Passive Aggressive Bigotry

Now that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that barring same-sex couples from marrying the person they loved amounted to unequal treatment under the law, my social networks have exploded in a wash of rainbow colors speckled with dingy, gray flecks of hate. Even before the ruling, I had to endure daily flashes of undesired religious admonition. But now…

Hole—EEE—crap.

The parade of exhortation has become so repulsive and weighty, I am half a mind to hide certain friends for the foreseeable future to protect my sensitive eyes from the scrolling diatribe of Christian guilt.

So, imagine my (non)surprise when, the a day after Obergefell v. Hodges, one woman I know posted a meme showing a man and woman outlined in bathroom sign fashion with hands interlocked that said “straight pride.” Wow.

Of course, people – including me – called her out on it. Though she didn’t see fit to retain the comments that countered her view, she claimed she only posted the picture to show she was “proud to be straight,” and that she couldn’t see why anyone would be offended by her expressing her “straight pride.” The whole thing smacked of anti-gay sentiment.

Coming the day after the Supreme Court overturned state-sanctioned discrimination, her claim that she – a “Catholic, conservative” woman – only felt the need to boast to the world her pride at being a straight person in order to show she is “pro-me” was highly disingenuous and utterly and completely insensitive.

As a straight, white, Christian woman, she has never been made to feel inferior because of her race or her sexual orientation. She hasn’t had to fight for her rights for anything. She has never had to hide who she really is.

Her posting this sign is akin to posting a “white pride” sign the day after Loving v. Virginia. It was not meant to be a benign personal expression. And I found it extremely hard to believe that she didn’t think it would be taken negatively because I don’t think she is stupid. She posted it in an act of counter-protest to the many expressions supporting marriage equality, or in her words, the people “shoving gay acceptance” down her throat.

At best, it is a mockery of a day that was about freedom for an oppressed minority. At worst, she is just another bigoted liar.

F you Pat Robertson, F you

Pat Robertson is a lying son of a bitch. Every gay, feminist or non-christian person on the planet should sue him for defamation. Pat Robertson is a bigot who has made it his personal mission to spread lies about homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people. His message is that homosexuality is an “abomination.” And his wish is elimination (shall I say “extermination?) of LGBT people from the American landscape.

Oh, and he thinks people who disagree with him about it should just “shut their mouths.” (Note his emphasis on the word “white” in the following video clip.)

“I defy these homosexuals to bring forth a baby from that part of the anatomy which they concentrate on, when that happens I will change everything I’m saying; until that happens, I wish those demonstrators would shut their mouth.”

Well Marion, do you know what I have to say about that? Get bent!

Christian conservatives don’t own free speech. Christian conservatives don’t own the Constitution of The United States of America! And Pat Robertson (who probably looks half dead under the two pounds of stage makeup cosmeticians have to put on him every day and who cannot even remember what year it is) has no right to tell me or you how to think, what to feel, or what to do.

It really does not matter to me what the almost 2,000-year-old irrelevant, ridiculous tome Pat Robertson worships so much says about anything at all. It does not matter to me whether LGBT people can have children (they can by the way). I do not care if Pat Robertson is considered a voice of authority in his church. I am not inclined to defer to his implausible wisdom. What matters to me is that theocrats like Pat Robertson never gain the authority to tell me how to live.

Pat Robertson and his supporters laud the First Amendment and free speech when defending religious speech they condone. But when free thinkers (in this case, “homosexual activists,” to use his words) speak out against bigoted views and discrimination, suddenly free speech becomes a misnomer. Deign to boycott a company that donates its profits to anti-gay hate organizations, and suddenly free speech is transformed by Pat Robertson and the religious right into religious persecution.

Sometimes, little people say little things that other little people just soak right up. Pat Robertson is a small man with a small mind that relates only small thoughts. I’m thinking big. And I’ll say any damn thing I want.