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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often spoke of the difference between a negative peace and a positive peace. Negative peace is the absence of tension whereas positive peace is the presence of justice.

During King's life, there existed a crisis of race relations in the United States. If black people would have just continued to accept the practice of segregation and "stayed in their place" there would have been no crisis - but neither would there have been justice.

The system of segregation, which supported a false sense of superiority in one group of people and a false sense of inferiority in another group of people, would have gone unchallenged. I sometimes wonder where we, the people of the United States of America, would be today if the black community had not risen up with a new sense of dignity and pride for themselves and saw that the wall of segregation could be torn down with love and nonviolent protest.

There exists a crisis in the United States today with regard to relations between the gay community and the heterosexual community. Though there are many courageous heterosexual allies who see the oppression and are working alongside us for justice, and though there have been victories for our freedom, America is still a land where GLBT people are not seen as being completely equal. Rights that could be ours if we lied and pretended to be heterosexual people are denied for the simple reason that we want to live with honesty and integrity and be open about who we are as gay people.

The gay community could continue to accept the mindset and attitude of "Don't ask - Don't tell" that is so prevalent in our country. This mindset perpetuates a false sense of superiority for the heterosexual person, who is encouraged on everything from job applications to everyday conversation to share information relating to his or her sexual orientation, and it perpetuates a false sense of inferiority in the GLBT person who is made to feel shame for revealing anything that would give away the fact that he or she is homosexual. Worse still, many of us fall into the trap of buying into such a system by shrugging our shoulders at the injustice and whispering to ourselves, "Well, I suppose it's nobody's business anyway." In doing so, negative peace is sustained and positive peace is forfeited.

The only solution is for our heterosexual brothers and sisters to accept gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people as equal human beings. Those of us who are gay have been taught for too long that we are "less than." That is coming to an end. It is coming to an end not because the heterosexual community is voluntarily giving us our freedom but because the gay community is rising up with a new sense of self worth and demanding justice.

Dr. King, in his address before the annual meeting of the Fellowship of the Concerned in 1961, said, "…history reveals to us that once oppressed people rise up against that oppression, there is no stopping point short of full freedom. On the other hand, history reveals to us that those who oppose the movement for freedom are those who are in privileged positions who very seldom give up their privileges without strong resistance."

I am the coordinator for a local Soulforce group in Lexington. Soulforce is on the front lines of this movement for justice for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. We are committed to nonviolence and the process of respectful protest. We recognize that religious establishments are the primary source of misinformation about GLBT people. Religious anti-gay teachings and policies are used to sustain the injustice that exists in the United States. Therefore, we work to relentlessly bring the truth about God's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender children to our adversaries. I invite you to join us as we work towards making positive peace a reality in Lexington, in Kentucky, and in the United States.