Changing the world

Woke up to 90+ e-mails from LJ over something Iposted in metaquotes. from mainly people with their panties in a bunch.

Seriously folks, come tell me how you feel about the gravity of National Coming Out Day after you've been out around 20 years and are forced to endure a bunch of young ones who think they're the first to even face hardship over where they stick their dick.

Seriously. Get over it.

But if I see Keith Olberman's commentary posted one more time today, I'm going to shove my foot up someone's ass.

I'll also refer you to nihilistic_kid's post on the subject.

While I realize it's nice for a MSNBC broadcaster to come out for gay marriage, he, like protesters on Saturday, will be largely ignored by the mainstream and condemned by the social conservatives.

And since someone on my friends list felt free to condemn anyone who won't be attending a protest on Saturday...

I have to work. Getting bent out of shape about something that happened in California doesn't pay the bills, doesn't put food on the table, and sure as hell doesn't get me any closer to being involved with someone who I'd actually be tempted to use the right Prop 8 took away.

While I agree that I think California was wrong in voting in Prop 8, I think that religious institutions should not have been pouring money into the campaign to pass it, this is also an issue CA is going to have to work out with itself. Particularly considering how many states currently have Amendments banning same-sex marriage amd the federal DOMA law. If you want to protest something, try those. They affect us much more than an injustice in CA.

Also, as has been pointed out previously, CA still has domestic partnerships, which while not enough, are still a damn sight better than what most of us mid-westerners qualify for.

I seem to have dropped another inch around my middle, based on now having several pairs of undies that no longer fit.

Which yes, it's probably a good thing, but I will admit I'm not made of the money it's gonna take to update my wardrobe so my boxers aren't constantly around my knees someplace.

Been trying to figure out why the girl in the last post set me off so bad.

I mean yeah, I attention whored myself 10-15 years ago...I seem to recall taking Anton LeVay's The Satanic Bible and whatever passes for The Necronomicon with me to school (Borrowed from my brother's bookshelf, but still...), as well as Fangoria and Gorezone magazines. (The latter got confiscated because there was an exposed nipple. Which I missed.)

I recall being hypersensitive anytime I got around the Xtians in college. Like somehow their beliefs invalidated my own. Any mention of G-d in my prescence was obscene in some unknown way. I think a lot of that was due to being new to a faith, which generally makes people rather sensitive to begin with. (An example. My aunt Riette converted to Catholocism when she married uncle Tony. Tony loved Catholic jokes, whereas Riette would fume at anyone finding humor in her faith.)

I suppose it's because I have grown up and have grown into my faith that this girl's statement annoys me to no end. I'm all for self-expression in High School, but I also understand the need for limits in the name of not distracting from learning. I'd probably be even more irritated had this been a uniform school and she was pulling this crap. You want to be a goth? Cool. I assume you can find outfits to wear that don't violate the dress code. Then you can also figure out makeup is usually for social outings at night, not for school functions.

And please, don't bring a religion you found by looking at the cover of $ilver Ravenwolf's Teen Wicca into this. It embarasses all of us and makes you look like a horse's arse.

Had a chat with Mom today, which lead further and further into cultural influences on religion, versus the pure religion itself, a theme in both books about Roman Catholocism and Islam.

Or to an even greater degree, my feelings on people using the KJV as the ONLY valid edition of the Bible.

It's kind of like this to me. Back at Cassano's Otha and I discussed whether it's best for a church to be a bastion of art or whether it should remain like a warehouse. (Like say Notre Dame vs. any Vineyard Church.) I persoanlly feel that the architechture, music, etc. are reflections of the faith of the congregants. To me, a warehouse church or worse, a storefront church represents a "one size fits all" approach to faith, handing out pre-fabricated, pre-shrunk, stonewashed ideas to the sheep who buy it for the label.

Yeah, I read the critisisms of Roman and Orthodox practice, and how they're more about the show than about the faith. But how is that different from "Sacred Dancers" and "Special Soloists"? I realize this is a worldwide phenomena now, but the whole homogonized "condemn everyone who doesn't worship/believe like our particular congregation does" seems to be an American contruct, a reflection of our society. We can say other societies value virtue over freedom, but it strikes me that we too try to enforce our virtue and values (which not all of us believe in the same ones) on everyone else. I saw a cartoon a while back involving someone complaining that we need to tone down all the vice, and then claiming oppression when it didn't happen. If something offends you, turn away. It's why I mostly ignore fundies these days, as much as I can. Because eventually, I will be forced to shake one and say "When we hate the sin, but love the sinner, that doesn't mean hate the sinner and condemn him to hell.") As Salt-n-Pepa once rapped "There ain't no judge but G-d, so just chill!".

Wow, I got off-topic.

Anyway, One of my pet theroies when arguing discussing creation ideas with folks is to point out that according to Genesis, G-d created us in his own image. Does that mean we look like G-d? Uh, no. To me, it would suggest more than G-d gave it to us to create just as he created us. Yes, we lack the ability to breathe life into our creations, but ultimately, it is the art, the music, the writing, the architecture we create that is ultimately our gift from G-d. As MC Hammer rapped "Makes me say oh my Lord, thank you for my talent." (Mind you, he got punished by G-d for that second album, but....)

And yeah, I'm not an Xtian, so most of this is my reaction to reading up on the practices, making sure I didn't throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. Just because I don't agree with all the dogma and theology doesn't mean I can't find wisdom or thoughts that I can appreciate within it. Like reading the Bhagavad Gita, The Rubayyat, or the KJV...I don't have to follow the religion to appreciate the expression of faith, the poetry of the words, or the ideas expressed.

Ok, now I know I'm menatlly masterbating.

Ok, signing off.

Ok, been thinking more and more about my issues with contemporary horror movies.

I'm well aware that virginal characters, in particular virginal characters with vaginas, are the most likely to not only survive, but also thrive in a horror movie. (Yes, there are exceptions. Night of the Living Dead comes to mind. Barbara didn't exactly fare well under the circumstances.)

Another old trend I'm seeing more and more of on the rental shelf is EVIL CHILDREN! Once again, the scare factor is the idea of out virginal character doing evil and therefore losing their innocence, usually by killing most of the adults. (Which, admittedly, evil children bug me. Gage in Pet Sematary bugged the hell out of me for weeks. I can still hear him going "No fair, daddy, no fair!")

And then we have the very rare gay character who shows up. In Bride of Chucky, he gets a chump death by semi. (Ok, so they corrected this in Son of Chucky by giving John Waters one of the best deaths in the fucking movie.) Or in Jeepers Creepers 2 when the nice, quiet gay boy sacrifices himself to save the really obnoxious homophobic African-American character. Or basically, the socially unacceptable minority dying so that the increasingly more acceptable minority can live. (This in and of itself is rare. As the Wayans Bros. pointed out in Scary Movie, African-American Characters are usually among the first to die in a mainstream horror flick. And the fact that Jeepers Creepers can be looked at as a parable about pedophilia doesn't really help matters either.) And I think I can sum up my issue with all of this fairly clearly. It's assumed any virgin is ostensibly heterosexual. Therefore, regardless of whether or not the gay character is pretty much a eunuch, he's not pure and therefore subject to dying before the credits roll. We all know the heroine wants the hero's big fat usually white cock, but she won't take it because she's gonna survive.

I know Hellbent is out now, but finding it here in the Midwest is an issue. And in any case, it's not particularly mainstream.

I find myself wondering how many of us gay people would LOVE to watch a well written horror movie involving at the very least gay characters written on the same level as your stupid straight teenage horndogs just begging to get killed by whatever entity is haunting them.

Enough wanking.

There are days I hate being the only gay person someone knows. If I get asked ONE MORE TIME about what I thought of the Matthew Shepherd murderers' interview I may well scream.

Let me spell this out. Matthew was not a saint. I don't pray to him to intercede on my behalf with G-d. By most accounts, he wanted sex for drugs.

However. Regardless. That does not give someone the right to beat the living shit out of someone and tie them to a fence post to die. For the last time, I really could give a shit about the motives behind it. This goes beyond party foul. This goes beyond murder.

I don't care about the he said, she said. I don't care if it was a hate crime or a drug related crime. What matters is that two fuckheads beat the shit out of someone and LEFT HIM TO DIE. Strip away motive, strip away your opinion about faggots. What your left with is that Two fuckheads who SHOULD have RIDDEN THE LIGHTNING beat the SHIT out of someone and TIED HIM TO A FUCKING FENCE POST.

We can argue on and on about hate crimes legislation, about the morality of homosexuality, about forcing people to endure 2 crappy movies and one semi-decent movie about it, about people using an event to further their own agendas (Fred Phelps on one side, just about every fucking gay activist on the other), but when you get right down to it, NOTHING ELSE matters. Gay bashings happen. Murder happens. The reason this one went national was the sheer BRUTALITY and CRUELTY involved . That one human could do this to another human. And here in OUR enlightened USA, where nothing like that could happen, because were much more enlightened than other countries.

Matthew could have been you, your brother, or your father. No one deserves to die like that. So FUCK them and their alleged motives. No one gives a shit. Mrs. Shepherd should have let them cover you in honey and tie you to an anthill.