I have always been leery of those who cannot stand silence. Every time I encounter a person who fears the quiet as a small child does the dark, my mind begins to race. What is it about silence that makes this person so afraid? Is it the prospect of being left with their thoughts? I believe that those who fear silence fear it because they crave a distraction from the issues that swirl about within themselves, troubling the waters of their minds.

The LGBT community fears silence. We hold this parade, then that march, this protest and launch that campaign. We constantly are talking or calling or demanding or cheering, we are making noise incessantly. We consistently create commotion over issues that reach outside of the community such as civil rights which stretch to the government. I mean not to say that such noise is unnecessary; there are a number of issues of equality and discrimination deserving attention and a great deal of commotion.

Still, I feel the racket we make over these issues drowns out the sounds of dire problems within the community. We cheer the granting of civil unions in England and Mexico City, and are able to turn our heads away from the increase in HIV cases among gay men in the United Kingdom and Mexico. Parades generate enough noise to put a rock concert to shame, and no one can hear the delivering of a eulogy at the funeral of a boy who has died from his first bump of crystal meth. Riotous cheers are tossed about for unity as the sound of joints grinding as the legs of many gays walk away from transsexuals and bisexuals goes unheard. We holler and revel in the development of affluent Gayborhoods, and do not hear the street peddling of hundreds of LGBT youth reduced to homeless and survivalist vice by intolerant families and a lack of resources each year.

Although it pains me, I believe all this noise is made because as long as we are cheering for some victory or championing some cause impacting the relationship we have with the world outside of the LGBT community, we do not have to look at the serious troubles we have in it. Instead, we are able to create a bubble of sound protecting us. We can live inside the racket of the cheers and the parades. We can live within these distractions, and never pay attention to larger issues. We are able to believe that because there are civil unions, homophobic laws stricken down and growth in the political power of the community, we must be incredibly successful. The importance of such success is slighted when so many significant issues grow inside of the community.

While we are not paying attention to these troubles, they grow and worsen. Alas, most of us do not care about, or even worse, are unaware entirely because we have the noise to distract us and drown out any unpleasant reminders of reality. We do not care because so long as we are making noise we can believe there must be some positive reason or goal behind it, making it necessary. We are distracted from that which ails us.

We have reached a point where silence can no longer be feared, lest such fear continue to inspire the noise providing fertile ground for our problems. We have to be open to some degree of silence so we can recognize, focus on and begin to fix the troubles hurting us. This does not mean noise and celebration should be forbidden, it simply means they should be handled in a manner that does not overshadow issues poisoning this community from within. It means that as we cheer, we must listen for the creaks and snaps of damages within this community. It means we must listen for calls for help through the cheers. We are wrong to fear silence; it is the river of racket we should fear.