Well, Michelle Shocked, I am actually totally shocked. What the hell? It's bizarre to me, the whole business of going from a queer mental image to some(prenominal)one who would actually say that perfection hates us. When the shock wore off, I found that citizenry were super angry, but I in force(p) got sc ard. I think that as a queer someone of color, I have been scared my entire life. I worry o'er it bit by bit, enough to get by and live, but and so something similar this happens, and it's handle getting courageous bashed all over again.
When people say that God hates fags, there's this thought that it's OK to kill us, that it doesn't matter if we die, because if God -- the supposedly agreeable force in the world, the one who is supposed to love everyone and everything, the one, the only, whatever, whe ne'er -- hates us, then how are we to exist? But if he hates us, why did he make so adult maley of us?
When someone like Michelle Shocked, formerly a beloved, alt queer muse and cleric of the '90s, decides that it is OK to hate us and permits us know that God does too, I am truly sickened, as she of all people should know what this means.
I made many mixtapes with that song "Anchorage," which I forever and a day regarded as a lesbian anthem. It was the song playing on the eight-track cassette converter in the big, old, gas-guzzling behemoth of a Buick that I employ to peel knocked out(p) of a dirt parking hook behind a country roadhouse, with tall corn and booby on all sides, to get away from a shuddery dude who had suddenly appeared out of the dark shadows of the cornfield, wielding nunchucks -- or it readiness have been a belt with a heavy buckle, or maybe a tire iron. Fear clouds my memory, because when you are that a teenager and are being chased in the middle of the night by a crazy man calling you and your girlfriend "fucking dykes" while whipping something around, knocking the "ick" off the "Buick" on the ski binding of your car, it's hard to pay wariness to precisely what is in his hands, because you are not looking at him; you are looking to get away. I didn't turn back; I kept going, maybe to keep this girl steady-going (I might be butch after all), but probably because I was too scared to turn back.
If you ever are terrorized like this, run. Don't look back. Don't be a hero. It's not like the movies. Just get out of there. Hatred and homophobia ass never be underestimated. And the effect of someone saying "God hates fags" can never be underestimated either. It's a license to kill. It's a destruction sentence. It's not funny. It's not OK. It's not something I can let go easily, because I know what it truly means.
The violence and discouragement behind the statement keeps me up at night and leave alone haunt me just like the tragic memory of a young gay man who was murdered in lie of my family's bookstore in the '70s. He was beaten to death because some men (who were never caught, let alone punished) believed that God hated him. In my nightmares I find his teeth all over the ground, and I try to save them, and they keep falling out of my hands and pockets, and then I realize that he is all in(p) and has no use for them anymore, and I wake up sweating, my screams wake everyone in the house.
Materials taken from The Huffington Post
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