Liberated from Death

January 1998

On an 80 to 80 tie vote, the Massachusetts House of Representatives this November failed to enact legislation calling for the execution of certain prisoners. On the eve of the death penalty vote, opponents of the measure held a rally on the State House steps in Boston. Among those protesting plans to electrocute or poison prisoners were many gay people and sexual freedom activists. Sexual liberationists were well-represented, in part, because organizers of the rally were themselves sexual outlaws. Even so, one couldn't help being struck by how many of the nuns, priests, union organizers, politicians, journalists, teachers, and other attendees were queer.

Why did gay people take the lead in opposing efforts to reinstate capital punishment in Massachusetts?

Sexual liberationists speaking out at the anti-death penalty rally did not, mercifully, offer the erroneous reasons so often cited by others for opposing killing prisoners.

Executions are expensive– the legal processes involved cost millions of dollars, far more than the price of incarcerating someone for life. But gay opponents to the death penalty didn't complain about the "burden to taxpayers," as though more efficient executions would be less objectionable.

Executions happen in a criminal justice system tainted by omnipresent racism and are, therefore, inevitably administered inequitably. But gay people weren't calling for a "fairer" way to apply the death penalty, as though a color-blind approach to state-sanctioned killing would be acceptable.

And executions are tragically irreversible. History offers many examples of a vengeful state killing vilified prisoners later proven innocent of their alleged crime. Gay organizers did not suggest that their opposition to executions would be muted if only they could be sure that the "wrong" people would never be killed. Indeed, they were united in the understanding that there were no "right" people to kill.

Gay opposition to the death penalty is born of the gay experience itself. Since birth, we have all been indoctrinated with a deadening message: being who we really are is so despised that we are better off pretending to be something else. Many of us remember years wasted in the closet, our real selves mummified while our straight-painted shells chased the respectability that we were told meant everything. Coming out means recognizing what a bad trade it is to swap real life for hollow approval. Deciding to be gay means embracing life (despite the world's condemnation) over death (the "respectable" choice urged by society).

Once out, it is exciting to use our new gay eyes and our new gay brains to re-examine much of what we had taken for granted. Issues formerly clouded by worldly judgments fall into sharper focus as we understand that our presence on earth is always enriched by choosing truth over lies, life over death.

It is a lie to claim that executions make any of us safer, for capital punishment encourages more state brutality. It is a lie to claim that killing a killer signals abhorrence of murder– further killing only leaves more hands bloody. And it is a lie to pretend that those calling for deadly revenge care more about the victims of violence than do those who urge mercy.

It is in the nature of governments and institutions to use fear and vengefulness to enhance their power, claiming them necessary for survival and branding dissenters as dangerous traitors. But real advances in human history are made by those who oppose official rationalizations for death. Those who have seen through the deadening lies of a homophobic culture and embraced their gay identities learn vital lessons about the sanctity of life and the evils of fearful mobs trying to prove their righteousness. That's why so many gay people came to the Massachusetts State House steps in November and why gay people serve as leaders and teachers to our death-obsessed society.

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=D98CDA04-1911-11D4-A7AB00A0C9D84F02>