"political statements"

I want to make an It Gets Better video. I've wanted to for a long time and had thought about doing so before repeal, but I thought it entirely too ironic NOT to show my face because I can't while simultaneously telling kids, "hey, don't kill yourselves, it gets better...I just can't tell you who I am because the government says I'm detrimental".  So, I waited.

Now, I'm getting some friends together to make a video and people are saying that if we wear our uniforms, it would be a "political statement".  What, pray tell, is "political" about saying, "hey, it might suck to be bullied, but your life will get better. Don't kill yourself."

Here's a list of things I've been FORCED to do in uniform:

• Attend a religious service with an alter call
• listen to Dick Cheney speak, twice, about politics
• listen to Al Franken talk about Iraq
• "bow my head and pray" at every official function I've ever been to
• support the Special Olympics (in uniform)
• support the Boy Scouts of America (an organization that actively denies membership to two groups of people who are legally allowed to be in the military--homosexuals and atheists)
• attend the Association of the United States Army, the lobbying arm of the US Army

None of these are particularly "bad" things, nor are they "good", but they're surely less innocuous than saying, "don't kill yourself." Unless the mere recognition that things are getting better for gay people is, in and of itself, too political?

What's my point? I wrote about it on Peter and my blog, but the fact that simply by acknowledging homosexuality we're making a "political point" is ridiculous to me, but unfortunately true. Things are still at a level where there is "normal" (which is straight and, frankly, white) and anything outside of that is a "statement".  What people need to realize is that it's NOT a statement to be different, and recognizing differences aren't political.