suddenly cold night.

Why am I such an advocate of gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights? The importance of it was seared indelibly into my heart by the ragged, aching breaths I felt myself and my girlfriend (now my best friend) take on the phone at one in the morning that night. I cannot help but believe, painfully and passionately, that there are evil, painful forces in the world - that my love wasn't afraid for no reason. I cannot let myself forget that to hate someone without knowing them is the ultimate offense, a blind crime against an innocent's gorgeous spirit.

I stand up and object when I hear the words "fag," "dyke," "queer," or "gay" as insults from the mouths of my peers. I do it because I intellectually know it to be cruel, because I ethically know it to be wrong - and because I passionately hope to never have to hear those fearful, quiet tears in the voice of someone so precious ever again.