When It's Always Safe

A few years ago now, I was out with friends on a Friday night. One of them, I had known for several years and love dearly. The other was her girlfriend. They also happen to be an interracial couple. By that point in my life, I didn't even think twice about their relationship. It worked for them so it worked for me; I was glad to have a friend from a previous life there in that unfamiliar midwestern city. As we walked along the city streets that night, a man veered off course and leaned far out of his car to yell at us. He drove away quickly. I hadn't been able to understand what he said. In all my naiveté, I looked at them said, "What was that all about?"

They knew. It was about them. That wasn't the first time they had been yelled at in that way. Interracial and same-sex couple were both problematic in different places.

A few years later, I've finally found a man with whom I've been on more than three dates. It's still new. It's still weird at times. We're still figuring out each other. (Seriously, he doesn't like watermelon or  cheesecake. Who doesn't like watermelon or cheesecake? These things are the nectar of the gods!) But it's always safe. I've been weirdly conscious of that lately for all sorts of reasons, at least in part because of stories like that night years ago. Actually, people are nice to us for no reason than the fact we're on a date.

We get smiles and jokes from waiters when we have a three hour dinner on a slow evening. Those same waiters assume we're on one check. No one looks at us strangely when we're walking down a street together. In fact, cultural norms say that I'm safer when walking down a dark street with him than I would be by myself or with another woman. PDA is totally acceptable, even though we're not PDA people so that's mostly irrelevant. Everywhere, anywhere we go, it's safe for us to be together.

We're safe because we're heterosexual, cisgendered people. We're safe because we're both Anglo at a "Please give me some sunscreen" level. We're safe because we embody what is "normal." We're what this society has always privileged. There's something decidedly eerie about that fact. Maybe unsettling is a more accurate word.

Now, a few days after same-sex marriage has been legal in the state where I live and work, that privilege is even more unsettling. Ministers willing to perform same-sex weddings the day the ruling came were asked to be in pairs for safety. I was not among those performing weddings because of a funeral, but I have heard of the tears, and the joy, and the incredulity. I started this particular post weeks ago, unsure of how to end it.

Now I know: we're closer to the reign of God than we were a few days ago. Of that I am certain. Still, I long for the day when safety isn't a privilege for people who just happen to be walking down a street.