The best LGBT conversations include honesty, good manners, and common decency

A flat tire doesn't need much air to get a car back on the road; but you have to fix the leak, or it'll just keep deflating.

That's an illustration of how things seem to me in the ongoing onslaught against gay people: We keep filling up the tire (hoping things will get better for our LGBT friends), but there's a bad leak that goes un-repaired  (and we still seem to be losing ground)! Yes, there's some definite, real progress -- but it's too often baby steps when we should more rightly be making strides! (Sorry for the mixed metaphor of tires and strides!) And every time the LGBT community and their allies seem to have cause to smile, we're given yet another reason or two (or more!) to lose our joy! And that's very sad and hurtful and harmful to the cause of unity and mutual respect.

What's missing -- and would make all the difference -- is space to grow and learn.

It's like the game of Red rover we played as kids. We're calling each other to come over to our side, our way if thinking, but no one wants to! Funny thing in Red Rover is that there were never really any sides! When we were done with our kids' game, we'd all just collapse in one heap, laughing, smiling, reliving our silliness, glad that we were all friends together.

But hate is still doing its best work: dividing people from people, friends from friends. Where's the joy in that?

Where can people go to have a real conversation? Where can people go to honestly disagree? Where can people go to listen and be heard? Where can people go to be right or wrong? And where can we do all that without hate and anger and shouting and nastiness taking over? Where can we do that and find empathy and acceptance and good manners and common decency?

Honesty doesn't just happen; it needs a safe place to exist and grow, like a fragile orchid. It needs a safe place to be sensible or stupid. It needs a place to think out loud, measure the words, and mold them to new ways of thinking and acting. And then, most importantly, honesty needs a safe place to be corrected or helped or guided when correction, help, or guidance are needed. Without humiliation. Or embarrassment. Or cruelty. Or hate. Or harm. Or disrespect. Honesty happens when people know they're safe because it's understood that each person really does want what's best for everyone and every one.

Too many conversations of national and international importance to the LGBT community have become instant conflagrations, are routinely incendiary. (Fun using big words like that!) It's the atmosphere surrounding these conversations that makes them unhelpful -- when we desperately need helpful conversations!

I'm not sure what the best answer is, or,if there is an answer; I suppose it's different each time a conversation is raised. I'm just trying to figure out day by day how to use both my voice and my silence to best effect. But either way, I want what I do to be based on loving acceptance of people -- those I love and like, and those I continue to struggle to love and like!

Here's to renewed efforts to communicate well, love well, and create a safe environment where honest conversations can helpfully take place.

Hopeful...and wanting to be helpful! :-) Steve xo