Today's announcement

[Jamie McDaniel]

If you didn't catch today's announcement in the email alert, Jan. 31 is my last day on staff with Soulforce.

I just wanted to say that I am thankful for the mutually beneficial opportunity I had with Soulforce as their director of web development during the past four years. I continue to support the organization and know that, in our own way, we will all be working for that day when homophobia is but a scar that we talk about in past tense and is no longer an affliction to the health of the human race.

That's not where we are today, of course. While you are ok with who you are and your life seems in good order, there are people out there, closer than you know, who are beginning a journey similar to the one you may have taken.

To be sure, things are different now. Thanks to the work of those who happened to be born a few decades earlier than us, a great number of gays, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people today have decided to live open, authentic lives. We first ended the lie of the closet and then the lies of omission regarding our love, families, and faith.

Still, there is the invisible gay community. Hidden -- not in terms of having never been on The Real World, or their local news or paper, or having a popular blog or even a rainbow sticker on their car. I mean invisible in that no one knows, no one with whom they connect with on a regular basis. They carefully manage how they express their attractions and feel a deep sense of loneliness in being cut off from "their people." Anyone able to remember how that feels?

It's 2009. Do you think the invisible gay community is still a significant number? Do you think we still have a long way to go to gain full equality? If so, I know you will continue to be out and support your LGBT advocacy groups like Soulforce.

Best to you, friends!

Jamie McDaniel