Quite so! Back when I was a street activist with Act Up and Queer Nation, my colleagues and I were angry — very, very angry— and we expressed our anger openly, proudly, fiercely, and frequently.

Our nation's leaders were quite happy to let us die by neglect, victims of a plague that disproportionately killed queer people. Random street violence targeting queer people had exploded. We took to the streets, unashamed to express our fury, working as hard as we could to make other good decent people as angry as we were.

Plenty of people counseled us to express our anger less and turn the other cheek more. We ignored them and became more angry. We succeeded in inspiring anger, as much of the public became angry with us, demanded change with us.

Historians today recognize Act Up as one of the most transformative, effective grassroots activist organization that ever existed. We owe that to our fierce, uncompromising anger.

But still today, in the face of withering anti-LGBTQ backlash, in the face of yet another surge of street violence and political hatred of us, some counsel less anger, more cheek turning.

Those people are pathetic.

Those people are useless fools.

Those people need to learn from history and take steps to harness their anger and FIGHT as hard as they can for positive change.

They need to come to the solid understanding that when they turn the other cheek, the only thing that's going to happen is that somebody is going to hit them again, even harder.

They need to get mad instead.