Officer found support as prison hostage, but not as gay person
The hundreds of cards and letters, some written by schoolchildren, some signed by Arizona legislators, were tacked up along a wall in Lois Fraley’s home. They were physical evidence of the community’s support. They helped boost Fraley’s spirits, helped the corrections officer recover from being held hostage for 15 days in a prison tower.
The letters of support ended up in the home Fraley makes with her partner of five years, Tere Knight. But that home is not getting much support now. Fraley’s relationship is not recognized by her employer and might be under attack at the ballot box.
“It’s, uh, what is that called?” Fraley said, searching for words over a vanilla latte at the Starbucks at Park Central. “Someone, like, backstabbing. Where you can praise somebody face to face and...”
“Hypocritical,” offered Knight, who was seated next to her.
“Hypocritical,” Fraley said, nodding. “Either you like me or you don’t. But don’t sit there and say, well, that you like me as a person, but you don’t like me because I’m gay.”
Last week, a group called Protect Marriage Arizona announced the drive for a ballot initiative that would not only define marriage as being between a man and a woman, but also deny benefits to any couple that’s not married.
That would mean Fraley and her partner. Someone the state flooded with support and lauded for courage would have her unequal status enshrined in the constitution.
“That’s the shame of it, that people can’t understand who you are,” she said.(source)
That is the shame of it. People don’t understand us, and I don’t know what the solution to that is. My neighbor has made his opinion of us known. There’s really nothing I can do to change his mind, because he has made his mind up long before he ever met us. Gays are queers and bad for society. That is what I’m up against in having him know us for the people we are.
So what can I do? Not a hell of a lot. People want to know us, or they don’t. I suppose it’s easier to sit back and quote venomous quotes from the Bible than actually getting up off their collective asses and make an effort to see us as people.
And this is why so many of us are depressed and lose hope. Tonight was tough. I came home and somewhere in the middle of making dinner, I sat down on the couch, and just started crying. I think at times that there are so many things we are up against, and it all seems so overwhelming at times.
Tomorrow will be better. I’ll go to bed early, and try to arm myself with a good nights sleep. We have to keep our hope up.
I was at least gratified that the American Psychiatric Association has endorsed gay marriage for our community. Maybe that’s where we start. I don’t know.
Representatives of the nation’s top psychiatric group approved a statement Sunday urging legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
If approved by the association’s directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.
The statement supports same-sex marriage “in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health.”
It follows a similar measure by the American Psychological Association last year, little more than three decades after that group removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
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