Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness.
Two hundred and fifty years ago those words were written into the Declaration of Independence, a founding document of this nation, as a promise to everyone. Except they were not written for everyone. They were written for a very specific kind of American — and everyone else has spent the 250 years since fighting to be included in a promise that should have been theirs from the beginning.
In 1963, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. named that contradiction plainly. He compared the declaration and Constitution to a promissory note and told America that it had given its Black citizens a bad check — a check that had come back marked insufficient funds. He said they had not come to Washington to ask for what was owed. They had come to cash it. Sixty years later the LGBTQ+ community is standing at the same bank teller window.
The check has our names on it too. It always did. Life — the freedom to live openly, fully and without fear of who you are. Liberty — the right to move through every space this country offers without calculating the risk of simply being yourself. The pursuit of happiness — which for many LGBTQ+ athletes like me looks like a volleyball court on a Monday night, a 5K on a Saturday morning or a round of golf with a Pride flag flying above the fairway.
That last image is not hypothetical. It is what happens every summer at Skyway Golf Course in Jersey City, where Garden State Rainbow Sports hosts its annual Par Three Challenge. This past June we welcomed our largest field ever — 38 participants, comprised of LGBTQ+ golfers and allies, newcomers and those who’ve taken on the challenge before, side by side on a course where a Pride flag flies without fear, without hesitation, without shame. Among them was a 12-year-old who came with his father, stepped up in the “Closest to the Pin” contest on hole 2 and outpaced every adult in the field with a 27-foot shot.
That moment is worth sitting with. A father and son. An LGBTQ+ golf event. A 12-year-old who showed up, competed and won on a course where he was completely, unconditionally welcome.
That is what the pursuit of happiness looks like when the promise is actually kept.
I founded GSRS in 2021 because the promise was not being kept consistently. I have been playing golf for 35 years. For most of those years I played alongside straight men — some of whom knew I was gay and never made me feel different and some of whom did not know. The ones who did not know — that was OK because I knew. And knowing changed the way I carried myself on that course. It changed how fully I showed up.
In 2017 and 2018 I competed in the World OutGames andthe Gay Games. For the first time in 35 years of playing a sport I love, I was playing alongside people who were like me. There is only one word for what that felt like: Liberating.
I did not want to travel to another state to feel that way. I did not want the next generation of LGBTQ+ athletes in New Jersey to carry the quiet weight I carried for decades. So GSRS began hosting golf outings, volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, fun runs and pop-up sports events for LGBTQ+ athletes and allies of every skill level right here in Hudson County.
This summer the FIFA World Cup came to New Jersey. The world’s biggest sporting event, 10 miles from Jersey City. And while questions about LGBTQ+ safety, inclusion and visibility swirled around that tournament, GSRS was on the court, on the course and on the trail — claiming the promise the same way we always have. By showing up. By playing. By being exactly who we are in public sporting spaces without asking anyone’s permission.
We are not asking for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We earned it 250 years ago the same as everyone else.
We are done waiting for the check to clear.
