I'm having a lot of trouble with the events at Pulse in Orlando, where over 4 dozen people were killed by a homophobic, apparently self-loathing-closet case, and even more than that were wounded. Not so much that it happened; violence against the GLBT community has been consistent around the world...from insane laws in Uganda to hangings in Iran to arrests in Russia to stabbings in the UK to killings of transgenders in places like Brazil and El Salvador. Nor is it the outpouring of hate from members of the so-called Christian community, like from a vile little Baptist preacher in northern California who thinks we should all be lined up against a wall and shot in the head...or the devil-worshiping Westboro demons who claim to be on God's side. That is all...for want of a better word...predictable and almost to be expected from snakes and cockroaches, like them.
What's causing me trouble is how people who consider themselves humanists and liberals are trying to tell the gay community how we should feel. They are trying to make this about human beings...and nothing more. And if we don't like it, we're dismissed. We have cute pop-TV stars who love to play gay on camera but claim to be straight in real life telling us how they understand and feel the same as us. I had a woman I've known for years dismiss my anger over a facebook commenter's condescending response to me wanting gun control by telling him I should be cut some slack because I'm gay, then tried to lecture me on how I should view christians.
This is on top of the usual political nonsense, where you get "thoughts and prayers" from Congressmen and women and "a moment of silence"...and then have your rights diminished by votes they take just moments later accompanied by bold-faced refusals to consider any form of gun control. They continue to fight even the thought of making it hard for someone with a history of domestic violence, or mental instability, or even fucking contacts with terrorist organizations to buy an AR-15 so they can go out and slaughter more people.
That supports terrorism, and I've been pointing that out to them in any way I can...for all the good it's done. The GOP and NRA will keep pushing back against gun control until everyone's forgotten about this travesty...and too damn many people will let them. Again. Like they did after Columbine and Aurora and Sandy Hook and San Bernadino and countless other venues of death and destruction. It's made me ashamed not just of America but also of humanity.
There's a section I wrote in Place of Safety, a few years back, where Brendan tells a friend people do not really care about ending violence. They talk about how bad it is and say it should stop, but when it comes time to actually do something, they grow very still. I was afraid I was being too cynical in that moment. I no longer do. Because looking at what happened just in that tiny part of the world for decades...the bombings and shootings of innocent people...something that too many on both sides still want to carry on with...I think I'm finally sensing a way to describe the world as it is. We are not civilized; we are still in the jungle.
It's not new. Nothing about it is. Look through history and you find time after time after time where maniacs slaughter people for little or no reason, be it in wars or crusades or insurgencies or just plain cruelty. When Algerian insurgents were fighting France for independence, back in the mid-to-late 50s, there was an infamous slaughter where guerrilla fighters in the pack of a small truck drove down a street and sprayed people walking along it with machine-gun fire. Men, women, children, made no difference. And in Jerusalem, Jewish insurgents blew up the Hotel David, killing dozens, hoping to drive the British out. In both instance, mostly civilians were killed, not actual combatants.
Yes, there are some good people out there who really are trying to make everything better...but they are less than 1% of the world. The rest do not really give a shit. They prefer to let things move along as they are going, no rocking of the boat, so long as they are left alone...and will say and do the same damned things they've said and done all week when the next slaughter occurs...as it will.
The devil is our god, and I do not know what to do about that...or how to temper the fury it builds in me.
What's causing me trouble is how people who consider themselves humanists and liberals are trying to tell the gay community how we should feel. They are trying to make this about human beings...and nothing more. And if we don't like it, we're dismissed. We have cute pop-TV stars who love to play gay on camera but claim to be straight in real life telling us how they understand and feel the same as us. I had a woman I've known for years dismiss my anger over a facebook commenter's condescending response to me wanting gun control by telling him I should be cut some slack because I'm gay, then tried to lecture me on how I should view christians.
This is on top of the usual political nonsense, where you get "thoughts and prayers" from Congressmen and women and "a moment of silence"...and then have your rights diminished by votes they take just moments later accompanied by bold-faced refusals to consider any form of gun control. They continue to fight even the thought of making it hard for someone with a history of domestic violence, or mental instability, or even fucking contacts with terrorist organizations to buy an AR-15 so they can go out and slaughter more people.
That supports terrorism, and I've been pointing that out to them in any way I can...for all the good it's done. The GOP and NRA will keep pushing back against gun control until everyone's forgotten about this travesty...and too damn many people will let them. Again. Like they did after Columbine and Aurora and Sandy Hook and San Bernadino and countless other venues of death and destruction. It's made me ashamed not just of America but also of humanity.
There's a section I wrote in Place of Safety, a few years back, where Brendan tells a friend people do not really care about ending violence. They talk about how bad it is and say it should stop, but when it comes time to actually do something, they grow very still. I was afraid I was being too cynical in that moment. I no longer do. Because looking at what happened just in that tiny part of the world for decades...the bombings and shootings of innocent people...something that too many on both sides still want to carry on with...I think I'm finally sensing a way to describe the world as it is. We are not civilized; we are still in the jungle.
It's not new. Nothing about it is. Look through history and you find time after time after time where maniacs slaughter people for little or no reason, be it in wars or crusades or insurgencies or just plain cruelty. When Algerian insurgents were fighting France for independence, back in the mid-to-late 50s, there was an infamous slaughter where guerrilla fighters in the pack of a small truck drove down a street and sprayed people walking along it with machine-gun fire. Men, women, children, made no difference. And in Jerusalem, Jewish insurgents blew up the Hotel David, killing dozens, hoping to drive the British out. In both instance, mostly civilians were killed, not actual combatants.
Yes, there are some good people out there who really are trying to make everything better...but they are less than 1% of the world. The rest do not really give a shit. They prefer to let things move along as they are going, no rocking of the boat, so long as they are left alone...and will say and do the same damned things they've said and done all week when the next slaughter occurs...as it will.
The devil is our god, and I do not know what to do about that...or how to temper the fury it builds in me.
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