Murphy's Law cannot hold back gay movement

As Democratic Attorney General Candidate Amos Williams tells Between The Lines this week, sometimes Murphy's Law is a very real thing.
Our community can certainly relate to that sentiment. Sometimes, in fact, it feels like Murphy is working overtime where LGBT folk are concerned. With everything from the U.S. Supreme Court deciding the 2000 election to Affirmations Executive Director Leslie Thompson needing three surgeries on her back this summer, it can actually feel like Murphy is on the anti-gay payroll.
Our entire community faces huge challenges, individually and collectively, every day. In addition to whatever crises of health or job or family that Murphy may bring to us, we also have the collective challenge of discrimination in everything from employment to holding the hand of the person we love in public without fear. Amos Williams may have told BTL that he doesn't see any difference between LGBT civil rights and black civil rights, but the fact is that there are far too many fear- and bigotry-inspired people out there who disagree with him. And most of the laws agree with them, not with Williams.
But Murphy isn't the whole story – not even half.
Amos Williams lost his right hand, and with it his career as a police officer. He could have given up; instead, he finished law school and went on to become a respected civil rights attorney. Now he wants to protect our rights as the state's next attorney general.
Leslie Thompson, the executive director of Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center in Ferndale, hadn't planned on spending most of this summer out of commission. But she and her center continue to thrive and grow.
In many ways, their stories are the story of our community. We, too, succumb to accidents or illness, suffer the losses of those we love, sometimes find ourselves wondering where the next job or paycheck or maybe even meal will come from. Like Thompson, many of us know what it's like to be literally knocked flat on our backs. And, like Williams, we are all too well aware what it's like to be members of a minority facing both social and legal bigotry.
But just like Williams and Thompson and the other heroes we admire, we also know what to do when Murphy shows up at our door.
When we lose a job, we find another.
When illness strikes, we do what we can to get well.
And when laws are passed against us, we keep protesting, advocating, lobbying and speaking out.
Because we know that what matters isn't the fact that Murphy has paid us a visit. What matters is deciding who we want to be, and how we want to respond, until we're able to show him the door.