Why You Don't Have to Take It Anymore!

We're at a fascinating point in LGBT history in America. The president of the United States ended a national press conference about security with a nod to the first active NBA player to come out of the closet, Jason Collins. Yet, same-sex marriage is still illegal federally. And our LGBT brothers and sisters (and everyone else in between) are still getting harassed, beaten, fired, disrespected and killed in our streets and abroad.

We queers are still operating below citizenship status and have a long way to go before we secure our status as protected minority. What we do now have, though, that we never did before, is the official right and privilege to be mad.

C'mon, you know you're angry.

Have you ever been made to feel like you're not worthy because you're gay? Like you're less than equal to your straight counterparts? Like your partner, marriage, feelings, you name it aren't as valuable as someone who is straight?

Maybe it was as subtle as a co-worker not knowing how to ask about your significant other and omitting the question entirely, or as overt as being denied the right to marry.

Has your relationship ever been disrespected by a hotel clerk at check-in asking if you want twin beds?

Has your job ever told you that they recognize domestic partner benefits but not marriage, completely missing the point that separate but equal has never been equal?

Are you tired of filling out the form that asks for "male" or "female" or "single" or "married," with no wiggle room for alternative identities?

Does the continued homophobic rants of the likes of: Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, The John Birch Society, Chik-Fil-A, Chief Justice Antonin Scalia and John Roberts, every Pope ever, a whole bunch of old, white Republican men, and anything that Rupert Murdock touches, make you sick to your stomach? Worse yet, are you mad at the media outlets that give this ignorance playtime and credibility?

Are you mad that anyone has the right to tell you that who you love and what you do on the streets or between the sheets is wrong? Are you done with those hateful religious rants about abomination this and judgment that? Are you tired of people getting kicked out of their spouse's hospital bedsides, denied post-mortem benefits, getting kicked out of homes before they've reached maturity, and the countless other awful crosses that we bear simply because we're not straight?

For every pride parade and dyke march, newspaper column and documentary that tells our story and expresses our anger there are exponentially more legitimately angry moments when we've been disregarded, overlooked, and outright abused and no one was listening. No one heard our cries.

We've been suppressing our anger for centuries, hiding for safety's sake. We've been swallowing our pride, grinning and bearing it as we put up with less than equal -- and even egregious dishonorable -- treatment from others who are homophobic, ignorant, heterosexist, closed-minded, weak, scared or all of the above.

We've finally reached a turning point, in American history at least, where we're now allowed to bitch.

We're now allowed to stand up and say with indignation, "I'm mad as hell and I don't have to take it anymore!"

So please, my LGBT brothers and sisters. Carpe diem! Seize this opportunity to make our voices heard.

Share your grievances in the below comments, and reveal those moments when you've been made to feel like anything less than the amazing person you are.

The more we talk, the closer we'll get to the day when we our gay children won't have to turn the other cheek.