Years ago, when I was a teenager, I urged my General Motors executive father to have the world’s largest and most powerful corporation design a jazzy new car and market it to my age-group as chief rival Ford Motor Company had just done with the Mustang.

     Dad dismissed the suggestion and assured me that G.M. had perfected a formula that worked and that they would be sticking with it. I am grateful that he died before his company stock became worthless and the rival Ford didn’t face the same public shame from of the threat of bankruptcy.

     A freelance reporter contacted me recently for leads on any innovative work being encouraged by corporations. A business news organ wants to highlight “best practices” in thinking outside of the box.

     I suggested that he contact Todd Sears, director of diversity and inclusion at Credit-Suisse, Stephen Golden who does the same work for Goldman-Sachs in Asia, the Gay and Transgender Employee Resource Group at Merck, and Donna Griffin, the new diversity director at Chubb. All four firms have taken measures to break new ground and to reward innovative thinking by their employees.

     Success in the business community requires new approaches in an ever-changing world. If you want simply to tread water and risk irrelevance, keep doing things the same old way, or, worse yet, drag a company back to doing things the way they were done in the glorious past. If you want to stay fresh and relevant, let go of the dead wood on which you are floating.

     An op-ed piece in a recent USA Today lamented the attempts by the Vatican to drag innovative and relevant American nuns back to the days of long black habits, convent living, and classroom teaching. Ignoring all of the inspired thinking that took place at the Second Vatican Council, Rome has sent out a compliant Mother Mary Clare Millea to report on any modern thinking by nuns that falls outside of Church orthodoxy. One can’t help vision goody-goody Delores Umbridge being sent by the fearful Ministry of Magic to reign in Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and the Hogwarts School of Magic in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

     At the upcoming Out and Equal Workplace Conference in Orlando, I’ll be guiding a discussion on the future of work on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. The goal will be to encourage “outside the box” thinking about what now needs to be done to make gay and transgender employees equal players and valued consumers. Entitled “ENDA Doesn’t End It,” the workshop participants will engage in a lively analysis on how the expected passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act by Congress will change the focus of workplace initiatives.

     Though my goal, and that of Out and Equal, the Human Rights Campaign, Employee Resource Groups, and of others seeking workplace equity ought to be to put ourselves out of business, we don’t want to do so before the job is done. If we don’t change approaches to reflect the changing culture, we will be forced to declare bankruptcy of purpose and effectiveness. To be successful, we need to be mustangs.

     “Does anyone know why June is the month during which your company celebrates Gay Awareness?” I asked an audience of corporate executives. Most people looked uncomfortably at the floor, and not one hand went up. After my explanation, they all seemed very pleased to understand the significance of the month, and also the reason why the rainbow flag and the pink triangle are used in promoting gay events.

     Just as it’s very silly to use shorthand in a text message that the recipient doesn’t understand, such as LOL for Laugh Out Loud, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees, and those working in Diversity and Inclusion, and in Human Resources, should never, ever assume that the average person understands the acronym GLBT or anything else about gay or transgender culture. Believe it or not, there are some younger gay people who have never heard of Stonewall and are afraid to admit it. And the transsexual term “MTF” for “male to female” means nothing to most people, gay or straight.

     Forty years ago, the modern Gay Civil Rights Movement erupted in response to a raid by New York police officers on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. In the early morning of June 28, patrons of the bar fought back against the police who were attempting to arrest them for congregating as homosexuals. It was at that time that the terms “Gay Power” and “Gay Pride” first entered the popular vocabulary. In response to news of the Stonewall Rebellion, five chapters of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) were created by the end of 1969. They were in New York, Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose. One year later, there were 300 chapters of GLF in the country, along with scores of other new gay-related groups that focused their attention on religion and politics. For instance, Dignity, the gay Roman Catholic group, was formed in 1969.

     The Stonewall Rebellion, that began in the early morning hours of June 28 and lasted for the next two days, is the reason why June is celebrated as Gay Pride or Gay Awareness month not only in the United States but also across the globe. But the birth of the modern Gay Civil Rights Movement did not happen in a vacuum. Revolt against authority and conservative cultural standards had already taken root in American society through the Anti-war Movement, the Black Civil Rights Movement, and the counterculture of the 1960s. Nor was what happened at the bar on Christopher Street in June of 1969 the first sign of organized gay resistance in the United States. Gay men and women had formed the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in 1952 and the Daughters of Bilitis in San Francisco in 1955. Nearly twenty years prior to drag queens in Greenwich Village screaming “brutality” at the police, gay men in suits and ties, and lesbian women in dresses were silently but quite courageously picketing for equal rights outside the White House.

     Learning this history helps build the confidence of most senior managers who often feel ill-equipped by their limited understanding of gay people and their issues to effectively manage workplace concerns. These same managers are also grateful for explanations of the symbols they see used by the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Employee Resource Group (ERG) but don’t understand. These symbols include the rainbow flag and the pink triangle which are often employed in corporate posters announcing Gay Awareness events and in “Safe Space” magnets that heterosexual colleagues sometimes post in their offices to indicate a “gay-friendly” environment.

      The Gay Rainbow Flag, or “Freedom Flag,” was created by Gilbert Baker in 1978 and is used internationally to represent the great diversity in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities. Each of the six colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet – had meaning to Baker but is unknown to most gay people. And Baker didn’t create the rainbow flag. It has been used by many groups to signify diversity and inclusion, or, in the case of the Inca people in Peru, their Andean history. When we climbed the Inca Trail in Peru, Ray and I thought the whole country was “gay friendly” until we learned that the Andean people had a different understanding of the flag than we did. However, the rainbow flag is most commonly associated today worldwide with the gay and transgender community.

     The pink triangle, with the point down, was used by Nazis to identify homosexual men in Germany and in all occupied territories. Lesbians were less visible and of less concern to the Nazis in their effort to purge society of anything that might “pollute” the Master Race. If a lesbian was identified with a symbol, it was the same black triangle that all nonconforming women, such as those alleged to be witches, were forced to wear. A former symbol of death for gay people, the pink triangle is now used to symbolize strength and solidarity, and serves to remind gay men and women of what fate is always possible for a minority group in any culture.

     Finally, for the thirty-five years that I have been publicly out of the closet as a gay man, I have heard or read about a so-called “Gay Agenda.” Almost always the term is employed by social and religious conservatives who want to frighten other Americans into believing that there is a secret conspiracy to undermine heterosexual society. It is so secret, in fact, that no gay person has ever heard its details. But that has changed. A small group of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people recently met in Dallas, Texas, and came up with a “Gay Agenda” with which I completely agree, and to which I can’t imagine most reasonable, fair-minded people not responding with anything other than enthusiastic assent.

     These “Goals,” or “Agenda,” as I have come to call them, provide a good understanding to us all of what it is that most lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people seek in their lives.

       1. DIGNITY AND EQUALITY. Every lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender person has inherent dignity and worth, and has the right to live free of discrimination and harassment.
       2. FAMILY.  Every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender person has the right to a family without legal barriers to immigration, civil marriage or raising children.
     3. ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY.  Every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender person has the right to economic opportunity free from discrimination in employment, public housing, accommodation, public facilities, credit, and federally funded programs and activities.
     4. EDUCATION. Every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender child and youth has the right to an education that is affirming, inclusive and free from bullying.
     5. NATIONAL SECURITY.  Every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender person should have the opportunity to serve our country openly and equally in our military and foreign service.
     6. CRIME.  Every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender person should enjoy life protected against bias crimes.
     7. HEALTH CARE.  Every person should have access to affordable, high quality, and culturally competent health care without discrimination.

     Speaking of “health care,” for the sake of my own, I’m going to play in the garden and in the water in Provincetown, Massachusetts for the next three months without thinking about writing my two weekly blogs. I recently saw an advertisement for an automobile that said, “Summer has always belonged to children.” That’s true if we’re talking about one’s state of mind and not one’s age. Please enjoy your summer as much as I intend to enjoy mine.

   My friend Noreen jumped right into her kayak upon her arrival in Provincetown, paddled out into the choppy waves of the harbor where the sea birds were congregating, and caught a thirty-five inch striped bass. It was one of twelve (keeping three) such fish that she hauled into her small boat over a day and a half, somehow managing not to tip over into the icy waters of Cape Cod Bay. She’s fearless and she’s generous. She shared filets of the bass, our favorite fish, with Ray and me.

     Noreen is an openly-gay FBI agent who is also fearlessly and generously creating change in attitudes and behaviors toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in her agency. With a small handful of other agency members, and with the strong support of U.S. Congressman Barney Frank, Noreen is navigating waters where most others wouldn’t dare paddle, row, sail, or motor. At a Gay Awareness Month breakfast at the FBI in June, which will feature Barney Frank as the speaker, Noreen Gleason is bringing her family – her spouse of twenty-one years, Jennifer, and their 10-year-old daughter.

     As we all know, changes in company policy and practices regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people can be slow in coming and require enormous hard work and patience in the best of circumstances. But when change in attitudes is sought in a U.S. government agency, where the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) forbids recognition of same-sex relationships, and all military groups require gay and lesbian employees to remain closeted (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”), it is a heroic act to take on the challenge.

     Nevertheless, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight people in government agencies are doing it with remarkable success. From my experience, making progress requires fearlessness and generosity on the part of at least three groups of people: Gay and transgender people who step forward and put faces on the issues; strongly supportive heterosexual senior managers who commit the agency to action; and the open-minded heterosexual employees who choose to move forward rather than resist change.

     Noreen is a wonderful example of the first group, as is Kim Nelson at the National Security Agency (NSA), Christopher Bannochie at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), and countless others from the Departments of Justice, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture with whom I have worked or from whom I have heard over the past few years. Of these, the agencies with the most floating mines in the water are those involving the military or which are paramilitary in nature. For that reason, it’s particularly gratifying to get a strong statement of support from a heterosexual director of an agency concerned with national defense.

     “On a personal note,” wrote Chuck Munns, CEO of SRNS in his recent memo to all employees on the formation of the gay employee resource group, “I have spent my professional life dedicated to protecting this country and the freedoms that it affords its citizens. A particular strength of the American people is the tolerance – indeed, the advocacy – of divergent viewpoints, even when those views may be in conflict with our own. That is one aspect that makes us strong. Even when viewpoints may be in conflict with our own, we should remember that freedom from discrimination – of any kind – is a principle that is important to us all.”

     Similarly powerful statements of endorsement for creating a safe and productive work environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees have been made by the directors at most government agencies at which I have spoken, including the National Security Agency. Such strong personal messages from executive leadership make it clear to all employees that the decision to be inclusive and to value the diversity represented by gay and transgender employees is not open to debate.

     What must happen next for all businesses to move forward is for heterosexual employees to proactively support their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender colleagues. This happens most successfully when the company or government agency provides education on the issues. It is only with education that any of us are able to move out of the ignorance that breeds fear, and the fear that breeds hatred. As some of you may recall, a year ago I was brought into the National Security Agency to provide such training for all senior managers. Because I understand that information on the challenges that we gay and transgender people face in our lives is not only professionally relevant to members of the audience, but also personally relevant, I urge them each to go home and discuss the presentation I made with their families.

     As I have related to audiences globally since that talk at the NSA, I heard the day after my session there from a senior manager who did as I suggested and discussed with his family that evening my presentation on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. A couple of hours later, his college-age daughter, feeling that she could now do so safely, came out as a lesbian to her father.

     In today’s e-mail, I received an update from the father. He wrote to say that as a result of the training and of his daughter coming out, he has now taken an active role at NSA in promoting gay and transgender issues, and in effectively creating further understanding in the agency. This wonderful man is a great example of the heterosexual government or corporate employee who was required to attend a diversity presentation on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workplace issues and who, as a result, found himself or herself gladly and eagerly navigating the waters of cultural change.

     While my friend Noreen was in her kayak, alone with the striped bass that were drawn to the herring and sand eels that had attracted the attention of the birds, she was approached by boatloads of men fishing without the same success.

     “How are you doing it?” they asked.

     “You have to be quiet,” she advised the group whom she felt were making too much noise moving around the boat, talking to each other, and constantly changing their gear. They were scaring the fish.

     As they moved on in search of fish, leaving Noreen alone with her thoughts about the changes she was seeking to make at the FBI, I hope that she took comfort in knowing that there were others like her, fishing waters in other places, fearlessly facing the challenges, and generously giving it all that they had. Thank you all for sharing the catch of your labors with us.

     When I was a youngster living in Flint, Michigan, I was very good at jump rope. I was also good at hopscotch, and jacks, but that’s another story. When we played jump rope, my girl friends and I would keep rhythm for ourselves by singing through the alphabet. I would sing, “A - my name is Alan and my wife’s name is Alice. We come from Alabama with a carload of apples. B - my name is Brian and my wife’s name is Betty. We come from Buffalo with a carload of bananas. C - my name….” You get the picture.

     Our little group of children didn’t learn much about each other through the words of that song, other than that we could be creative coming up with appropriate words, especially when we reached the Q and the X.

     In many workplaces today, the adults don’t know much more about each other than the contents of the song. “Hi, my name is Alex and my wife’s name is Charlene. We moved here from Des Moines with a carload of children.” According to an important new study, published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Applied Psychology, limiting what we tell about ourselves and what we know about each other at work is not good for the company in its efforts to be optimally productive by valuing diversity. To achieve a competitive edge, a company needs to create an environment in which all employees feel safe, encouraged, and rewarded for sharing relevant information about themselves. For instance, I might say, “Hi, my name is Brian and my husband’s name is Ray. I’m 61 and he’s 58. We moved here from Boston where we met in 1976. I’m certified as a sexuality educator and have made my living by educating others on gay and transgender issues. Ray’s career was in finance, having worked for many years at Lehman Brothers. We were both raised and educated as Catholics, but our spirituality is nurtured by other influences today. I’m glad to be here and I look forward to learning more about each of you.”

     If each person in the group was enabled to do the same, our work team would be far more effective than one in which people knew little of each other’s backgrounds. But that is easier said than done. According to Leslie DeChurch, an organizational psychologist at the University of Central Florida, and her co-author, Jessica Mesmer-Magnus of the University of North Carolina, employees from diverse backgrounds are less likely than employees from similar backgrounds to share information with each other, which makes creating the best decisions in meetings more difficult. As most corporations concur, there is a strong business case to be made for valuing diversity. Creating a safe and productive work environment in which every employee feels safe and valued increases the company’s chances of attracting and retaining the best and brightest employees, and in successfully marketing to all segments of the community. In such corporations, employees with diverse professional and personal backgrounds should stand to gain the most at work by sharing personal information. Instead, according to the study, they typically search for and discuss what they have in common instead of sharing information not known by the rest of the group.

     “The conventional wisdom is that diverse teams have an advantage over homogenous ones, but these findings show diverse teams are even less likely to talk about the differences that are at the root of their advantage,” DeChurch said. “Diversity can only be an asset when unique perspectives are openly shared with the team.” 

     The challenge for corporations seeking to encourage personal sharing by its increasingly diverse workforce is how to create an environment in which doing so is not only safe but seen by everyone as a positive contribution to the business imperative. Starting at the top would be a good first step. If members of the Executive Committee, with guidance from diversity and human resources professionals, spent time speaking to each other of their own unique backgrounds, and carefully and gratefully listened to their peers do the same, the effectiveness of the Executive Committee would be greatly enhanced. The next step would be for all senior managers to follow suit. If senior managers were taught to share with each other the unique perspectives they bring to the workplace, they could then enable their direct reports to confidently do likewise. If steps such as these are not taken, it’s highly unlikely that the diversity of the workforce will ever be truly valued or put to good use.

     Corporations need to focus attention on how to help their employees say more than, “D - my name is Donald and my wife’s name is Daisy. We come from Detroit with a car load of ducks.” Saying just that is a useless and really easy thing to do, unless, of course, you’re singing it as a teenage boy skipping rope in front of a group of other teenage boys. That would be very brave.

     This brings me to the second item of interest. The American Society of Employers (ASE) has released the findings of its 2009 Survey on Diversity and Inclusion. ASE concluded from the survey that the growth in formal diversity initiatives in organizations has stayed flat or even dropped slightly in the last three years. According to President and CEO Mary Schroeder, “This is obviously not a desirable finding, but there is good news in the detail. We asked the survey participants to identify the barriers to implementing formal diversity programs.

     “Of the nine potential barriers from which they could select, respondents identified the top barrier as ‘Changing Business Conditions.’ ‘Lack of resources for diversity/inclusion initiatives’ (i.e., financial barriers) came in at number three. Taken together, they suggest that the survival mode that so many organizations find themselves in today is forcing them to do without formal diversity initiatives.

     “We think even more important is the fact that neither ‘Lack of support from senior management’ nor ‘Resistance from staff’ made it into the top five barriers. This is where the news is good. There is strong support for the principle of diversity and inclusion both up and down organizations –i.e., not only in senior management, and not only among workers.

     “Add to this the top reason that participants gave for implementing and maintaining diversity programs: the belief that valuing diversity and inclusion positively impacts the organization’s bottom line. It all says to us that while the current stress in the economy has stalled things in important ways, the future for workplace diversity remains positive.”

     This brings us to the third item of interest. The area in which the most significant advances have been made in the workplace today, I believe, is the rights for, and sensitivity to, transgender employees. Record numbers of companies are adding “gender identity/expression” to their non-discrimination policies. Some firms are now covering the cost of gender realignment surgery. Increasingly, states and municipalities are prohibiting workplace discrimination against transgender people, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) will probably soon be passed by Congress with protections for both gay and transgender employees.

     In the past week, a federal judge ruled that the Library of Congress illegally discriminated against a Special Forces veteran when she was denied a job after announcing her intention to transition from male to female, the press release explained. “Diane Schroer of Alexandria, Virginia was awarded nearly $500,000 in damages. In what is seen as a groundbreaking decision, U.S. District Judge James Robinson ruled that discriminating against someone for changing genders is sex discrimination under federal law.

    “After retiring from the military, Schroer, who had been hand-picked to head up a classified national security operation while serving as a Special Forces officer, applied for a position with the Library of Congress as the senior terrorism research analyst. A short time later she was offered the job, which she accepted immediately. Prior to starting work, Schroer took her future boss to lunch to explain that she was in the process of transitioning and thought it would be easier for everyone if she simply started work presenting as female. The following day, Schroer received a call from her future boss rescinding the offer, telling her that she wasn’t a ‘good fit’ for the Library of Congress. The ACLU filed the lawsuit against the Library of Congress on June 2, 2005. The lawsuit charged that the Library of Congress unlawfully refused to hire Schroer in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against sex discrimination in the workplace. 

     “The Library of Congress moved to dismiss the case several times, claiming that transgender people are not covered under the 1964 law. In his ruling, Robinson ordered the government to pay Schroer $491,190 in back pay and damages. The suit was fought during the Bush administration. It is considered unlikely the Obama administration will appeal.”

     Despite the impact of the economy, we are figuring out new ways to continue our diversity initiatives through “teachable moments,” employers and employees still see the value of diversity and inclusion, and we’re making great legislative progress. That’s all good news.

     Thirty-some years ago, the comedienne Lily Tomlin had a very popular character named Ernestine who was a bossy, snoopy, disrespectful, and cranky telephone operator. When dealing with unhappy customers, she would snort with derision and remind them that they were dealing with the phone company, an institution that didn’t care about the customer’s complaint because AT&T was “omnipotent.” Though she pops up from time to time in Lily’s work today, Ernestine retired from her switchboard “duty desk,” hopefully before her once powerful employer was no longer considered to be omnipotent. Today, it’s simply not the same AT&T. It’s been broken up, sold, changed, and must now compete with other communication giants. Things change, even those things like AT&T that we believed never would. That has certainly been true in my life.

     The early days of my childhood were spent proudly and happily in Flint, Michigan, once a beautiful, thriving automobile capitol, now a dismal place that plans to plow under many of its neighborhoods because they are considered abandoned eyesores that only contribute to the city’s reputation of being a wasteland.

     For most of my life, my father worked at the largest, most prestigious and respected corporation in the world, General Motors, which is based in Detroit. As the Director of Institutional Operations in the department of public relations, he was generally greeted by the host of New York’s 21 Club with “Hello, Mr. McNaught. How are Buicks selling?” My father is now dead, General Motors is on life support, and Detroit is on a suicide watch. 

     When I moved to Boston, I worked for the most powerful man in the city, a political icon who made the Hub an international attraction. Intimidating most people with his sharp mind, Kevin White was talked of as a future U.S. President. He is now being accommodated by his few friends because he has Alzheimer’s.

     The love of my life, Ray, worked long days and nights throughout his career for one of the most highly-respected firms on Wall Street. As a managing director of a financial institution with a long, rich history and tradition, he wouldn’t have considered working anywhere else. Now, Lehman Brothers no longer exists, nor does Ray’s retirement program.

     All of us have heard stories about people who, because of the world financial meltdown, have been forced to downsize their lives — to get rid of their household staff, their second homes, and their three cars. A year ago, some of them imagined that they were “special,” perhaps better than common folk. The world was divided between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Because of newfound wealth, they were temporarily “haves.” Now, they’re “have nots.”

    Nothing stays the same. Everything changes, often against our wills. But sometimes the changes are good, which is why those of us who are working hard to create safe and productive environments for everyone in the workplace would do well to celebrate each day the advances we are making, and not get discouraged by the seemingly insurmountable obstacles we face. These include our global financial insecurity, or a diversity-averse CEO, or the cultural wars we witness taking place in our workplace. If we are patient, things will change. The economy will recover. The CEO will be replaced with one who is more enlightened. And the current cultural wars will end or shift to another issue. Gay marriage is a good example. The chasm between gay employees and some religious conservative employees is shrinking despite what we may see on the Internet.

     On YouTube today, you can watch a few highly emotional warnings against gay marriage. The number has increased because of the significant advances that have been made in the United States and the world to provide gay and lesbian couples the same legal status as heterosexual couples. One such emotional YouTube clip, created by the Iowa Family Policy Center in response to the unanimous decision by that state’s Supreme Court that gay people had the constitutional right to marry, features the very likable couple Karl and Judy Schowengerdt whose gay son Randy died of HIV. Karl and Judy insist that gay marriage hurts heterosexual families because Karl never would have been gay had he not been “actively recruited” by the homosexual community. Your heart breaks for them, particularly because they see themselves and their son as victims, when, in fact, had Randy’s homosexuality been initially embraced by his parents, he might have ended up in a gay marriage that matched in length and happiness that of his folks.

     Like yesterday’s Edsel and today’s Pontiac, the arguments of the Schowengerdts against gay marriage are nearly extinct. The Republican Party is being advised by its younger members, as is the Evangelical Church, to drop the issue of gay marriage and to move on to things that really impact the lives of people, such as divorce, poverty, injustice, and the environment. Even Dr. Laura Schlesinger, the conservative talk show host who once led the battle against gay marriage, has changed her tune and now feels that such marriages would be good for society. Things change, sometimes for the better.

     The lesson we all have the opportunity to learn in the midst of all of this dramatic economic and cultural change is that it is dangerous to be smug like Ernestine, the telephone operator. Things come and go. Attitudes change. Nothing in this life is omnipotent. So, we might as well be present to and enjoy our family, home, job, town, car, financial situation, health, faith, and the environment because what is here today can be gone tomorrow.

     Why has Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old Scottish lass, so completely captured our attention and our hearts? Though Ray and I listened twice (through YouTube, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY) to her extraordinarily beautiful rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” the night it arrived in my e-mail, I want to listen to it again and again. Each time a reference to her pops up in my CNN.com news briefs, I check in to see what delightful tidbit is now being revealed about the unassuming, never-been-kissed, singing phenomenon.

     But why are we all making such a big fuss over her? Is it not because we all identify with Susan, and our souls leap with excited recognition of our own desire to be given not only the chance to shine but also the experience of having our standing ovation recorded and watched by millions of people worldwide, thus ending our obscurity and loneliness? Don’t all of us feel certain that there are others out there who think we’re common, unimportant, unattractive, and not to be taken seriously, and that when Susan Boyle embarrassed the doubters by proving their smug judgments dead wrong, that we felt fully vindicated? When she won, we won.

     Wasn’t it also Susan’s unpolished nature and simplicity of spirit, so contrary to the star quality of her judges, and of all of the government, sports, and entertainment stars that dominate the attention of our daily lives today, that made her our David slaying the Goliath of “specialness?”

     Consider what our reactions to the YouTube recording of Susan’s great moment might have been had we not seen her interviewed in advance by the hosts of the show, nor watched the incredulous, impatient, and scoffing non-verbal responses of the judges and of the audience? Would we have taken her under our wing and experienced her as anything other than an extraordinary voice had we not seen the context of her singing?

     And what would we think of Susan Boyle if we passed her in the grocery store, stood behind her in the Post Office, or knew only that she was an unemployed, middle-aged, church-going spinster had we never heard her sing? Would we imagine that she could make us cry by opening her mouth and sharing her talent? Don’t we love her so dearly because she is much more than meets the eye and so too are we, unless of course we’re pretending to be more than we are?

     As Directors of Diversity and Inclusion struggle to effectively make the business case for the corporate mantra of valuing diversity, they need to do nothing more than share the experience of Susan singing on Britain’s Got Talent, and the comments of the judges about their shortsightedness and about an impending lucrative record deal. The Diversity Directors can also show the senior executives and all of their employees the YouTube recordings of other contestants of the television program who have stunned the judges and the audience because their appearance belied their skills. Paul Potts, the heavy-set mobile phone salesman with the crooked teeth and the baggy suit, and Connie Talbot, the six-year-old girl missing her two front teeth, both were greeted by the judges and members of the audience with looks of disdain but nevertheless conquered the cynicism with angelic voices and found homes in the hearts of millions of people globally. How many people in the workplace aren’t given the chance to succeed because the way they look, speak, or get from place to place doesn’t have the markings of stardom? Does the cream always rise to the top, or does it sometime require that we shake up our attitudes to allow it to rise?

     When people walk past me on the street, refusing to respond to the “good morning,” or the smile, I sometimes comfort my loneliness by thinking, “It’s your loss.” When I’m dismissed socially by some gay men because my body doesn’t sexually arouse them, by some lesbian women simply because I’m male, or by some heterosexuals solely because I’m gay, I take refuge in the awareness that I’m a kind, thoughtful, smart, generous, and sometimes funny person who they won’t ever have the chance to know, nor have their lives enhanced by my skills. Knowing that is how I feel is exactly the reason why I say “hello” to, and share a smile with, homeless people, grocery store baggers, garbage collectors, children, the elderly, black, Asian, Latino, and Indian people, ticket takers, popcorn vendors, foreigners, and anyone else who I sense might feel isolated and unappreciated because of their packaging.

     When asked by Simon Cowell, the scariest but wisest judge on what constitutes “talent,” why she hadn’t pursued her dream of being a star like her idol Elaine Paige, Susan explained that she hadn’t been given the chance before. That’s all that any of us wants is a chance –a chance to test ourselves, a chance to let people know who we really are, a chance to shine. Only the tiniest number of us will ever be the subject of positive international attention, but we don’t need to have the world know our name in order for us to feel fulfilled. All we need is the opportunity, that even just one other person can provide us, that allows us to be seen for who we are and not how we appear.

     Thank you, Susan Boyle, for being “gobsmacked” by this experience. Like Barack Obama, and the young hero of Slum Dog Millionaire, you represent the aspirations of billions of people in the world at this time.

     When asked how she felt when confronted with the unwelcoming sneers prior to her performance, Susan said that she thought, “I’ll show them. So I did.”

     When asked how she felt since being “discovered,” she replied, “I won’t be lonely. I certainly won’t be lonely anymore.”

     “Monkey Mind” is a term in meditative practice that refers to our tendencies to allow our mind to race from one issue to the next, like a monkey jumping from one tree to another, or from one window in the cage to the many others, getting very excited or agitated by what it sees.

     My Monkey Mind races today from the window in which I see Out magazine’s inane listing of the 50 most powerful gay people in America, including people who refuse to publicly acknowledge that they’re gay, like Barry Diller, Matt Drudge, and Anderson Cooper, and excluding real movers and shakers in my gay life (other than those whom I know and love on Out’s list) such as Chuck Wolfe, Bob Witeck, Kevin Cathcart, Nadine Smith, Nathaniel Frank, Gregory Maquire, Carol Dopp, Joe Kort, Kim Nelson, Kevin Hannan, David Norris, John Corvino, Selisse Berry, Kathy Marvel, Kate Clinton, Ralph Blair, Mary Breslauer, Ron Ansin,  Eli Coleman, Susan Gore, Anthony Collerton, Michele Karlsberg, Evan Wolfson, Bianca Cody Murphy, Keith Kahla, Wes Combs, Richard Alther, Kim Cromwell, Steve Walker, Dotti Berry, Ron Robin, Greg Sampedro, Dan Brown, Christian de la Huerta, Mark Benson, Ray Repp, Tomie de Paola, Richard Friend, Ray Struble, Todd Sears, Howard Israel, Liz Winfield, Tom McNaught, Bill Johnson, Mark Leno, Richard Wagoner, Stratton Pollitzer, Daryl Herrschaft, Larry Wald, John McNeill, Paul Diederich, Larry Kessler, Jim Braude, David Mills, Larry Kramer, Mike Signorile, Mark Leach, Joe Kramer,  Carson Kressley, Sharon Lynn, Ann Maguire, Sarah Peak, Chad Allen, Marty Moran, Philip Rafshoon, Mark Harris, Craig Wilson, Steven Tierney, Scott Pomfret, Nancy Wilson, Dan Woog, and those many others who I’m regrettably forgetting because of my agitation.

     Out this window, I read about gay teenagers being mercilessly executed in Iraq and Iran simply for being gay. These sweet young men are being hunted down, hung, shot, and beaten because they had the very bad luck of being born into a country in the 20^th century that is barbaric and primitive in its religious-based attitudes and laws about sexuality and gender. As my good friend Tom Roberts would say “Where’s the outrage?” Agitation.

     And over here, I’m listening to blowhard Bill O’Reilly, the conservative Irish Catholic TV commentator on Fox, who is so upset about the Iowa Supreme Court lifting the ban on gay marriage in the same week that the Vermont legislature overrode the Republican governor’s veto of a marriage bill, that Mr. O’Reilly  desperately focused his  and his listeners’ attention on Adam Lambert, the extraordinarily-talented leading contender on American Idol after Bill found an “embarrassing” picture on the Internet of the performer kissing another man. O’Reilly asks publicly if the country should keep Lambert on the show with their votes. Ridiculous. Dizzying Anger.

     With all of that upset, can my Monkey Mind then focus on the experience we just had of four neighborhood children leaving an Easter basket at our gate with dyed eggs marked “Brian” and “Ray”? Is it possible to peacefully embrace the significance of that offering and of our friend Milton, who we introduced on Friday to the practice of dying eggs, who showed up on Sunday with a giant chocolate Brazilian egg filled with candy, just as children in his homeland receive on Easter morning? Or can my Monkey Mind settle completely into the half-hour cuddle in bed that Ray and I enjoyed for the first time in many moons, or the hot chocolate that Ray so lovingly prepared to increase the pleasure of my reading the Sunday New York Times, or of the poached salmon and asparagus risotto I made for dinner?  

     Monkey Mind means forgoing the joy and beauty of the moment for the adrenalin rush of running from window to window to be stimulated by the major dramas of the time. It’s not that the dramas (our own, or those of our family, friends, and others) aren’t relevant to our lives. They are relevant, but not as important as the children’s Easter basket, the exchanged eggs, the snuggle, the hot chocolate, and the smiles of contentment from Ray and Milton as they enjoyed the salmon. If given the opportunity to reflect and to choose, the fifty (plus) most powerful gay men and women on anyone’s list, the young gay boys murdered in Iran and Iraq, Adam Lambert, and Bill O’Reilly would hopefully all opt to snuggle for a half an hour with the person they loved and receive baskets of candy and dyed eggs from children. But they too have Monkey Mind. We all do. It’s what makes our lives feel so unsatisfactory, so exhausting, and so meaningless.

     To stop running from window to window, we have to let go of the hand of the monkey. We have to stop letting it lead us around. And when we bravely do so, we can’t beat ourselves up for once again grabbing the hand and running with the money to the thousands of windows in our mind. Even hermits and monks, who have isolated themselves from distractions, grab the hand of the monkey throughout the day. They are generally just more aware, as anyone on a spiritual path would be, that the monkey ceaselessly demands attention.

     Multi-tasking is like having Monkey Mind. We fool ourselves into thinking that we’re fully capable of giving sufficient attention to each issue, but in truth, we know that though we may get a lot done, we’ve done nothing as well as we might have had we focused our attention completely on the one task at hand.

     Next year at this time, Out magazine will have another inane list of the “Fifty Most Powerful Gay People in America,” and gay men will still be hunted down and executed in Iran and Iraq, and Bill O’Reilly will again come up with something outrageous to keep his ratings high, but next year I won’t receive an Easter offering from the neighborhood children for the first time, nor be introduced to a Brazilian Easter egg for the first time.  I’m grateful to say that this time around, I had let go of the monkey’s hand long enough to focus on these moments of joy.

     Did you hear the one about the Scientologist, the Mormon, and the Pakistani Shia, who stood with their Roman Catholic colleague at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) having “several friendly conversations with un-offended co-workers” regarding their beliefs?

     The Scientologist was explaining his Church’s belief that seventy-five million years ago the galactic ruler Xenu brought billions of people to earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. He also said that his Church disapproved of homosexuality and has fought gay marriage.

     The Mormon, in a very friendly way, so as not to offend her colleague, told him that the story he told was “suspect” because the earth wasn’t that old, and according to her faith, God the Father and Jesus told 15-year-old Joseph Smith, Jr., in the early 1800s, who at the time was helping a traveling magician use “Peep” stones to find buried treasure in farmers’ fields, that all creeds other than hers were an abomination. “But,” she added, “we don’t approve of homosexuality either and were very involved in the defeat of gay marriage in California.”

     The Pakistani Shia grimaced in a friendly way so as not to offend his Mormon co-worker, and said, “We also believe that every religion other than ours is wrong. We also believe that wives should not leave their homes to work, to be educated, or to go to a doctor’s appointment without the permission of their husband, who also has the legal right to rape them at home. But, like you, we too think that homosexuality is an abomination unto God and is punishable by death.”

     The Roman Catholic who was gay and not yet out to his co-workers, said “When I was in school, we actually prayed during class time for all of you so that you might become Catholic and be spared the horrors of hell.” But he said nothing about his deeply hurt feelings about their negative beliefs about homosexuality. As a result, he found it impossible to focus attention on his job that day. How he wished, as depressed, angry, and distracted as he felt, that he didn’t have to pilot the afternoon flight of his Scientologist, Mormon, and Shia colleagues to visit another FAA site.

     If you think the story is tragic rather than funny, chances are you probably won’t get a kick out of the fact that a U.S. District Court in Georgia has just ruled in favor of a supervisor who had been disciplined by the FAA for discussing his religious views on homosexual behavior with colleagues at work. The man, Larry Dombrowski, has had his record cleared, and has had all of his legal fees paid by the government. The FAA, in compliance with the agreement, also distributed a memo titled Guidelines on Religious Exercise and Expression in the Workplace, a 1997 document issued by the White House that says federal agencies “shall permit personal religious expression by Federal employees to the greatest extent possible, consistent with requirements of law and interests in workplace efficiency.” I don’t know if the decision will be appealed, but it’s obvious that the Obama administration needs to clarify the meaning of the 1997 document.

     It was a press release from the archconservative Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) about the decision that said Dumbrowski had been misjudged for “several friendly conversations he had with un-offended co-workers about his Christian beliefs.” The ADF describes itself as “a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith…to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.”

     Despite the ADF’s claims that it was “a friendly conversation he had with un-offended co-workers” I can’t imagine how hearing a supervisor at work talk about how his or her faith condemns homosexual behavior would be anything but disruptive. Would the ADF also be willing to defend my right as a person raised Catholic to say at work that my religion teaches that those religious fanatics who quote the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Koran, or the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard to judge others are, in the words of Jesus, hypocrites?

     Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (NIV, Matthew 23:27-28)

     If I said that at work, do you think I too would be protected by the 1997 White House document, especially if it was in a friendly conversation with un-offended co-workers? It’s just my personal religious expression, and that of Jesus too.

     Despite the ruling of the U.S. District Court, no person in the workplace should be allowed to cite their religious beliefs to put down or make judgments on any other person in the workplace. It is disruptive and counterproductive.

     Over 1,000 retired military officers feel that the men and women who serve in the United States Armed Forces, unlike those who serve in 20 of the 26 NATO member countries, are emotionally immature and sexually insecure. They also feel that the overwhelming majority of parents in the United States are homophobic.

     In urging President Obama not to follow the lead of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, all of whom welcome the service of openly gay and lesbian citizens, the retired officers said repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy “would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all levels, have adverse effects on the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.” Yikes! If gay people have that much power, wouldn’t it make sense for the U.S. to have an all gay army, such as the renowned Sacred Band of Thebes in Ancient Greece?

     As any sexuality counselor, therapist, or educator can tell you, the only heterosexuals who are threatened by the presence of gay people are those who do not feel secure in their own sexuality. Emotionally healthy individuals are comfortable with diversity. Is it possible that the American youth who sign up for military service are less sexually secure and emotionally healthy than those American men and women who sign up to be police officers and fire fighters in the U.S., both of which groups actively recruit gay people?  Should we believe that they are less stable than their French, Italian, German, or British counterparts? If so, do we as a country want to perpetuate their immaturity by protecting them through restrictive policies or should we instead help bring them up to the standards of the rest of the world?

     The reality, of course, is that the American heterosexual youth who sign up for service in the Armed Forces are just as emotionally mature as their peers throughout the world. It’s our retired military personnel that feel sexually insecure – at least the 1,000 who signed the letter to President Obama that urged him to maintain the ban on openly gay people. But not all retired military are as sexually unhealthy. Colin Powell, the architect of the ban, wants to revisit it, as does Sam Nunn, who once led the battle in the Senate to keep openly gay people from serving.

     President Obama, his Secretary of Defense, and his Joint Chiefs of Staff, are intent on changing the policy. To do so, they will need the support of Congress. For Congress to vote intelligently, they need information. The best and most current information available is in the new book by Nathaniel Frank entitled Unfriendly Fire – How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America. Ray and I paid to have a copy sent to us and to one member of Congress. So too did 129 other people. General John Shalikashvili, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said “This book should be mandatory reading.”

     It only costs $38.00 to receive and to send a copy of the book to a member of Congress. Doing so would help make our representatives more sexually secure and emotionally healthy than the 1,000 former officers they have just heard from. If you’d like to help, please visit the book’s author at www.nathanielfrank.com.