The Hot Seat...
My Current Mood:


W A R N I N G : I am going to rant, and it might be offensive and a little insensitive, and I do apologize in advance. For those who know me, I am quite accepting and open in normal circumstances. These aren't normal circumstances anymore.

With that said, let me rant.

I was watching TV last night when I came across one of those "America Speaks" portions of a news program where watchers can write in with their opinions of current events, and by some slim chance, it might be put on the air. One woman wrote, "I am tired of the gays using African-Americans to further their own agendas. Stop comparing your sexual preference to my ethnicity."

Whoa. Hold the boat for one second.

First of all, the only time I personally have ever used African-American's and gays in comparison is in viewing the struggles of civil rights. The blacks had years and years of persecution and struggle to obtain what we now know as civil rights. That is similar to what we are going through now. Gays generally have every right except the right to marry and to become parents to one another's children. Even the blacks had that before their other civil rights, so don't give me that bullshit.

Secondly, a great many scientists have concluded that homosexuality and bisexuality is a genetic issue, not an emotional or psychological one - ie: you are born gay. If this is the case, then there is another correlation between us and the blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, etc. We didn't choose this, it is who we are. Frankly, if I had a choice (until I met my wife), I wouldn't have chosen to be attracted to women. The baggage that comes with being gay is not fashionable, not chic. It is hard, demanding, and it takes a strong person to come out in this country, even now, to face persecution and ridicule. Some of us do not make it out alive. Remember Mathew Sheppard? Teena Brandon? Blacks aren't the only ones lynched in this country.

No, we don't have to use separate bathrooms, but we have to be afraid of being physically assaulted when we do use one. We don't have to ride at the back of the bus, or eat at the back counter, or use back entrances, but we can't even bury our spouses, or take our children to the emergency room and declare ourselves a parent, or be a leader in the Cub Scouts, or coach a women's softball team without a constant eye of judgment and sometimes, legal ramifications.

At this point in the game, you have more rights in this country that I do, between quotas and foundations and NAACP and Jesse Jackson. Compare the two of us? There is no comparison. The American White Politically-Correct Establishment is giving you anything and everything you ever dreamed of out of some set-aside guilt for slavery umpteen hundred years ago. I have no guilt. My ancestors didn't own slaves, and neither did I.

You have been screaming for equal rights for over 100 years. And now you have Special Rights, and that is a cold hard fact. The gays just want to be able to marry and have children without persecution. That's all. We aren't belittling your struggles by comparing them with our own, we honor them and the strife all of your ancestors had to go through. Too bad you can't see that.

We have grown as a Nation, a community, to recognize that intolerance and bigotry are unacceptable. Then why is it acceptable to do all of this to gays? No one would dream of treating any other minority in such a fashion. Because we are perverts, sodomites, and against God's Law.

Well, God created me. I am not against God's law. I am an example of God's love.

Wait a minute - weren't blacks also considered "tainted by God" and that is the justification of the Ku Klux Klan... hmmmm, the similarities are astonishing... glad we have come far enough to realize that line of thinking is absurd.

So, before you or anyone else of minority status starts spouting off that you are sick of being compared and contrasted with the gay movement, look at yourself. You are becoming exactly what your forefathers fought against. A hateful, self-absorbed, righteously indignant, tyrannical BIGOT imposing your views on the lives of us all. Whether or not you want to admit it, sista, we are all in this together. Where one persons rights are trampled, all of our rights are trampled. THAT is what Equal Rights is all about... or did you forget what Martin Luther King, Jr. was teaching?

Funny thing is, at least the gays aren't fighting to have our own Affirmative Action... Gay Scholarships, Gay Schools, Gay History Month...

But, oh, wouldn't it be fun if we did.