Farmer's Market

It seems like every time I'm wearing a t-shirt that announces my advocacy for gay rights (I have quite a collection), I run into my Baptist neighbors. They're wonderful people who may very well support gay rights themselves, but we don't discuss it, and I'm left to wonder what they think of me.

Last Saturday, I went to the Farmer's Market. The first of the year. My expectations for produce were low, since it's still early in the growing season, but I headed out to see what could be harvested. I was wearing one of those t-shirts—the gay ones—though I'd thought momentarily about changing, given the possibility that I would run into one of my adult ESL students, who snigger every time the subject of same-sex marriage comes up.

Sure enough, while waiting to cross the street to the market, I stood behind a woman whose t-shirt bore the names of local mega-churches and organizations that had tried so hard to make sure no gay couple would ever wed legally in Minnesota. I know, because I worked hard to help defeat them. Across the street, Jehovah's Witnesses stood on the sidewalk, over-dressed for vegetables. They would have been happy to answer any questions I may have had about my eternal damnation. Inside the market, Somali families carried bags of food that they couldn't touch until sundown because it was Ramadan.

This was one day before the carnage in Orlando. In the aftermath, people who worship guns—for having, not hunting—have claimed once again that only more guns will make us safe. But if all of us who wear our conflicting identities so publicly, backed up our differences with weapons, going to the farmer's market would be as dangerous as going to a movie theater. Or an elementary school. Or a community center. Or a Bible study. Or a nightclub.