Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the unfortunate role of needing to defend my hometown and constituents. First defending them from our own Vice Mayor Ted Hickman for a column he wrote in the Dixon Independent Voice calling for a “Straight Pride American Month,” and then from the dozens of emails echoing him that I have received from, seemingly, any town or state that isn’t Dixon, Calif.
I have literally only received two emails in support of Hickman that were from Dixon residents, while dozens more from Dixon were clearly condemning his writings and behavior. Rather than the division one would expect, the controversy has inspired a near-unanimous swell of compassion and empathy in my hometown.
At the council meeting last Tuesday, hundreds of people left their homes in Dixon and came to City Hall to express their displeasure with the vice mayor and show their support for our LGBTQ+ community members.
The reality is that this controversy underscores something more widespread and deeper than just one councilman/vice mayor spouting off words in a newspaper column in a little town. This scandal has displayed just how much difference there is between the generations just entering leadership and those currently seated.
First, I want to tell you my experience. I believe that will add a context that most of us Millenials already carry.
The summer before my freshmen year of high school, one of my best friends from junior high and I were drifting apart, as young friends do when they choose different paths and go to different schools. He had always been effeminate in his mannerisms, and I and other members of our friend group had bantered with him about it, as pubescent teenage boys are known to do.
I never said anything terrible because he was my friend, and I never even really considered that he may not be attracted to girls. Only in jest, might I have said something to the contrary.
That summer in a text conversation, he came out to me.
Perhaps it was my conservative upbringing, but I refused to accept it. I tried to talk him into being straight. I was outraged that someone who had never had sex could determine what kind he wanted to have.
It hadn’t occurred to me that the butterflies that I felt towards a revolving list of female classmates throughout junior high could be what he felt toward men. It never occurred to me that a man could love a man, or that a woman could love a woman in the way that my parents loved each other.
Weeks later, after serious processing, I apologized and tried my best to wrap my immature mind around it. I wish I could say that we are still the best of friends like we were in junior high, but he and I went off to different high schools, and I lived in Dixon while he lived in Vacaville, so the mere distance and isolation of early high school did what they do best: distanced us.
Today I look back at the things that I said, and they are a deep source of shame for me. The pain that those ignorant statements must have caused him, especially coming from a lifelong friend, is almost something I can’t bear when I dwell on it. I felt bad about it at the time, but also confused. If I had the “moral” high ground, why did I feel so guilty?
Thankfully, with maturity comes understanding, and I now know how much courage it took for him to come out. My friend was incredibly brave and his decision to come out at that age is something that I admire, especially given the shared experiences we had.
We grew up in conservative families in a conservative town attending a private Christian school and going to church every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Just the year before he came out, he and I both had “Yes on Prop 8” stickers in our school binders alongside Nickelback and Green Day decals.
That was how I knew it wasn’t a choice for my friend. Between the accumulation of life choices up to that point and knowing how challenging coming out can be, you would have to be crazy to “choose” the gay lifestyle. Granted, let’s not talk about celebrities who may pull marketing stunts and instead focus on real people living in the real world.
My experience isn’t a rare story. Countless members of my generation have a friend or family relation who is part of the LGBTQ+ community. Older generations may contend that was the case for them, but that “friend” was more like, “that guy from high school.”
More LGBTQ+ people are identifying at a young age, and having ample opportunity to properly internalize and then socialize with their orientation open to their peers. My generation has friends and coworkers that are openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, while the generation that is otherwise on the Dixon City Council, has, at best, that one guy from high school.
The issue here is intergenerational engagement. As Millennials and Gen-Xers become more and more politically involved, we often forget that many baby boomers still have a problem with what younger generations see as acceptable. There are still plenty of young people who view homosexuality as unnatural or morally questionable, but even they would agree that it is none of their business, nor the government’s, how you live your life.
From a birds-eye view, the Millenial Generation is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Social conservatism as a political force is dying, while family values as a social force are growing. We get married later and stay married longer. A child of millennial parents conceived out of wedlock is more likely, statistically, to be born to married parents.
The opposite was statistically likely with the generation of Ted Hickman. Baby Boomer parents were more likely to split than stay together, spousal and child abuse went unreported, and single-parent households skyrocketed, yet hostility towards nontraditional lifestyles was continued on.
Let’s not forget that within a century, interracial marriage was illegal in many states, and more perilous than the law was the social reaction in many communities that could threaten lives. The people that championed these social constructs, whether with a badge or by simply judging people socially were people of Hickman’s generation.
Just the other day, a friend of mine and I were discussing the controversial comments written by Vice Mayor Hickman and we came to the realization that everyone in our friend group is either married or dating someone of a different race from them.
It is only predictable that change comes at an incremental rate, but thankfully the views of young people today will be the social standards of tomorrow.
The good news is that for love to win in the long run, our younger generations just need to stay alive. Our generation has a responsibility to be more active today to counteract what the current ruling generation has saddled us with; irresponsible debt, bias built into the law, and an unstable economic and regulatory apparatus built to protect large companies and tamp down the private innovation that could improve life for generations to come.

Devon Minnema is an elected City Councilman in the city of Dixon and sits next to Vice Mayor Ted Hickman on the dais. He is a 22-year-old mixed-race pre-law student and forklift operator.

Sharing is caring!