Paradise Preoccupied

Tolerance. I’m all for it, or was. Embracing diversity, respecting the views and beliefs of others, giving plenty of room for different strokes, live-and-let-live and all that hooey.

Yep. No expectation that folks should think like I do just because I’m right, now is there?

I’ve managed a lot of years on this attitude, but I’m just about done with it and feeling a need to start drawing lines in the sand; un-crossable, non-neogtialble lines dividing me from them.

What’s brought on this uncharacteristic lean toward leaning away? Short answer: I’m reacting to reactionaries. I’ve had it with different strokes reining down on heads, arms, legs, and those who limit “let live” to only their own ilk.

A far too steady diet of news stories like this has strained all limits of forbearance.

The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims was still there, and the “Goonies” ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.

This, of course, following right on the heels of the deaths of Alec Henrison and Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Raymond Chase, Billy Lucas … and on and on.

I’m done being shocked and sad. I’m through cutting slack to those who are just too invested in whatever-it-is-stupid-agenda that makes it okay to label gay people as “less than” or “abominations”, to carry signs insisting that “god hates fags” or to judge in any way something that has NOTHING to do with them.

Although I will continue to be amused by kind-hearted and humorous get-backs like this video posted on facebook … ‘like’ them here … and I’ll wear purple on the 20th in support of efforts to raise awareness, I will no longer sit back and listen to anyone wax on about being entitled to harbor even the hint of condemnation for a segment of the population that has been segmented off because of who they choose to love.

Nope.

People like the moronic Andrew Shirvell get nothing by my wrath and “anti-gay activists” are deemed evil incarnate, especially those who who use their stance to hide behind their preference for behinds.

I won’t limit myself to simply encouraging people to support organizations like The Trevor Project, but now take to vilifying any and all who don’t.

My tolerance is gone, and I don’t give a flying fuck if someone thinks it’s within their rights to disagree over the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality … it’s NOT. Don’t like the idea of gay? No one cares. Keep it to yourself, or, better yet, get a grip, stop spending time conjuring mental images of acts that are none of your damned business and get it through your head that gay people are not only as good as you are, they are very often a whole lot better in all the ways that count on the goodness scale.

Here are some truths that might help with that:

1) Homosexuality is NOT a choice. Some people are blond, some people are Black, some people are gay. (Some are blond AND black AND gay … not always a good look, but nobody’s place to judge.) And who the fuck would choose to be gay in this world? Anyone worried that they might make that “choice” may just want to take another gander at their motivation for condemnation.

2) Gay people could give a shit whether or not you approve. What is important is whether or not you deny rights, and if you do, you’re an asshole.

3) For those who fall back on religion as an excuse to cast aspersions, keep in mind that the story goes that Jesus had two dads, and he turned out okay, and any belief that any god should care what people do with their god-given bits shortchanges that god by reducing him to pin-headed moron status.

Feel free to add to this list …

Yes … I’m pissed off today, even more than I was yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. I’m afraid for so many I love so much, terrified someone will hurt them because of who and how they love. I’m crushed with the thought that fear is growing around them, turning them into hermits when they should be flying free and joyfully. I’m furious that some are forced into hiding themselves behind a mask of heterosexuality, denying their true and lovely natures and their loves.

I’ve tried it other ways, but it’s not worked out so well, and now I’m fighting intolerance with intolerance. So, to anyone who disagrees with me … fuck you. Sandra hates self-righteous homophobes.

Line drawn. Cross over to the good side or stay well away.