Read this article, and then my rant. Fair warning, I intend to give the Rev. Furious a run for his money.
What in the hell are thinking? Of all the pea-picking, hair-brained, inbred ideas! I really did think I lived in a country where no government agency would take bigotry so far they would actually try to ban people from living in a certain place because "we don't like you." Crimes against nature?! I'm trying very hard to resist making comments about there being nothing natural about Tennessee. Since Joanna lives there, I SHOULD be nice, but these ass clowns make that VERY difficult. I would really like to believe that some judicial body would strike that down before it picked up any more steam. I can expect judicial bodies to ban same-sex marriage. Or even civil unions. I can almost come close to understanding their logic. But this is so backward and uneducated I'm truly shocked...mixed with a healthy batch of outrage and indignation. Imagine trying to pass a law saying "you can't live here because you're black." Or (for the benefit of the "it's different because it's a choice" crowd) Jewish. That's right, kiddies. Religion is a choice and yet is protected. How's that for a thought the Conservative Christian fundamentalists have conveniently ignored. (Read more about that should my response to the Letter to the Editor in the Branding Iron get published.) I'm sorry, but it takes a special kind of stupid to think this kind of legislation is legal, ethical, OR moral. It takes a real tool to even consider writing it.
Was I the only one hearing banjo music in the background as I read the article? P-sycho, I tell you. I plan to print this article and simply point to it the next time someone asks me if I REALLY think there is still discrimination against GLBT people. Or the next time someone tells me I'm asking for "special" rights. I suppose this is the next logical (and I use that term loosely) extension of an already WEAK argument against same-sex marriages and GLBT rights in general. Kind of like Fred Phelps (view this link at your own peril - it's RANK shit)is the next logical extension of the "love the sinner, hate the sin" doctrine.
Part of me realizes that arguments/statements like this idiocy in TN only serves to prove a point, and can do more good than harm. It points out just how paranoid people can become. But another part of me still has that visceral, fight-or-flight response. Guess which urge is usually stronger in me? I no longer fear this type of bigotry. This brand of hate-monger. I even find them somewhat comical. Sometimes I also want to grab a big fucking stick, though. I know it's not the earth-honoring, shamanic, pagan, or zen way to react - and I'm usually much more pacifist in my responses. Not today, though. Today I want to don a pair of overalls (only), spit my chaw on the dusty front porch, and say, "Mabel...git my gun. I'm agonna fix this."
