The Culture War or What is Hate – Part III

After the passage of Propostion 8, I spent quite a bit of time reading Mormon blogs. This was difficult to do because I hate Mormons. Then again, I hate Southern Baptists and pretty much all Evangelical Christian types who think that homosexuals are an abomination of god. But I wanted to understand them. What makes these assholes tick?

One blog that was particularly useful in my quest for knowledge is called “Dream a little dream…” by a Mormon inspirational speaker lady. She is so far to the right, so hateful toward people like me, that reading her blog makes me feel like I am about to puke. She did, however,point me to an article in an LDS magazine written by a Los Angeles Police Detective Paul Bishop who, until recently, considered himself quite tolerant of the LGBT community. He talks about how difficult it was to join in the “Yes on 8″ rallies, yet join in he did. And then he was shocked by the anger he witnessed after it passed. Of course, he didn’t call it “anger”. He called it “hatred”.

Here’s my favorite part of his article:

How do we respond to hatred disguised by the adversary as tolerance? Our stake president has talked to the temple presidency who has assured him the temple will be open for business as usual. There are eight weddings scheduled on the grounds. Will we be able to get to the temple without being molested or our vehicles vandalized? We must place our faith in the Lord and proceed.

Oh my gosh! The Mormons are worried about being molested or having their vehicles vandalised. But let’s take a look at the LGBT side of the equation. I will rewrite this paragraph from the point-of-view of a lesbian:

How do we respond to hatred disguised by the adversary as tolerance? Although I don’t attend church, I have recently begun going to my local Pride center so I can feel some sense of a community. But today I have to go to work and then the grocery store. Will I be gang-raped or shot in the back of the head? I must place my faith in humanity’s better instincts and proceed.

It quickly becomes obvious here that if I want to understand how Mormons and others of their ilk think, all I have to do is examine my own personal views and then turn them around 180 degrees. The only thing I have going for me is that I recognize my hatred for what it is, but they don’t.

Detective Bishop goes on to paraphrase and quote from Luke to justify his position of tolerance. So I decided to do something I haven’t done in decades: read the bible. Specifically, Luke 23: 1-34. To my surprise, I found this passage quite beautiful and moving from a literary standpoint which is the only way I can read the bible. After all, once you accept Jesus as metaphor, a representation of ‘everyman’, then there is nothing wrong with what he says. And so I can apply Jesus’ words to the Mormons: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’.

This all seems quite logical and yet, there is one very obvious flaw in my reasoning. If you haven’t caught it, I will come right out and say it because this is not the time for subtlety: I have created in my mind one huge group of people and labeled them. Whether I call them Mormons, Southern Baptists, Evangelical Pricks, really makes no difference. They are a faceless mob that is against everything I believe in. No wonder I hate them so much. For who isn’t afraid of a faceless mob, and what is hatred if not fear?

Rick Warren condemns homosexual behavior. Therefore, anyone “immature” enough to engage in it is part of that faceless mob called Homosexuals. It doesn’t matter how much he might like Melissa Etheridge as an individual. He still, somehow, is not quite able to see beyond the fact that she is doomed to burn in hell because the bible tells him so. In other words, Melissa Etheridge is not fully human.

Sometimes I think it must be easy to view the world in such stark black-and-white terms, to know without a doubt what is good and what is evil, to believe in such a simplistic concept as Heaven and Hell. But I can’t. From an early age at Catholic Sunday school, the idea that bad people would burn for eternity struck me as grossly unfair. Condemning someone to eternal damnation was not my idea of a loving god. And someone who believes in such a thing is, in my mind, very immature.

So maybe it is time for subtlety. If we think of Jesus as a symbol for ‘everyman’, then we are all children of god. And we all have to love one another without judging them. It is easy to judge mobs, but infinitely more difficult to pass judgment on an individual. To paraphrase the bible, who among us can say what is right or wrong? Who among us is perfect? If God (whatever that is) is the only perfect being and the only one capable of judging, then I have nothing to fear.

So to the faceless people who insist on judging me I have one word: Stop! Let me live my life in the way I see fit. By judging me, by insisting that their is a stink in my soul, you foster a climate of hatred that makes it acceptable for groups of violent, young men to go around raping and killing people like me.

Yes, Candace Salima. I am talking to you. I know you would never shoot some “faggot” in the back of the head, but you still have blood on your hands. I’m finding it very difficult to see beyond the stink in your soul, to see you as an individual, but I will keep trying, for my own sake.

The fact is, Obama is right. We have to reach out to the other side. We have to talk to them and try to understand them. We have to find a way to get them to understand us. We have to learn to coexist. And while many of us on both sides of the culture war may never be able to bridge the gap that divides us, I have some faith in this nation’s youth.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to throw my lot in with the local Democratic party to make my voice heard. I’ve flirted with political activism in the past but never been truly involved. Now is the time. I will be fighting for civil unions for all, and I won’t stop until I achieve my goal or I am dead.

Shoe Unfortunately Misses Bush’s Face or What is Hate? Part II

I’m sure by now you’ve all seen the incident of the Iraqi reporter throwing his shoes at Bush. What a fine example of hate! And what an appropriate target. Below is my favorite version of the incident, complete with Disney music.

I have seen this incident countless times now, but every time I watch it, I find myself thinking, “Gosh, if only that first shoe had hit him in the face”. That would have been so incredibly funny. I can see it happening quite clearly, and my disappointment that it didn’t is palpable.

So I curse Bush’s ability to duck which, after 8 years in office, seems to be the only thing he can do competently. When I watch this and laugh, it is with bitterness rather than the belly-shaking sort of laughter that would spew forth had the shoe actually connected.

Is this hate on my part? Yes, I would say so. But already this story is a bit of history. It does me no good to dwell on it. What’s done is done. All I can do is count down the days ’til this prick leaves office. But then what do I have to look forward to?

In keeping with my new resolve to try to do positive things, my partner and I attended a ‘Change’ meeting at the Tulsa Democratic Party office. It was crowded and we both immediately felt uncomfortable. Perhaps it is because we find the whole political process disgusting. I know I’m not really cut out to be an activist, at least not in the sense of working with the powers-that-be. The word that keeps popping into my head lately is “mainstream”. It’s like everyone is part of this stupid herd, but I’m standing way over on the side shouting for equal marriage rights. And no one hears me.

We ended up leaving early, of course, but I’m glad we went. My partner stood up at one point and talked about how schizophrenic gay people in this country felt on election day. Had she not mentioned it, the words gay or lesbian would probably not have been heard in that meeting at all. We are aware of how many Democrats voted for the gay marriage ban in Oklahoma in 2004. Quite a fucking few.

What the Democrats fail to realize is that a hell of a lot of LGBT people in these here parts vote Republican. And why shouldn’t they? Sure, some of them are racist pigs. Some might be fiscal conservatives. But what has the Democratic party really done for us?

So if Oklahoma Democrats want this red state to vote a bit bluer four years from now, they might want to think about why Okies hate homosexuals so much. As for me, I doubt I will still be living here in 2012 because I’m reaching the point where I really can’t stand it anymore. Or actually, I’m a bit beyond it. Maybe I will try volunteering at my local pride center. It’s the one place in town where I feel like I am me.

What is Hate? Part I

I’ve been very busy this last month and have not felt like writing because I’ve been listening/reading and thinking, something I would advise all Americans to do a bit more of. Hell, foreigners, too. We’re all one big global community. Aren’t we? Children of god, so to speak.

Yeah, I know I said I wasn’t going to hate anymore. But just the other day I was driving home from my crap job in Broken Arrow and what should I see but a couple of Mormon missionaries. They were riding bicycles and wearing heavy coats because it was a very cold day, but even without the telltale short-sleeve white shirts visible, I knew them for what they were immediately.

In the 13-some years I have been back in Oklahoma (which I am ashamed to call my home state), I have only seen Mormon missionaries on one other occasion and that was about six or seven years ago. I pointed them out to the kids so they would know what they looked like, but, of course, that is as far as it went.

This time, though, without really thinking about it, I rolled down the window and shouted “F*ck you” at them. I’m not sure if they heard me because a bitter wind was blowing and my voice isn’t very loud, but the one in the lead looked up at me. He had dark brown hair and dark brown puppy-dog eyes. A very handsome young man, indeed. And I thought, ‘my god, he’s just a kid, eighteen-years old, just a year older than my eldest daughter’. For a moment, I felt absolutely awful. What if someone did that to my kid? Of course, she’s not traveling door-to-door trying to convert people to her own particular way of thinking. So I think she’s safe (ignoring, for the moment, the fact that she’s a woman living in a country where everybody owns guns).

Whether he heard my words or not, I could tell by the look in his eyes that he certainly registered my intent. And I’ll bet he knew I was a lesbian, too, so this wasn’t some random “Mormon-bashing” but the results of a California ballot initiative spreading to the darkest recesses of this “great nation”.

I discussed the incident with my partner that evening, and she said I did the right thing. By that time, I had already concluded that I had, or at least, that, if time went backward and the situation happened again, that was the only possible way I could react. Like I said, I didn’t have time to think about it. I saw the two missionaries and acted on instinct, knowing it might be years before I got another chance.

So what is hate? Is it something dark that hides in our bellies and spews forth at the slightest provocation? Yeah, that might be it. Is it rational? I don’t think so. Does it come out of nowhere or is there some underlying cause, something we might not be aware of on the surface but that festers inside of us like a malignant tumor? And is it so little understood that we might be tempted to give it other names? Yes, I think it is. Some of us might even call it love.

To be continued….