With the State of the Union coming upon us, and with the series of current litigations coming to fruition in several there here fine United States, it brings time to look at how the fight for equality has grown within the last year, and how much work still needs to be done for to progress in the future.

2005 was a huge years for the fight for equality, coming off the 2004 elections and the ban on gay marriage in several states. The Republicans retained control of the government and G. W. still sleeps in the White House, while groups concerned on the state and strength of the family protested and boycotted several businesses for the pro-gay agenda’s.

So was the battle lost? The fighting that took place in 2004 in every corner of the gay community was hard to ignore. Voter registration, campaigners, bumper stickers, posters, yard signs, they were everywhere. Entire task forces were devoted to bringing out the message, and volunteers worked around the clock to get their voices heard and their messages out. Then on election night, when the results came in, there was silence.

That’s how 2005 started, silence. For many there was still this feeling of shock that with all of their work and fighting, they lost. Many figured that it was over and they should get on with their lives, getting over it and settling in acceptance that this was how things were going to be for the next four years. A large majority of the GLBT community just went back to their normalcy, figuring they will pick back up in four years when there is another presidential campaign.

It was not silence on every front though. Initiatives in Massachusetts brought gay marriage back into the spotlight. With all the arguments and debates, the court proceedings and the constitutional amendments, gay marriage was once again on everyone mind and on a majority of political talking heads tongues. As eleven states set a precedent banning gay marriage, one went the polar opposite and ensured their citizens equality.

There was and still is backlash, with activists and groups gathering signatures to ban same sex marriage on the agenda, the fight still continues there and in several other states where more bans on same sex marriage are on the agenda. However, in states such as Illinois, California and New Jersey, gays and lesbians are now guaranteed protection against discrimination under state mandate, setting a model for other state legislation to follow.

However, all is not grand in the gay community here in these fine United States with the shadow of a federal ban on same sex marriage looming in Congress, and with the Supreme Court moving farther to the right with Sandra Day O’Connor stepping down. There are several cases set to go before them this session that deal with equality, and whose rulings could determine the freedoms of an entire group of Americans.

The news of both of these events however, falls on deaf ears in many communities. If one were to sit at a coffee shop in one of “gay” areas of any metropolitan city, one would overhear conversations on pulp culture, celebrity gossip, high fashion and music. Very rarely is there much discussion on a local level of anything going on in a political theater. Groups on a national stage, such as the Human Rights Campaign, hold protests and hand out information to their members and try to inform them of these things, but it is a sad fact that they are already preaching to the converted.

This is the principle problem with the fight for equality; the numbers of those who so strongly and adamantly believe in the cause just aren’t there and those that are, usually are the same men and women who were alive to remember such pivotal events as Stonewall and the rise of AIDS. Much of the activists of the 60’s became coffins of the 90’s, their legacies and struggles giving way to the silence of disease. This gave birth to an entire generation growing up with no idea of the way things used to be, and how fragile their rights hang in the balance.

They scream and shout that they will never go back in the closet, that societies views have changed. That people are more tolerant and accepting into the new millennium. The truth is that this society is not more tolerant, rather they are bombarded with images of cute and safe, comical homosexuals. Their hair dressers, their wedding planners, their handbag homosexual, the perfect accessory for the modern woman and the metrosexual male.

We have become clichés, onto ourselves. Yes we may be more visible now then we were in the past, but at what cost? Many young gay males don’t care about state bans on same sex marriage, saying it doesn’t affect them because they aren’t planning on getting married. They say they are moving to Europe or Canada where people are more tolerant, and that society is allowed to do what they want. Their eyes are blind to the world around them, spouting the same counter rhetoric used for decades. Whites often held these same views about blacks after the Civil War, saying if they don’t like it, they can go back to Africa.

History shows us that they didn’t go anywhere, they stayed and they fought for their rights and slowly gained national attention to the injustice of segregation and the brutal racism of an oppressive society. Those young gay males who say they are going to pick up and move to a more tolerant and accepting society are never going to go anywhere. The society that they speak of doesn’t exist yet and with the current level of resignation to defeat, acceptance of things being the way they are and spouting off the same “oppressed minority” news bites, it never will.

To see this, one must turn an eye to other countries around the world. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, gays are publicly beheaded, in Eastern Europe they are passing laws banning same sex marriage. In Africa and Asia gays are constantly persecuted and lynched by crowds who parade their bodies with signs. The most common insult in the world is to call someone gay, and is sent with such venom and malice showing how truly people still feel about homosexuals.

No matter how many countries, states and cities pass laws ensuring equality and freedom, the underlying homophobia and persecution of gays will remain. The true freedom of equality lies with the individual, and their mind. For change to occur in any instance, for equality to truly exist you must reach out to every single person who makes up the society. Not on a national or global scale, but on a local level to the people who live and work around you. To the people who own businesses, go to school, eat, shop, drink and live in the houses and streets that surround you. From suburbia to an urban metropolis, concrete jungles to rural agricultural towns, the individual, the citizen, the human being must come to learn and understand the injustices of the world. It must be made personal, with a name and a face to have an impact. It must become human, rather than a sound bite on the nightly news. This is the only way that any progress will be made, not by the coalition or the group, but by the individual.