I grew up in Eden. I never thought my neighbors there would deny me equality
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Version 0 of 1. I grew up in Eden, NC – a town of maybe 15,000 people. It was there that I learned what it means to be a good neighbor: you invite passers-by in and offer them sweet tea, you buy extra sugar in case a neighbor runs out, and you always go the extra mile when someone needs a friend. Eden might not be well-known outside of North Carolina, but it is my home, and it’s where I grew up among people who care for one another and know what it means to be a member of a community – values that continue to influence my life. The Bergers were my close neighbors in Eden: like the rest of the neighborhood, they were always kind and supportive of me and my three siblings, and good friends to my parents. When Phil Berger became a state Senator in 2000, I was proud to know him, and proud to have our neighbor representing us in the state senate. In 2011, I stood on the senate floor to sing the national anthem for Phil’s inauguration as the Senator pro tempore. What he didn’t know then was that I am gay. What I could not have known then was that my neighbor – by now my friend – would lead our state’s effort to make me and my two gay brothers second-class citizens by appealing the end of our state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Had I known, I might not have been so eager. And even though the US supreme court seems poised to deliver a ruling in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in every state this summer (and despite the fact that around 62% of North Carolinians reportedly support same-sex marriage rights), Phil Berger sponsored and helped pass a bill in the senate that would allow magistrates and local officials to opt out of issuing marriage licenses or participating in same-sex marriages, which would effectively ensure that some same-sex couples won’t be able to marry. Phil Berger is willing to defy the US supreme court to ensure that I, my brothers and thousands more in North Carolina remain as second class citizens, deprived of our right to marry whomever we love. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’ve tried calling his office to ask my former neighbor “Why are you fighting so hard for this anti-gay agenda? Do you know what you’re doing to my family? To families across our state?”. He’s never replied. He used to answer his door when I came knocking as a young boy with a school fundraiser form, or when we’d go trick-or-treating at his house, but he won’t answer me when I’ve asked him what I’ve done to be treated differently than his son or his daughter. He won’t answer my parents when they’ve asked why he works so hard to prevent their three sons to get married in our state. What happened to the Phil Berger we used to know? Exclusion and bigotry are not the values of the Eden in which I grew up, nor are they the values of the majority of America. Berger’s laws do not promote community, togetherness or good stewardship. He has forgotten the true values of his constituents, and he has forgotten his neighbors. Phil Berger’s Eden is, however, the North Carolina the rest of the country thinks it knows. A state once known as the hallmark of the “progressive south” – the state I once called home - has now become an embarrassment to progressives with its constitutional ban on gay marriage, its new voter ID laws restricting our minority neighbors’ ability to exercise their right to vote, and the drop in teacher salaries to dead last in a national ranking amongst states. Still, I’m hopeful that Phil Berger’s Eden ends up more myth than reality, and that the people with whom I grew up and who still share Phil Berger’s opinions will look at neighbors likes me and understand that LGBT rights are equal rights. Our nation’s constitution does not give lawmakers the freedom to discriminate based on their religious interpretations of the world. Indeed, that is the exact opposite of what our founding fathers had in mind when they said that “all men are created equal.” But maybe I’ll have to give up on Phil Berger. He seems to have staked his career on allowing people like him to discriminate against neighbors in Eden like me. |