I really wanted to get into issues of class, gender, race, and LGBT this week, mostly because, except for certain narrow topics, many liberal bloggers won’t talk about them. So I invited some guest bloggers, and here’s the first one. (He happens to be my brother Mark.)

What If …?

* What if all the gay soldiers stood up and declared in one voice: “We’re here, we’re queer, and we love our country so much that we want to put our lives on the line for it, but you have to give us the same respect and dignity that the straight soldiers get.”

* What if gay people voted? There are potentially 20 to 30 million gay people in the US. We could affect the outcome of many elections and change our lives for the better. Many gay people I know don’t vote. They’ve either given up hope that anything will change, or they just can’t be bothered.

* What if politicians voted their conscience instead of the latest poll numbers and said out loud that gay people deserve the same rights as everyone else? Right on, Elizabeth Edwards! Bet you shook things up at home this week!

* What if all the people who ‘say’ they are gay supportive really meant it? So many ‘gay supportive’ people get queasy seeing two men kiss. I can’t tell you how many people say to me: “Why do you have to flaunt it? Can’t you just keep it private?’. No, we can’t. I have every right to talk about my life. Talking about my life, and the person I love, is not flaunting it. I have the same urges as everyone else. If I have to listen to all your boring stories about your kids, you can show a little interest in my life too.

* What if a mainstream television network put an actual gay character on a show and allowed him to have an actual love life. I mean, I loved “Will and Grace,” but come on….Will is hot. How it is possible that he only had two relationships through the entire run of that show? We don’t need any more Lloyd characters (”Entourage”). He’s just another stereotypical queen. I mean, I love queens - I just think it’s a very narrow view of the gay community. By the way, it really pissed me off on this week’s episode when Turtle told Lloyd it was okay to bring his four friends to their party, but there would be no PDAs (Public Displays of Affection). That’s the first time I remember homophobic material creeping into one of my favorite shows.

* What if I could walk down the street holding hands with Tony, or share a little kiss (!) without worrying if some guy, or group of guys, is going to get violent over this simple act? It’s a horrible feeling to know that people might actually get violent over a simple show of affection.

* What if gay people only paid part of their taxes to cover the rights we do have? We’re not allowed to marry in most states, so why shouldn’t we be allowed to deduct that? That has to be quantifiable and deductible from our taxes, right? We pay the same as all those ‘one man and one woman’ families who get the full membership. When I die, or if Tony dies first, one of us will have to pay inheritance taxes because we can’t marry. Shouldn’t we be allowed to have special ‘tax free’ accounts to save for that?

* What if gay people everywhere stopped their checkbook activism and became actual activists? If we can’t stand up for ourselves, how can we ask others to do the same? Like Martin Luther King said: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”.

* What if I could stop thinking about all this crap and just live my life like every one else? Wouldn’t that be just lovely?