Homo Fascist, wow!

Homo Facists

How friggin ironic that right wing wackadoodles are so fast to scream and rant the term homo fascist or homo bully when the faggots (name I proudly wear) stand up and push back and more importantly WIN.

The likes of Pat Robertson,  Dan Cathy (Chick Fil-Gag), Mike Huckabee,  Scott Lively  author of “The Pink Swastika” and countless others are in all out tailspin because we are pushing back and winning.  Lively is particularly odious with his book title; which is as overly dramatic as a Tiera wearing Nancy-boy in full meltdown and just morally wrong, since countless gays were slaughtered under Hitler’s Third Reich and the banner of the Swastika.

Perhaps Scott Lively like Ann Coulter doesn’t believe his brand of bull shit. Perhaps Scott Lively is incendiary in his use of language just to earn a few tainted dollars like the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and all of the mental midgets at Fox News and their bovine investors and advertisers.

I have news for this neanderthalistic crew of unenlightened idiots.  We, the homo fascists will keep punishing the likes of FireFox/Mozilla and their now unemployed CEO Brendan Eich, for their poor, narrow minded, bigoted political decisions. We will continue to shine a spotlight on the horrid policies and donations of Chick Fil-Gag until they, as Chick Fil-Gag has done walk away from those horrid policies.  We will continue to boycott the likes of Mississippi, when states such as, pass so called religious freedom laws that are nothing more than permission to discriminate based on a whim.

Finally, I will continue to call out these so called avengers and innocent victims. For years, decades and centuries even, abusers  have used far worse tactics to deal with anyone who didn't fit their definition of normal. Those outside the realm of normal have been bullied, beaten, kicked, killed, imprisoned and exterminated and yet the keepers of the keys have the gall to call those who fight back fascist.  Wow.

Author, Lawyer and nit wit Scott Lively

Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps the infamous founder of the Westboro Church has died.  I've left Baptist off the name intentionally as there is really nothing Baptist about that church. Phelps and his church are known for their campaign of hate and picketing that God hates fags, God hates America and for picketing the funerals of fallen American soldiers.

I met Fred Phelps once, in 1993 at the March on Washington. Fred Phelps was one of the few people that upon initial meeting scared me beyond belief.  He had a way of staring that made me feel as he spoke to me as if he were staring into my soul.  The stare wasn't kind, it was creepy.  Prior to our brief meeting in 1993 I'd never heard of Fred Phelps.

In spite of how truly scary Fred Phelps was, I can't help feeling sorry for him.  I feel sorry for the tortured soul who felt inclined to live a huge portion of his adult life fostering hate and discord. He is a man who spent a large portion of his life bullying gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender folks. What must have happen in Phelps life to make him so jaded and so hateful to the least of these.  I would ask the same question of Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and any number of other fundamental Bible beating Christians who spew hate and intolerance.

I wonder what happened to the poor souls to make them so mean spirited and so far off Christ's path.  I used to get angry, now I pity them and pray for them.  I think that their souls are tortured.

Subway Durham/Chapel Hill Blvd. Durham NC 27707

• 

  I have visited this Subway before and it was ok, but today, not so much.
  
  There was no line and the store was not busy. It was clean.
  
  The man working the register needed to leave his post to create my sandwich because the other sandwich worker was restocking the service line. His unhappiness was so evident as he put on his plastic gloves and then chastised the restocker for not restocking properly.
  
  It was so obvious that Mr. Cash Register was NOT happy about having to make my six inch tuna fish sub on cheesy bread. He tried to up sell me a foot long twice and was somewhat miffed that I declined the deal. Part of my self restraint shtick is to deny myself the opportunity to over eat. Buy a foot long and yep, I eat a foot long. Buy six inch sandwich and that's all I'll eat.
  
  I did purchase the combo though, chips and a drink make me happy and my order was to go.  I had a Subway gift card. I handed Mr. Register the gift card, he was off the service line and back at his register but still not happy,  he swiped the card. Alas there was a balance of only $1.87 on the card. I had to walk to my car to get cash. His tone was horribly condescending when he told me that I needed $5.06 more to complete my transaction.  I debated just leaving when I got to my car. I didn't, I snagged my wallet and went back in.
  
  I asked how much more money he needed and he told me $5.06, I handed him $6.00.  (Aside, no one was at the register) I was not holding up traffic.
  
  I handed Mr. Register $6.00 and he looked at me like I was an idiot and then at my money in his hand like it was some sort of vile concoction and asked me if I had $.06. His tone again full of condescension and rudeness.
  
  By now I'd had it and my snarky response was, "If I had six cents I would have given it to you."
  
  Mr. Register, not to be outdone, smacked one of my dollars and the gift card I'd previously given him together and thrust them at me.
  
  I told him to keep the dollar and the gift card and that I wouldn't be back.
  
  I can take marginal food, I can take marginal service but when one combines marginal food and horrible service, I will NEVER go back.  Sadly, the Q Shack is right next door and I could have gone there.

My Nana

On September 24 2013 my Nana died. I was lucky enough to have some last fleeting moments with her. In fact when I arrived at her home on that day, she perked up when I walked in, she smiled and said my name and was gone twelve hours later. It was surreal.  I felt blessed to have some last moments with her.  That week in September also brought my brother and me face to face for the first time in about four years.  We had a brief conversation where my take away, as suspected, is that nothing is changed and most likely never will.  Interestingly, I’m past it.

The funeral and wake were fine.  It wasn't a huge emotional carnival. Firstly, we’re not built that way and secondly Nana lived almost one hundred and two years.  She was unwell for the last two months of her life and no one should suffer; least of all my Nana.  As grandmothers go, my Nana was great. We were close, not so close that I shared everything with her or her with me.  There were aspects of each of our lives that we kept apart.  That is OK, her generation didn't share everything and maybe I learned that lesson well from her.  Interestingly, sitting here two months out, now I feel profound sadness and loss.  I keep wanting to call her on the telephone. Instead, I talk to her, much like I still talk to John and pray to God.

Thankfully, for the sake of my dad, I’d arranged for dad and mom to travel with me to Ireland for ten days in October. I think that the trip helped ease both of them through the process of Nana’s passing.  We had a great time and the trip was structured in a way to make dad comfortable.  Still, TSA and the mess that is the American airport leave me scratching my head. I wonder, exactly who won the battle on September 11? I don’t think it was the American traveler or air transit system. The screening system is silly, stupid and inefficient. There are indeed scores of blue shirted TSA employees standing around doing little if nothing.

My take away on all of this; enjoy your moments, stay close to loved ones and when traveling through US airports wear shoes that slid off and on easily.

Mom and Dad at the Ring of Kerry about two weeks after Nana passed away.

A Christmas visit with Kay Willis

Kay Willis is an acquaintance of my parents. She is the epitome of what is wrong with North Carolina, some self professed Christians and in the greater society. Until yesterday my interactions with this very narrow minded, ignorant and dangerous woman were cordial and pleasant. That all changed on Christmas Day. I will not put myself in her company again.

In one of her many ramblings during her two hour visit; Kay Willis was speaking of a relation of hers. I'll call the fellow Jim and the fact that Jim was sexually abused by his uncle as a child. Kay said, "He [the uncle] turned Jim into a faggot."

There is so much wrong with that statement but I'm not going to preach those points to the choir.

This statement was made at the lunch time table in the middle of a meal. The circumstance left me in a dilemma; confrontation, flight or nothing? I did lift a silent and short prayer. I was lead to a place of calm peace and remained at the table listening to this horribly hurt woman continue to talk. The phrase, hurt people hurt kept resonating in my head. After Kay left my father sought me out and we had a genuine and warm conversation. It was one of the nicest, kindest and sweetest things this man has ever done and he's done a lot of nice things.

So, why did I react the way I did? Firstly, my folks have to live here in Carteret County and interact with people like Kay on a daily basis, she is related to everyone in the small hamlet in which they reside. Secondly, in all likelihood I deal with people like Kay everyday but those people are surreptitious and therefore I am oblivious to how they feel. Thirdly, nothing that I would have said to this woman would have changed her opinion; she showed me who and what she was and now I know.

Kay is the archetype for  the gap in our society between kind and enlightened people and those who are marginalized by poverty, comfortable ignorance, lack of education,  a lack of drive to better self and a belief that minor and obscure verses in  their Bible speak definitively on all topics. In the end, I don't feel anger or anguish. I feel some disgust but mostly pity for Kay, people like her and those who she has damaged with her behavior and beliefs.

Duck Dynasty and all the wing nuts

Duck Dynasty and all the other wing nuts

The problem is that there is still a wide held believe that GLBT people choose their attraction and are therefore responsible for their attractions; that the decision is a conscious one. Ok, I’ll go for that, as soon as…each and every single person who holds that opinion has an open, honest and public conversation regarding the time, place and circumstances under which they decided to be a heterosexual person. That they further outline how hard they tried to reprogram their attractions and to change what they are.

I’ll wait.

God and the classroom

They’ve taken God out of the classroom

The Christian fundamentalist ilk routinely claim that they’ve withdrawn their children from the public education system the cause “they,” whoever “they” are, have taken and God out of the classroom.  This is just a convenient excuse for those who don’t like what they see happening in the American education system to take up their marbles and go home and play alone.  I think more often than not the motives are xenophobic, racist or classist. 

Taking God of the classroom or the school is like trying to take God it out of a foxhole.  When I think back to my childhood and my experiences in the school system, I prayed to God every day.  In fourth grade I prayed that God would wake me up from the nightmare that was my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Scott.  This is a woman who had no business being around small children, she was cruel, demanding, authoritarian and loud.  I got through it though and my experience with Mrs. Scott taught me how to deal with loud, authoritarian and cruel people and that sometimes, like in a foxhole you keep your head down.

When I was in middle school and had to deal with the boys in the locker room, God was with me as well.  I’m here aren’t I?  PE class in the middle school was the first time that I experienced an entire grade level of some 150 boys coming together at one time to change clothes in a moderately  supervised environment.  I became acutely aware of who the predators were and who I should stick with as part of the safety herd.  This was a valuable lesson for later in life.  There was constant prayer during that experience, and God was indeed present in the public school locker room. Years later I’d become aware of lesser gods in the boys locker room. That topic is for another musing.

Throughout my public school career every quiz, test, assignment and big project required that prayers be lifted to God.  Those prayers asked for wisdom, discernment, encouragement and perseverance.  God had me in an environment where I would meet many different people, with many different ideas, with many different backgrounds and I’d have to learn how to cope with them in that venue.  This lesson prepared me to cope with them in the greater world too.  Funny, even in NJ, no one took God out of my school experience.

I believe that many who home school do so because it is the easy way out.  It is easy to collect up one’s children and shepherd them away to a safe same thinking environment.  That action at its heart is intellectual malpractice, why in a democratic republic it might even be treason.  Those actions are also very dangerous to maintaining a  democracy, the ideals of Franklin, Jefferson and Adams require enlightenment.  It is also a complete for twisting and perversion of the Gospel.  These people should read the Gospel of John chapter three vs. 16 and…17.  Verse 17 is very clear Jesus as God did not come into the world to condemn it but to save it.  How in heaven’s name can we save the world as disciples if we hide and ourselves away from that world? Simple answer, we can’t.