The Aftermath of Orlando: How We Have Grown In Love

In 1973 a gay bar was set on fire. Delayed by traffic, firefighters had a hard time arriving at the scene. 32 people died - their charred corpses clinging to each other and the bars of the window that kept them in. New Orleans made no effort to lament this tragedy, it didn't even make the news. It was a gay bar, did it matter? Now, in 2016, the LGBT community has faced devastation again - but oh, how different the response has been. Not only has the city of Orlando mourned the loss of the 49 lives that were taken, the tragedy has been shared nation-wide: the revered voices of our celebrities have expressed incredulous grief, right-winged Republican leaders have tearfully apologized for the bigoted perspectives they once tried to mandate as law. For all the boisterous shouts of what it means to be gay and free, a stillness has over-taken our hearts; we are quiet with remorse. Some say the world is not as good as it once was. But for me, the only way to measure goodness is to measure the extent to which we have grown in love. In the past the definition of love was limited to a black and white paradigm: it either fit the conventional norms of heterosexual attraction, or it did not. Now we realize that just like the many brilliant shades of light in a rainbow, love exists between different people, in different ways - it's a natural spectrum, not a fixed design. For too long the LGBT community has wandered the desert, thirsting for the succor of our acceptance. With tears like rain acceptance has come, and the rainbow shines brighter for it.