(picture: "Strong Man" by Jing Jing Tsong)
It's a small town; everyone 'knows' everyone and
their business to start with. (Or, at least, they think
they do, which is even more insidious!)
But they smile to your face (sometimes) and stab you
in the back. Red-necks think two-facedness and inability
to communicate are resume' highlights; they're proud
of it.
So, everyone knows I'm homosexual, anyway.
And I'm not hiding who I am for anyone else's comfort level
anyway. (Which can make life difficult, but knowing up
front who's homophobic--or too scared to be friends with
you, despite their own differing sexuality--is a good litmus
test for who's worth hanging out with.)
But anyone who doesn't already know me can tell the minute
I open my mouth. Because as 'butch' as I may appear to some,
there are 'tells' here in the South. And the astute gossip/
worry-wart has already checked out your ring finger, your
gait, your hairstyle, your clothes, and your hand movements
long before they ever address you! It is JUST that important
to these sick bastards what is going on with everyone else!
People call me "Ma'am" all the time, unintentionally. They
are always embarrassed by having done it--or their kids having
done it--because they see it as a problem that they let it slip
how they really feel about me/gays in general.
(Which is to say that they equate being gay with not being a
real man, but being a woman. That is how people interpret it
around here. But it let's you know that they are not oblivious,
even though they avoid talking about it to your face (since
there is a stigma behind being open about who you are.)
That right there--knowing, or even SUSPECTING-- that I am
a homosexual--is grounds for people to hate my guts, think I
ought not be working for/representing "their" government,
want me dead, want me unemployed, want me shut up, etc.
The Census caving in to this ignorance is legitimizing the
ignorance. It allows it, rationalizes it, and justifies it. It's always
easier to roll over and let injustice happen. Much easier than it
is to do the right thing.
People were uncomfortable? Really? And? How did the
idea that someone is different than they are destroy their
world? If people are so uniformly incapable of existing in a
world that doesn't mirror their image or needs perfectly, then
they had problems going before little Robbie showed up.
Most people are MAD because the Census is a cluster-fug
boondoggle to the Nth degree.
They're mad at ANYONE coming on their property
uninvited.
They're mad at the government right now, anyway.
They're mad about the economy.
They're mad about oil spills.
They're mad about hot weather.
They're mad about being asked to answer questions they
already answered and someone incompetently lost.
They're mad about divorces and bunions and STDs and
disobedient children.
But nobody reallllllly cares that someone is gay. It's just
another scapegoat...a dog to kick because they can't wrap
their hands around their desired target. I'm easy.
Let's blow through the smokescreen and discuss what's
really happening here in this web of lies and discrimination.
I will tell that the Emperor has no clothes, no matter how
many numb nuts want to maintain the pretense that he's
really wearing the most beautiful adornments ever crafted.
It's just the way I'm built;
Just like my wonderful sexuality, God granted me the inability
to suffer BULLSHIT lightly.
I have no propensity for building a deception.
I am a Truth Seeker, Truth Speaker, Artifice Buster, and
Bullshit Detector.
I do not depend on righteous action from the world;
I know where righteousness lay.....and I will see justice done,
come what may.
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