Living in a Walled City

Sometimes I feel I live in a walled city.

The wall is roughly defined by the Interstates that circle the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. When I cycle out from the city, beyond those “city walls,” I’m heading towards places that have rejected people like me in recent times. There was a time when I could be denied a job or a home, based on my LGBTQ status. Minneapolis was one of the first places to provide protections for people like me.

The 2016 presidential election results map highlights the city versus small town divide. Red is Republican, and blue is Democratic. The top blue area includes the city of Duluth, and the North Shore of Lake Superior, a popular destination for city exiles. The bottom blue area includes the city of Rochester, home to the Mayo Clinic. The middle blue area includes the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul where I live with my partner, Dwight. The Democratic candidate won Minnesota in 2016.

In our early days, Dwight and I registered with Minneapolis as domestic partners. The certificate was worthless in those red areas, but it got a valuable lifetime spousal benefit for my partner, Dwight, with Northwest Airlines (transferred to Delta Airlines).

Today, we see a Supreme Court on the edge of reversing some of the decisions that recognize the humanity of people like me. Recently justices Thomas and Alito blasted the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage rights. The new justice, Amy Coney Barrett, ignorantly referred to sexual orientation as a preference.

On my cycle ride, yesterday, I stayed within my walled city, trying but failing to find one red lawn sign. I have no illusions: back in October 2016, I wrote about a similar lack of red signs in the front yards of Minneapolis homes.