To the homophobes…(Pt. 2)

More rants to the conservative homophobe’s reactions to the Supreme Court Ruling…

“I was taught right from wrong and I’m going to teach my children the same.”

This is one comment that scares me the most. I shudder at the thought of this. For generations parents have taught their children that homosexuals are bad people, different, and they should stay away from them. I was never taught this but I still had it in my mind when I was growing up in school. My biggest fear, by far, was being gay. I was brought up in a religious household that did tell me that it was a choice. Even so, that notion never fully took hold of me. At the time it wasn’t because I knew the biological aspects, but I knew how society worked. In my mind, the most hated group of people were LGBT. I had never witnessed the vitriol aimed at a LGBT community as I had with anyone else. Even with the other hated groups, which at the time was islamic terrorists, they were still on par with them. I could understand that vitriol. Those were evil people killing innocent American’s when I was 11 years old. But gays? What the hell did they do besides be gay? I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know. That’s why I didn’t think it was much of a choice. My mindset was who would want to choose to be gay? For attention I was told sometimes. The attention they received that I witnessed growing up was never positive, so that didn’t make sense to me. It had to at least partially be out of their hands and that scared the shit out of me. I thought that if I were gay I would either have live a life based on a massive lie or admit it to myself, my family, friends, and suffer the consequences. I didn’t want either. I thought that if it every came down to it, suicide would be the only answer. That’s how hopeless the thought of being a gay male was at that age.

That is what’s scary to me when adults say that. They’re putting those same ideas in their children’s head and even if they aren’t, some other parent is putting it in their children’s head. That’s fucking scary. Two things can happen here: that child can grow up to be a bully or that child could be gay and come to the conclusion I did, even as a straight kid, that being gay in the society we live in is just too damn hard. I had come to those hopeless conclusions and I wasn’t even gay, nor had ever experienced the bullying and rejection so many receive from their peers and even family for being LGBT. I couldn’t care less if it’s in your religion. Ask What Would Jesus Do? You’ll find that in the entire New Testament, no words ever attributed to Jesus mentioned homosexuality once. Why should you, especially to children? Why risk creating a monster or losing your child because they think you hate them for being themselves when the person you literally worshipped never had a single thing to say about it? Religion is absolutely responsible for this homophobia that persists today. I don’t care how many religious supporters of same-sex marriage try to deny it. It’s just a fact. Even so, if you’re a such a devoted follower you would know that being left-handed is talked about more negatively in your Bible that homosexuality. You just have to admit that while you may have gotten the idea from religion, the homophobia you carry around is something that was taught to you and fueled by your own personal prejudices.

 

“What am I going to tell my children?”

Since I could never put it better than the great Louis C.K., I’ll just let him take this one…

 

“This was the worst day in this country’s history!”

The worst day in history? People that say something so idiotic can’t be taken serious. They’re too overtaken with ignorance, hate, and stupidity to ever reason with. That day was worse than 9/11? Pearl Harbor? The Sandy Hook Massacre? None of those days were worse than the one that allowed couples of the same-sex to legally get a marriage license in the remaining 13 states where it was banned? Disgusting. We all know those days off of the top of our head that were worse, but I have a few more if you find someone who is actually spouting this nonsense:

– The day you were born

– The day you were taught that LGBT people were different that created this hate in your heart

– The day you taught your children the hate you were taught

– December 28, 2014: The day Leelah Alcorn, a seventeen year old transgender girl, committed suicide because of bullying and her parents sending her to Christian “conversion therapy”.

– February 3, 2013: The day Jadin Bell succumbed to injuries he received after attempting suicide due to intense bullying in person and online because he was gay. He was fifteen.

– March 23, 2015: The day Black Brockington, an eighteen year old transgender boy who was the first ever openly transgender prom king in North Carolina, committed suicide after years of torment, depression, and an unaccepting family that wouldn’t even accept him as a their son in his obituary.

-October 12, 1998: The day Matthew Shepard, a gay teen, succumbed to his injuries a week prior when he was tortured, beaten severely, tied to a fence, abandoned, and left for dead for 18 hours before being found.

– September 1999: The day, which isn’t even known exactly, when Steen Fenrich was murdered, by his stepfather. His dismembered remains were found in March 2000, with the phrase “gay nigger number one” scrawled on his skull along with his social security number.

September 22, 2000: The day Ronald Gay entered a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia and opened fire on the patrons, killing Danny Overstreet, 43 years old, and  injuring six others. Ronald said he was angry over what his name now meant, and deeply upset that three of his sons had changed their surname. He claimed that he had been told by God to find and kill lesbians and gay men, describing himself as a “Christian Soldier working for my Lord;” Gay testified in court that “he wished he could have killed more fags,” before several of the shooting victims as well as Danny Overstreet’s family and friends

January 28, 2005: The day Ronnie Antonio Paris, a three-year-old boy, died due to brain injuries inflicted by his father, Ronnie Paris, Jr. According to his mother and other relatives, Ronnie Paris, Jr., repeatedly slammed his son into walls, slapped the child’s head, and “boxed” him because he was concerned the child was gay and would grow up a sissy.

February 27, 2007: Andrew Anthos, a 72-year-old disabled gay man, was beaten with a lead pipe by a man who was shouting anti-gay names at him. Anthos died 10 days later in the hospital.

April 6, 2009: The day Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old child hanged himself with an extension cord after being bullied all school year by peers who said “he acted feminine” and was gay.

– November 27, 1978: Openly gay San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, along with Mayor George Moscone, was assassinated by political rival Dan White at San Francisco City Hall. Their killer, Dan White, received just seven years.

 

Every single one of those days were worse than June 26th, 2015. Every single day this country withheld rights from its citizens was worse than June 26th, 2015. Every single day. What’s more is that June 26th isn’t the end. There’s still worse days ahead and it’s not because same-sex marriage is now legal. No. Not at all. It’s because there will be days that the ignorant will try to take us back to June 25th. There will be attempts made by the religious right to circumvent this. It’s already happening. We have officials in states still, as I’m typing this, trying to legally block issuing marriage licenses. We have states stooping as low as to put ballot measures together to make the state not have to recognize these couples as married, but part of “civil unions” as if they own the word. That’s all real. June 26th was a temporary pause to celebrate. People can still be fired for being LGBT in 29 states. Every day when that is allowed are worse days. Yes, it’s not perfect from here on out. Just a step forward up a mountain toward justice, equality, and everything this country is supposed to be about. Just another day we can all smile a little while marching on.

To the homophobes…(Pt. 1)

In case you have been living under a rock, the Supreme Court recently ruled that same-sex marriages are a constitutional right and effectively put an end to the state bans preventing such unions. Millions of people across the country have been celebrating this news. Allies, family of couples, couples themselves, and anyone with a decent bone in their body and a trace of intelligence all rejoiced. Same-sex couples in many instances have waited a very long time for this moment. With any step forward this country makes socially, there are those who will disagree and complain. While we all march forward towards justice and a better country where every man and woman truly are treated equally, there are those who stand to the side stomping their feet in the puddles of ignorance. They can’t stop what’s right so they try their damndest to throw a fit to make their ignorance heard in an attempt to gain pity. They’re the ones that stood in the way until love, equality, and the constitution pushed them aside as they always do. The losers. The ones history leaves behind.

The “winners” in this case aren’t just ones affected by the law. The entire country won. We as a society won. Love won. You won. I won. This nation has long touted her “freedoms” but has while we have all had our freedom by law, it has been withheld by those who think they have the power to apply it to those they want and withhold it from those they want to oppress. I do love this country and believe I am fortunate to have been born here. Still, how free was I when my brothers and sisters in the LGBT community were being denied their basic rights? Freedom, to me, is a chain that binds us all together. It protects us. When there are citizens who are unable to obtain their rights, this creates a weakened chain with links missing. The chain can no longer hold us together. It cannot protect us all. Therefore, freedom, that chain of justice we hold dear, does not exist. The problem has been that some of us, including myself, have been protected by this chain while other haven’t while be shackled by systematic hate.

On the other side we have the losers. I call them losers not because their life will be affected in any way, but because of how they act. I’m sure you have witnessed these losers blathering away in person, and especially on social media. I know I have. So, I wanted to rant a little about what I hear the most from these irrelevant, narrow-minded bunch. Keep in mind that these people do not matter outside of their own minds. Their opinions do not matter. They are irrelevant and this is why they’re trying so hard to be while being so loud with their hate wrapped-up in religion. I have taken some of their most popular cry’s of ignorance and will rant on each. Enjoy….

 

“This is an abomination! This country is going to go to hell! God is not going to stand for this and will destroy us!”

I am an atheist. I don’t believe in a God. If I did, however, I see a major problem with this forecast from these closeted fornicators. The fact that they’re claiming their God is going to destroy this country because Felipe’ and Jonathan ate wedding cake is absolutely ridiculous. These people are either unbelievably delusional or just don’t know anything about our history. If their God was completely okay with this country owning other human-beings as slaves, I think he’d be okay with Eve and Eva tying the knot. He seemed to be okay with lots of other horrible things as well: the Native American genocide, segregation, slavery as already mentioned, systematic racism via Jim Crow laws after slavery ended, dropping an atomic bomb on citizens TWICE, and of course the numerous wars that have literally left millions dead. If that God was just fine with all of that and didn’t smite us into oblivion, I think we’re pretty damn safe in spite of people now being allowed to marry who they love. I think we’ll be just fine, but even if I believed in this possibility of the wrath of a God, I couldn’t imagine him not smiting us all for putting up with so many ignorant and hate-filled people in our society. Do us all a favor and shut up. You’re doing nothing at all to take us back to your good old days when only people that resembled you hogged all of the freedom like swines of injustice.

 

“It says in (insert cherry-picked bible verse) that it’s bad!”

First of all, your religious laws are irrelevant. As Patton Oswald said, “I’m glad you like a book”. I know that’s a hard pill to swallow for some, but it is. You can quote a thousand verses if you want (though homosexuality itself is mentioned only about a dozen times in the entire Bible), but it doesn’t matter. Your religion means absolutely zero here. It does not get to dictate our laws and the rights of others. Once you get that through your small mind, the better you’ll be. Until you can quote an amendment in our constitution that says they can’t get married, you can just stop pointlessly bringing up an irrelevant book to defend your bigotry.

Secondly, we all know you’re a hypocrite. You don’t have a problem with sin. You don’t just hate their sin. You hate gay people. Why? Because there’s no movement to ban people who have been divorced, had sex before marriage, or committed the hundreds of other sins, from getting married. Not at all. There’s no outrage by this from the holier-than-thou crowd. There’s no judges or law clerks citing their “religious freedom” to deny a license to a teen couple with a baby in tow. These folks like to quote one verse in particular from the book of Leviticus. This is important to note because it is a Mosaic law that states “man shall not lie with another man”. You may be familiar with some of the Mosaic laws, ten of them in particular, and you probably know them as “commandments”. Well, there’s just not those ten plus the one about homosexual sex. There’s 613 Mosaic commandments in total. Just for example, these laws also ban and command things like this: to give to charity for the poor, no cursing at your parents, no sex while on your period, no sodomy(which means no anal or oral sex, or sex that’s just for enjoyment and not for procreation), no working on the Sabbath whatsoever, no swearing needlessly, and many more absurd and some downright silly laws that you break everyday. Still, the vast majority of these people do these all of time.

It especially pisses me off when it’s young people parroting their mommy and daddy’s beliefs knowing full well that they commit sins like the ones I mentioned before. Yet, that’s all ignored. There’s no one trying to prevent these teenagers and 20-somethings from getting married because they had sex before marriage even though that’s another law that they must abide by. They’re completely fine with begging some poor girl to “try anal” or get a blowjob, but then also have the gall to actually make some ignorant status calling LGBT people “queers” and faggots” that are going to hell because that’s what the bible says. Every time you see some guy my age or in his teens making a dumbass rant about same-sex marriage or homosexuality in general, just know that he’s likely desperately tried to screw anything that blinked at him. Piss off you little pricks and sanctimonious prudes, hold the prude, with this hypocritical bullshit.

 

“Why is this an issue? I don’t want to hear about this! Stop shoving it down my throat!”

Why is this an issue? Are you serious? It’s an issue because people like you made it an issue. This wasn’t a constitutional amendment that originally banned same-sex marriage and they’re overturning it. No. It was the opposite. The law allowed same-sex marriage in the first place. That’s why states passed bans in the last two decades to ban it explicitly because they could get married as it stood. Have you noticed something after these bans have fallen? Nothing else happens. Nothing else is required for them to lawfully marry. No legislation, executive order, or any further action (with the exemption of those states who are still fighting it) is needed. That’s because the law allowed it before it was banned. They didn’t “redefine” marriage. You assholes who banned their marriage did. It started in Hawaii when couples attempted to get marriage licenses and were turned down. They sued and took it all the way to the Supreme Court of Hawaii that ruled denying them marriage licenses was discriminatory. What happened next? Conservatives created a statute to ban same-sex marriage, then put a ballot measure together that reserved marriage to opposite-sex couples in 1998. Between 1998 and 2006 about 28 states put forward those bans. Why? Because they knew the law allowed for same-sex marriages. That’s why it’s an issue, asshole. You.

With all of that in mind, and the fact that these laws were clearly unconstitutional, you have the gall to tell them to stop shoving things in your face? Finally getting the rights they deserved and celebrating it isn’t “shoving it down your throat”. That’s what you conservatives did. You took your backward religious laws and hypocritically shoved it down everyone’s throats, took away their rights, and violated the law to top it all off. That’s shoving your beliefs down someone’s throat. If you don’t want to hear about it, too damn bad. People have fought for years to get what you and your ilk took from them so buckle-up because that rainbow flag deserves to be hoisted regardless of your irrelevant feelings towards the issue.

 

If it wasn’t so pathetic and infuriating, the irony would be hilarious…