Go Out and Earn Those Gay Merit Badges

I can easily say that in the past year, I've come a long way. I feel so much more accomplished and self-assured at this point in my life. I've made my way professionally, academically, and emotionally.

Recently, I've decided that we GMBs need a way to show just how far we've come in our journeys. That's why I suggest the implementation of a "gay merit badge" system.

Now, having watched the Shelley Long movie Troop Beverly Hills in the past week, my brain might have melted a bit—exposed to the late 80s camp—but this idea has some potential. In the film, spoiled trophy wife Phyllis Nefler leads a group of equally-spoiled rich girl scouts to a sense of accomplishment and self-understanding as they sell cookies, tract through the wilderness, and (of course) earn merit badges.

While the girls in the movie earn merit badges for everything from divorce court to jewelry appraisal, my gay merit badge sash would display my accomplishments in:

Interior Design

Qualifications: multiple day-long trips to IKEA, holding the decorating responsibilities in my office, incorporating words like "décor" and "ambiance" into my regular vocabulary.

Making "One of the Girls" Status

Qualifications: girl friends making invitations to bachelorette parties, attendance at multiple baby and wedding showers, regularly complimenting my girl friends' fashion.

Wedding Dress Shopping

Qualifications: studying and critiquing dresses in magazines with Cole and my best girl friends, acting as consultant to an engaged couple and the groom's mother on a trip to David's Bridal as well as selecting the 'winning' dress.

There is nothing better than being happy about who you are. I accept my talents for what they are as I become more comfortable and proud of what makes me me: an eye for fashion, compassion for my closest girl friends, etc.

Accusations of indoctrination aside, that's perhaps the greatest thing that organizations like the Boy and Girl Scouts of America accomplish. Like Phyllis Nefler and her Wilderness Girls show us, we all need to look back once in a while and ask what kind of a difference we've made and assure ourselves that we're happy with who we are and the difference we make in others' lives for being who we are.