Maybe Yesterday, But Not Tonight: A Black Homosexual Speaks to Governor Mike Pence

by Max S. Gordon

(This essay originally appeared at The New Civil Rights Movement, April 12, 2015.)

Walter Lee: We’re just telling you ‘bout the gentleman who came to see you this afternoon. From the Clybourne Park Improvement Association….He said the one thing they don’t have, that they are just dying to have out there, is a fine family of fine colored people!

Mama: Father, give us strength. Did he threaten us?

Beneatha: Oh — Mama — they don’t do it like that anymore. He talked brotherhood. He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each other with good Christian fellowship.

Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin In the Sun

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Last May I married a man.

When you get married, you have to go down to the City Hall and get a marriage certificate. The Office of the City Clerk is just as bureaucratic and unattractive as any other government office — in fact, it resembles the Department of Motor Vehicles. And like any other government office, you will take your number, you will wait in line, and if your paperwork isn’t in order, you will leave in frustration.