My partner is one of the most incredible chefs. When I stumble through the door after a long day of work, I am treated to spicing and elevated cooking techniques that bring out flavors I’ve never tasted, continuously surprised at the platters of food—common food transformed into treats from another world.
Recently, I braved the kitchen for a cooking tutorial, and was reminded that salt serves many functions. Salt can release flavors of simmering ingredients sitting on a hot stove so that they’re full of their richest delights as they come fresh to the table. Oddly enough, salt can do the exact opposite. It can also be used to encase and preserve meat, locking in flavors for another time in the distant future.
And as we sit at our dinner table, we wander into topics that consider our life’s goals and plans. We consider who we want to become and how we want to evolve, both as a couple and individuals. In many instances, we toil over the fact that we are often limited in our ability to shine.
Joe and I—as two men of the Queer community—often feel as though our talents go overlooked or remain under utilized. Like a flavorful ingredient kept from the larger recipe, our talents are encased in salt, preserved well, but not yet used.
Many times in our professional, relational, and spiritual lives, we have felt as though well-intentioned religious leaders and organizations have used equality to encase our talents, and personalities, rather than allowing them to billow like the smell of garlic and onions filling a warm kitchen. Instead of feeling supported to turn into the men we want to become, we feel preserved. To put it simply, the unfortunate part of our tale is that affirming religious spaces have helped us feel more like seat-warmers than social changers—welcomed, but not included.
Sometimes I feel like Lot’s wife, a character in a dramatic biblical story from Genesis.
Because her community is filled with selfish and inhospitable people, God decides to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire that fell from the sky like rain. Wanting to spare Lot and his family, God gives them an exit route. There is one caveat, however—no one is allowed to look back at the undeserving cities as they fled. Sadly, Lot’s wife turns back to look. Her punishment? She is turned into a pillar of salt.
In many ways, I feel like Lot’s wife, who ran, who turned. She turned back to look. She turned back to see, she turned hoping to observe. But what really happened was she turned into something else...a pillar that preserved her fears, resentments, talents, and future. She fled from a situation where equality was not only under-appreciated, but disdained.
Life as an ethnic, sexual, and gender minority can regularly provoke me to fearfully look over my shoulder, too. I want to look back at a fictitious life wherein I am part of the majority, where equality wins out. Like Lot’s wife, I feel that the salt of inequality leaves me preserved in a pillar of both anger, and anguish.
On a hopeful note, I’ve noticed marriage equality has created a major wave of self-acceptance within the LGBTQ+ community. We have been galvanized to love ourselves by advocacy, by affirming religious clergy, churches, legislation, and by our own undeniable confidence as a loving LGBTQ+ community. We now live in an inspiring sociopolitical climate. We need less insulation to protect us from the frigid airs of trans/homophobia.
In many fabulous ways, we are a community that watches our shame melt like snow on a 70 degree, February day in Colorado. Equality has given us a seat at many more tables than the LGBTQ+ persons who marched before us.
But I must say that “equality”—on many levels—protects the majority.
Equality appreciates the qualities of the minority. People who embrace equality believe in LGBTQ+ rights, marriage, and equal treatment. Although loving and well-intended, "equality" still subtly—and unconsciously—asserts that the staples and keystones of the majority are of higher value. Equality welcomes LGBTQ+ folks to the dinner. But the banquet table remains filled with the majority’s favorite recipes, as though everyone will enjoy the menu because it is the best. Equality, although a table with diverse representation, is a meal prepared with the majority’s enjoyment in mind.
Equality does not consider what the minority might crave, need, or prefer. Equality welcomes minorities to the table but forgets to consider that minorities come with a unique bundle of spices that add flavor, dimension, and an experience which augment the ways in which we understand the created world. We—LGBTQ+ minorities—aren’t invited into the kitchen to cook and preside over the table.
Although more and more members of the LGBTQ+ community are being equally welcomed to the feast, the inability to contribute to the menu is itself a statement that we are not yet home and that we are not yet fully appreciated.
Equity is our answer.
Equity doesn’t just invite us to the table, it invites us to the kitchen. Equity realizes that the flavors and spices of each individual minority elevate an all-too-familiar recipe. To put it plainly, those who are interested in equity understand that contributions made by all—the minority and majority—produce the ultimate outcome whereby all are considered, represented, and cherished.
Equity doesn’t just want a diverse list of guests, it understands that the benefit of co-creation is being influenced by a new palette of spices. Equity knows that diversity—in spices, perspectives, creativity—is perfection.
Too often minorities, whether they be racial or sexual or ethnic minorities, are included purely because diversity has become the new standard of social appropriateness. Although we have plenty of spices to offer, minorities are still objectified because they help the majority seem more socially relevant, politically correct, or relationally mature. Equality can leave many of us, like Joe and I, feeling like the majority only wants our presence to get the credit for being inclusive without really craving the contributions we can share, the perspectives we can offer, or the influence we can make. Dare I say it again, equality is not enough.
Equity, however, isn’t about public perceptions. It is about seeing the benefit of letting a minority’s spices turn the majority’s posture from supremacy into co-creation. Equity doesn’t just allow space for change, it craves to be changed!
Remember, salt is an incredible preservative. And in this light, anything less than equity requires salt because the contribution of other is left preserved for a distant time in the future.
Both the majority and minority are designed to turn towards one another because we are ALL a part of a larger body. But when we turn inward, towards our own comfort zones and preferences, we forget how we restore and inspire one another.
Equality is fine. It leaves us respecting one another.
Equity, however leaves us craving to be influenced by the other.
