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It's truly strange when the world, as you know it, is turned on its ear. Upon reading the article about the arrival of American fundamentalists targeting a Canadian audience, for fear of a "long-term effect of a Canadian same-sex marriage law on the United States," my only thought was: "Wow, that is the most ironic thing I have heard yet." If we were so influential, then why would Canada listen to a fringe group that has no right to stick its hands into Canadian legislation to begin with? The last time I checked we were valued for our "friendly" nature, "wilderness," and beer; not for the threat we posed to the United States, the family unit, morals, and civilization.

Personally, it frightens me that our government has been accused of "subverting the will of the people" when studies have shown a near even split on the issue of same-sex marriage. Liberals, moderates and conservatives alike are split on the matter, as it should be. However, like the trend in politics in the US, the conservatives are being drawn farther and farther away from the elements of self-determination, and protection of the rights of the individual, towards religious fanaticism. Meanwhile, the left is attacking whatever it can scrounge up in the name of the dying mantra of [pseudo] radicalism, keeping the "us" vs. "them" approach alive.

The average voter has become disillusioned with choosing people based on their self-proclaimed political affiliations. For the more conservative among the GLBT, the left wing has become the most viable option. Still they find disdain in the extreme measures and actions taken in the name of "freedom," things that alienate those that could easily swing in favour of fringe groups.

The heart of the matter is that the GLBT community is not the unified entity that I, as a gay young adult, was led to believe. Within the "community," the multiple sub-groups fail not only to cooperate, but also to stop childishly bickering amongst themselves about minor differences (see: biphobia and transphobia) and political stances. We've become hindered by the determination of the means to acceptance and who should be accepted, rather than focusing on our common need for all of us to be accepted, not only politically and publicly, but a private and personal level as well. We can show the world that we're just average people, not embodiments of evil, mistakes, a threat to the world, or anything else they believe us to be, one person at a time. Maybe one day we will all be sensible enough to see each other as we are, and not through a filter of hateful and unproductive rhetoric, spewed by both sides of the binaries we have constructed and everyone in between. It is our distinctions that cause distance, our actions that make us appear just as estranged as our opponents.

Perhaps I am still being naive, as much as a university student can be. Perhaps I am just fancifully playing with the idea of a reunified movement, one not fragmented by disagreements, but strong in its variety of views and methods to achieve a common aim. Isn't it time we rethink the answer we have to the question: "We"re here, we're queer, but what do we do now?"

That's the irony that I wanted to get across.

We can show the world that we're are just average people...

Should we not rethink the answer...