Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago, a document was signed by rebels of our mother country, some fighting for a cause they felt utterly doomed, others fighting for the same cause they felt utterly necessary. That document called for—nay, proclaimed—principles so simple and obvious we often take them for granted.

But in those two hundred twenty-eight years those principles have been denied to people after people. The reasons are at once varied and unified in their bases. When all is stripped away, we are left with one simple, unadulterated, unavoidable, inexcusable and, above all, imminently mutable fact: they have been denied.

We are now farther than we were then in allowing for the redress of this grievance. We must go much further to complete that process because we are not faced with the fiftieth anniversary of the last teen to commit suicide because a community did not respond, or a family abandoned their child, or a school let it be known "you ... are ... not ... welcome ... here." We are faced with it every day of our lives and it cannot continue. For this country’s founding principles to ring true, for America to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, for each American citizen to know, breathe and exude life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this country must again change. A people must change, communities must change, thought must change and hearts must change.

"You can do anything you want to," we are told as children. The media inundate us with images of people doing what they want and of people succeeding, at times against what would seem to many insurmountable odds. For so many of us, that success, that openness of life, that unadulterated zeal … it is not an option. We live our lives in secret, or we deny ourselves the chance at a life for a mere existence in “favor” of the continuous, robotic, automatic intake of oxygen.

 

America is the land of opportunity, we are told as children.  And in the two hundred twenty-eight years since we told our mother country "We will not be subjugated, we will not be downtrodden, we will not be your subject, bound and gagged, powerless to your every whim" we have bestowed that upon another people and it must stop now, for it cannot continue.

We rise up. And we are checked. We fight, and we win. Slowly. At times, at first, alone. For too long we dared not surface; when we did, we were rebuffed by those sworn to protect every American citizen from harm. Then we said "Enough. We will live our lives and with pride. You will not take that from us; not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever." We have been saying that since, and it has brought us to a place where, sometimes, we can be safe. Sometimes we can let it be known who we are.

And sometimes we have been killed for it. Sometimes we have been beaten, raped, murdered, left to die.  Sometimes we have been imprisoned, put behind bars for something so integral to our beings that we cannot begin to comprehend what insanity was present when that law was written, when that bill was passed, and only in the past few years have we regained the right to actual privacy in our private lives.  We have been denied housing, we have been denied gainful employment, we have been denied health care, visitation rights, solace, the chance to give it … so many things you have come to accept as part and parcel of your citizenship in this country are things we know will not always be recognized.

 

We are denied that which is so heavily emphasized throughout this country's history and so often the world: a family.

 

Rights so common to most in this country that we do not, cannot conceive of a live without them ... they are not ours. As we live and breathe we see others with those rights that, though written in law, have been taken away from us through some force that must needs be alien to those who conceived of this country and fought so hard to guarantee the freedom of her citizens.

Today, and tomorrow, and next week and next month and next year and until we are free we will be here and we will fight. You cannot ignore us; if you do we will overtake you and it will become our country. You cannot fight us: truth triumphs over both evil and hubris. You cannot make us hide: we have come too far at too great a price to back down now, either for ourselves or those who made that first stand. You can join us and be known as part of the force that made this country the land of the free.

We are insulted with that haughty, overbold thought, that presumptuous and arrogant "Why can't you just be like us?" We are like you. Our blood is as red as our tears are as real as our wail and our pain as our jump for joy. We love, we cherish, we adore, we believe, we struggle, we fall back and try again, harder and higher, until we are satisfied.

 

Our desires are yours: to be truly free American citizens, as you are. Our motives are yours: freedom; equality; a share in this American life of promise you have, which is ours, now, as a dream – however real at times – and a goal, but not yet realized as it is every day of your life.

This is the greatest country in the world, we are told. Freedoms unimaginable elsewhere are taken for granted here so much so that when they are violated, the smallest child asleep in the deepest cave under a hundred thousand blankets hears a nation cry out "NO!" Yet in some ways we are no better than those we pity half a world away; rights not given in poor, starving countries are similar to those denied our people, your people, here.

Do you fear us? Do you imagine your American way of life slipping out of your grasp? Is your dream fading as yet more in this country are recognized and afforded the same freedom you have had since your birth? Are you threatened by the idea that a people you had marginalized, denigrated, stuffed into a closet, stomped on and seemingly left for dead is back, and was never gone? Or, do you fear that you will be left behind as we step forward once, twice, ten times, a thousand times to claim that same freedom you had before your first step?

We seek prosperity as you do. We, too, wish to see this country greater than it was before us.

You who strive to block our path to freedom are together in your present unity, but alone in that your future is bleak. We are stronger than we were when we were stronger than you are now; our past successes are as evident as is the fact that we will continue to succeed until we are, in paper and in practice, free. Those who join us will taste freedom ever sweeter, seeing it newly-bestowed on those who had deserved it so long ago.

 

Will you watch as a nation celebrates? Will you fight us still when victory is ours?  Will you, as we have, put your life on the line to deny equal rights to the equal?

You will fight alone. You will be the fly on the ankle of America, and your greatest measure against us, as you summon your entire being's strength and concentrate every fiber of your existence to hurt us once and for all, may not be felt. It will be only by looking in your direction that we will be aware of your presence. And on that glorious summer day, in a field of daisies, with those we hold close to our hearts, you will be wholly unnoticed. We will look up to a blue sky, we will dance with our eyes wide open, proud of who we are, and we will fall asleep under a starry sky and be free.  And the next day, and the next week, and the next year … we will be free.  You will have two choices: remain obstinate and be left behind as so many others have done in struggles past; or, join us and revel in the fruition of the hopes held in that summer two hundred twenty-eight years ago when a nation was formed of misfits, aristocrats, unskilled laborers, farmers, artisans and so many others who wanted simply a land where they could not be swept under the rug of humanity.

We have power, and we are growing stronger than we have ever been. America does not ignore us, and you do not either. We have fought and we have won; we are fighting and we are winning. We will continue to fight, and we will continue to win until the final victory is ours. Our fight is with truth on our side; yours is with a weapon far weaker: fear. You will fight with your fear and it will envelop you until you lose everything you have, or you will see through your transparent fear and the light of our truth will call you forward to join us.

And you will join us.

And we will be stronger than we have been before, a truly united country. We have been United States, but now we will be united, every one of us, and we will be the strength this world has yet to see.

This is my vision, my dream, my goal.  When I see it, I am not in some far-distant magical land but thinking of a land that has seen so much change once heralded as the ultimate decay of America.  What I see is not decay but individuality, a concept so fundamental to the foundation of this country that I cannot but rest assured knowing this will come to pass.  It has not yet, so it remains a vision as I among many others strive to change it to reality from dream.

I have a dream that one day these words will be thought unnecessary to any people, for surely freedom is something for all, and everything to many. I have a dream that - one day - bigotry, hatred and those words of denigration will be as archaic as the mindset that bore them out of the darkest places on this earth. I have a dream that one day American citizens will be judged not by their ideal mate but by their American ideals. I have a dream that people will live in peace, all of them free, all of them proud, all of them happy.

I have a dream that one day any American citizen will be asked, "What do you think of that guy?" and respond not "Oh, he's always being so gay. I wish he'd stop" but "I admire him."

I have a dream that one day there will be no closet in America hiding the secret of a teen too scared to tell her friends she is gay for fear they will abandon her, or worse.

I have a dream that one day people will die of old age, not from utter despair of a country promising freedom for all and delivering freedom to few.

I have a dream that one day the parent who says “No son of mine is going to be a faggot” will no longer exist; loving parents who care for their children as they ought will have replaced them, and indeed they must if this country is to strive toward the greatness her founders envisioned two hundred twenty-eight years ago and still cannot hold in her hand and give to her people, that it might flourish and blossom under our care.

I have a dream that throughout the world this country will be known not for what it has done to some but for what it will give to all.

If America is to be what its founders dreamt of, I cannot dream alone. I must not dream alone. I must dream with everyone who understands that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” applies to every citizen of this country.  I must be joined in my dream by the patriotic who understand that separate but equal is indeed separate but by no means equal.  My dreams must be as crowded as the halls of justice, teeming with those newly-given unjustly-denied freedom. My dreams must be crowded like the doors of far-off lands that do not know freedom, as their people leave a life of despair for a life of promise, of acceptance, of prosperity and of love.  My dreams must be as pregnant as the courthouses in Massachusetts on May 17, brimming with couples in anticipation of being able to introduce everyone they knew to their new same-sex spouses.

If America is to live up to the words on her Statue of Liberty, I cannot dream alone. If we are to accept the tired, the weak, the yearning to be free; if we are to accept the downtrodden and the cast-off; if we are to accept those who seek the liberty some of us know and some of us will know, I must not dream alone.

And I do not dream alone.

Tell your friends. Tell your parents. Tell your local government, tell your state government, tell the federal government. Tell every American citizen you see from the Aleutian Islands to the Florida Keys; tell every boy and every girl that I do not dream alone. Go tell it on a mountain, over the hill and everywhere; let the sound ripple over water and penetrate rock, let it fill every stadium and empty the world’s closets.  Shout it in the streets; print it in the papers; "film at 11: I do not dream alone." Saturate every inch of soil this country has, let every ear be hearing, every mouth be proclaiming, every eye be seeing that I do not dream alone.

I do not dream alone.