This is a update to my last note regarding the threat by a hacker group to strike out at the Westboro Baptist Church if the organization does not end its hateful protests. At the time of the threat, the WBC was already in court defending its rights after being sued by the family of a deceased soldier for protesting outside his funeral. The case worked its way up to the US Supreme Court, which determined that the WBC had protested lawfully, obeying all regulations, and was entitled to the protection of the First Amendment since the government cannot control the content of protests.
Justice Samuel Alito was the lone dissenter in the 8-1 decision. He states in his dissent that there ought to be not protection for the sort of bitter and irreverent hatred that the WBC preaches.
You can read more here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2011-03-02-westboro-first-amendment_N.htm
As I said in my previous note, I don't like the WBC any more than anyone else, but free speech is important to us all, and even it means continuing to put up with the WBC, I for one am glad that free speech is still safe for all, not matter the message. For that reason, I'm penciling into my calendar the WBC's next protect in my area, because I plan to use that right to respond to them in the correct manner, by joining the many that counterprotest with messages of tolerance. I encourage you all to do the same. You can find the WBC's picket calendar on their website: www.godhatesfags.com
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Freedom to Be a Pain
This is hypocritical and wrong. I don't like the Westboro Baptist Church any more than anyone else, but it isn't right for the hacker group known as Anonymous to retaliate in this way, by making these threats, while advocating some weird version of free speech that excludes those that society sees (let's be honest) as a pain in the ass. Pains in the ass deserve free speech too. For today, I support the Westboro Baptist Church. We can be better than this, people. If we try to take away the freedoms of others by fear and intimidation, we don't deserve those freedoms ourselves.
CBS News Reports :
"A group of hacktivists acting under the banner, "Anonymous," has warned a church with a controversial history that unspoken retribution will follow it continues its practice of inflammatory protests.
"In an open letter to the Westboro Baptist Church, Anonymous has put the anti-gay, fundamentalist church on notice that "the damage incurred will be irreversible," and that "neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover." "
For the full article, including a full copy of the open letter by Anonymous, visit:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20033942-501465.html
CBS News Reports :
"A group of hacktivists acting under the banner, "Anonymous," has warned a church with a controversial history that unspoken retribution will follow it continues its practice of inflammatory protests.
"In an open letter to the Westboro Baptist Church, Anonymous has put the anti-gay, fundamentalist church on notice that "the damage incurred will be irreversible," and that "neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover." "
For the full article, including a full copy of the open letter by Anonymous, visit:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20033942-501465.html
Thursday, January 13, 2011
A Lesbian in the Life of a Small-Town Genius
Victoria S.
Age 13
Central Missouri
I was never “supposed to be” gay, or even questioning, for that matter. There is a very profound rule in my town and the surrounding area. You are basically supposed to go to high school, state or community college, get a job, get married, work, get old, and die.
At the age of only 9, 10 or 11, I knew I was different. Things were going really well for me at the time. I had just been accepted into the gifted program at school, and had a “boyfriend”- you know how elementary school “relationships” go. One thing that hit me, after about a week, I would have to force myself to have feelings for a guy.
No one I knew was having that problem, or at least didn’t say anything about it. Through the rest of 4th and 5th grade, I just thought I hadn’t met someone I truly liked yet- but as it turns out, I was looking in all the wrong places.
What seriously hit home for me was at a sleepover. I was sleeping at my best friend’s house, like I did almost every weekend. She, her younger sister, and I were sitting on the bed, and I, well, felt something that I would later realize was attraction. We would jump around, and when my friend would jokingly get close to me, I was attracted. However, I was very ashamed, although I would just smile to myself every time she got closer to me.
Later that night, in an odd game of spin the bottle, I had my first kiss- with a girl. And I liked it. I liked it more than I would admit to myself. It was then that I knew something was VERY different about me.
I discovered my brother’s secret [that he is gay] when I was very young, and had an interest in gay rights, and gay people in general. I never viewed homosexuality as wrong in anyway. It was simply love- and love is good, or so I tried to believe as I came out as bisexual.
When I initially came out, so many girls identified as “bi” that I wasn’t taken seriously at first, even by some of my friends. Even then, I soon became one of the poster children for the LGBT community in our town. There are four to five openly gay kids and our town, and I’ve already explained the sort of fad that the word “bi” represented at the time, and I know each and every one of them, being really good friends with most of my town’s LGBT citizens.
Even then, though, a growing monster was threatening to tear me apart. I was cutting myself because I was so hurt, and as I even started my first relationship with a girl earlier this year, I felt I was wrong. I had internalized homophobia.
This led me to nearly attempt suicide. I was this close to making an attempt on my life. I absolutely HAD to talk to someone about this.
When I was beginning to think I could turn to one of my old friends, who at one time I almost dated, I sent her a message over Facebook. At the time, I was living with my brother and sister-in-law, and my sister-in-law went through the messages I had sent to my old friend and my friend Sam, who was rumored to be my girlfriend.
They set me down, explaining that it wasn’t right and I shouldn’t be worried about that “stuff” yet. My brother sort of defended me, but they expressed their feelings of my (at that time) bisexuality very clearly. If I wanted to live like that, they said, then I could go back to my parents’ house.
That debate split my family beyond repair, and my first real run-in with homophobia still comes back to me every single moment that I have free-time to think.
Soon after I lost contact with my brother and sister-in-law, I developed an unrequited crush on one of my close friends, and we still talk to this day. I haven’t lost any real friends because of their attitudes toward homosexuality, but for a while, I had lost two siblings. Although I have them back, I know nothing can be the same between them and my parents.
I just try to live day-by-day, dealing with my internalized homophobia as it presents itself, and even though I’m not perfect, I know that God makes no mistakes. I believe that I was made to be different, and will live as God intended me to.
“Why would God make us so different if he wanted us all to be the same?”- SAVED! The movie
“Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight!"- Harvey Milk
If you would like to participate in the Gay in the Life Project, email your story to gay.in.the.life@gmail.com, along with your first name or pen name, age, location, and/or any other information that you’d like posted to introduce yourself. All contact information will remain private and confidential.
Age 13
Central Missouri
I was never “supposed to be” gay, or even questioning, for that matter. There is a very profound rule in my town and the surrounding area. You are basically supposed to go to high school, state or community college, get a job, get married, work, get old, and die.
At the age of only 9, 10 or 11, I knew I was different. Things were going really well for me at the time. I had just been accepted into the gifted program at school, and had a “boyfriend”- you know how elementary school “relationships” go. One thing that hit me, after about a week, I would have to force myself to have feelings for a guy.
No one I knew was having that problem, or at least didn’t say anything about it. Through the rest of 4th and 5th grade, I just thought I hadn’t met someone I truly liked yet- but as it turns out, I was looking in all the wrong places.
What seriously hit home for me was at a sleepover. I was sleeping at my best friend’s house, like I did almost every weekend. She, her younger sister, and I were sitting on the bed, and I, well, felt something that I would later realize was attraction. We would jump around, and when my friend would jokingly get close to me, I was attracted. However, I was very ashamed, although I would just smile to myself every time she got closer to me.
Later that night, in an odd game of spin the bottle, I had my first kiss- with a girl. And I liked it. I liked it more than I would admit to myself. It was then that I knew something was VERY different about me.
I discovered my brother’s secret [that he is gay] when I was very young, and had an interest in gay rights, and gay people in general. I never viewed homosexuality as wrong in anyway. It was simply love- and love is good, or so I tried to believe as I came out as bisexual.
When I initially came out, so many girls identified as “bi” that I wasn’t taken seriously at first, even by some of my friends. Even then, I soon became one of the poster children for the LGBT community in our town. There are four to five openly gay kids and our town, and I’ve already explained the sort of fad that the word “bi” represented at the time, and I know each and every one of them, being really good friends with most of my town’s LGBT citizens.
Even then, though, a growing monster was threatening to tear me apart. I was cutting myself because I was so hurt, and as I even started my first relationship with a girl earlier this year, I felt I was wrong. I had internalized homophobia.
This led me to nearly attempt suicide. I was this close to making an attempt on my life. I absolutely HAD to talk to someone about this.
When I was beginning to think I could turn to one of my old friends, who at one time I almost dated, I sent her a message over Facebook. At the time, I was living with my brother and sister-in-law, and my sister-in-law went through the messages I had sent to my old friend and my friend Sam, who was rumored to be my girlfriend.
They set me down, explaining that it wasn’t right and I shouldn’t be worried about that “stuff” yet. My brother sort of defended me, but they expressed their feelings of my (at that time) bisexuality very clearly. If I wanted to live like that, they said, then I could go back to my parents’ house.
That debate split my family beyond repair, and my first real run-in with homophobia still comes back to me every single moment that I have free-time to think.
Soon after I lost contact with my brother and sister-in-law, I developed an unrequited crush on one of my close friends, and we still talk to this day. I haven’t lost any real friends because of their attitudes toward homosexuality, but for a while, I had lost two siblings. Although I have them back, I know nothing can be the same between them and my parents.
I just try to live day-by-day, dealing with my internalized homophobia as it presents itself, and even though I’m not perfect, I know that God makes no mistakes. I believe that I was made to be different, and will live as God intended me to.
“Why would God make us so different if he wanted us all to be the same?”- SAVED! The movie
“Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight!"- Harvey Milk
If you would like to participate in the Gay in the Life Project, email your story to gay.in.the.life@gmail.com, along with your first name or pen name, age, location, and/or any other information that you’d like posted to introduce yourself. All contact information will remain private and confidential.
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