“I am not pro-gay marriage”

So a lot has happened this past week.

First let me applaud Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg for becoming the first Supreme Court Justice to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony. She was obviously among the majority of Justices who ruled earlier this year that homosexual couples are entitled to the same rights in marriage as heterosexual couples.

She turned 80 this year, thus proving true acceptance has no limit on age.

In other news, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney’s non-gay daughter and Wyoming Republican State Senate candidate, has gone on record stating “I am not pro-gay marriage.” I’d applaud her too, but my hands are too busy holding my head while I shake it. Oh Liz, you do realize your sister is a lesbian, right? In fact, she got married last year, if I’m not mistaken. Have you disowned her? Are you not recognizing her wife? Thanksgiving dinner is gonna be awkward this year…

Liz: “Hey you, will you pass the potatoes?”

Mary: “Liz, that’s Heather, my wife.”

Liz: “Sure. Whatevs. Just hand me the potatoes. And don’t be so gay about it.”

Mary: “Really?”

Liz: “What? You’ve read the news. I am not pro-gay marriage.”

And what does that even mean? ‘Pro-gay marriage’? So does that mean if you’re ‘anti-gay marriage’ you want everyone who’s married to be miserable? It’s always fun to see homophobic straight people try to talk about LGBT issues. They think everyone who is homosexual is ‘gay’, and that all ‘gay women’ have to be heavy-set and barrel chested, wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots, t-shirts with the sleeves rolled up and a pack of smokes stuck in one, and a slicked back pompadour. And if they aren’t, they’re just confused or going through a phase.

It’s same-sex marriage. Or just marriage equality. Why must everything have a label? I know, I know. People can’t handle things unless they can compartmentalize them. Well, if you’re one of those people, you need to read my post about discrimination within the LGBT community.

Liz Cheney’s full quote was “I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage.” So she’s for everyone having babies, except if they’re gay. Hmm. That brings up some conflicting ideas. What if a gay has a baby? Is that okay? What if a baby grows up to be gay? And then what if that gay baby wants to get married? And what if that gay baby goes into politics, and pushes for pro-gay marriage equality? And what if they win? Ooooh…what then, Liz?

Sometimes I wonder about natural selection…It’s like it’s hit or miss at times.

And wrapping up, please take a moment to remember Darren Manzella, who was killed in a car accident Thursday, August 29th. He was the combat medic who was discharged from the military under the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. Manzella then became a strong advocate for the repeal of the policy, which President Obama did repeal in 2011. Manzella was 36, and had just married his partner in July.

Discrimination within the GLBT community

With all the discrimination coming at us, from so many different angles, I thought I’d take a look at some of the most damning discrimination we face. That within our own community.

A stereotype is defined as a ‘widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

But where do stereotypes come from? Within ourselves. When a group of people do the same thing enough times, it becomes the acceptable norm for that group. At some point, the majority of lesbians had to wear flannel, cargo shorts, and Birkenstocks. That was what was acceptable in our community at that point in time.

Just as the media creates stereotypes in the African American community by celebrating the ones that commit crimes, we’ve perpetuated our own stereotypes.

To all of my lesbian readers, I’m sure you know what the butch-femme continuum is, but to those of you that don’t, here’s a link, and my Clif Notes version:

Now, the Butch-Femme Continuum is nothing more than a scale used to categorize the lesbian community. I myself, am a Soft Butch. Meaning I look and dress like a guy, but I’m not a tough, truck-driver type of woman. There are other qualities that follow that, but basically, you’re a femme if you look like a girl, and a butch if you look like a guy.

We categorize ourselves. We create these stereotypes and expectations that we force our own community to live by. How can we be upset at others for creating stereotypes when we do it to ourselves? They’re simply taking what we perpetuate and giving it publicity.

As if it’s not hard enough already for teens to come out of the closet, lesbian teens also have to figure out that not only are they homosexual, but they now have to figure out what category the lesbian community will place them in. We talk about carrying our ‘butch card’ and all this other…bullshit, honestly…and then get pissed off when a heterosexual makes a comment about lesbians and faux hawks.

And that’s just half of it. We not only perpetuate stereotypes, but we discriminate within our own community. If you are a homosexual, take a moment to think about something. How do you feel about bisexuals? Or the transgender community? Are they just freaks whom we need to distance ourselves from in our effort for equality? Are they just confused individuals? If you can’t embrace everyone the same, then what makes you deserve ‘equality’? Why do we deserve same-sex marriage when transgender teens are killing themselves over the cruel punishment they face in society over something they had no choice in?

Bisexuals are no more confused than I am when I’m trying to figure out what pasta I want from Olive Garden. Transgenders don’t need to accept the body they’re given because some unseen deity screwed up when handing out crotches.

And attraction has nothing to do with stereotypes. I dress in men’s clothing and have short hair and strut instead of prance because that’s what makes me feel comfortable. Not because that gives me a higher score on some imaginary scale or because I need to fulfill a stereotype to make me fit in. I have the things I’m attracted in, and over the years, I’ve dated women of all shapes and sizes. When asked what my ‘type’ is, I can honestly say I don’t have one. Eyes and smile get me first. Everything else just adds to it.

All our lives we categorize everything around us. And we learn it at a young age. Mom and dad tell us to pick up our toys, and give us a place to put those toys. A place for everything and everything in its place. We carry that with us through our lives. It’s easier to handle things when we can put them in a category, and tuck them away into a compartment in our mind of how things are supposed to be.

I say we upset that balance. We upset that categorizing that has come to rule so many aspects of our lives. Stop labeling, stop categorizing, and you’ll see there’s nothing left to stereotype. Because when it all comes down to the end, we are human, and if you line enough of us up, you’ll see the only real difference between us is what’s inside.

So the next time you participate in a march for equality, ask yourself, are you really marching for everyone’s equality? Or just your own? Stop stereotyping, and just be.

LGBT Site of the Week – Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association

The Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association, also known as GLISA, has been around since 2006, when the Federation of Gay Games pulled their sanctioning and moved the Gay Games VII to Chicago. The organization now hosts the World Outgames, the 3rd of which is hosted this year in Antwerp, Belgium.

GLISA also supports equality in all sports for the LGBT community. They speak out against discrimination in sports on an international level. In fact, they recently released a statement to the International Olympic Committee requesting the Olympics be removed from Russia.

They’re a great, home-grown, equal rights group that needs our support. Go to their  website here and check them out.

Diagnosis: Rainbow-itis

Apparently some doctors are content taking a step backwards when it comes to medical diagnosis. According to several different sources, a Southern California doctor diagnosed a man as having chronic homosexual behavior, and even went so far as to use code 302.0.

These codes are used as diagnostic codes not only for billing purposes, but also to help other physicians quickly identify a patient’s medical diagnosis. The set of codes using 302 all pertain to varying acts of sexual deviancy, including pedophilia and necrophilia. It should also be noted that when homosexuality was declassified by the APA (American Psychological Association) in the 1970’s, it was highly recommended that homosexuality no longer be classified as a disease either.

What’s disturbing is not only is it still considered a treatable disease, but it’s still technically a valid code. You can read the story here.

So apparently it’s not out of the realm of possibility that one might ‘catch the gay’. And that got me to thinking. What are all the possible ways a heterosexual could catch the gay. I came up with my top ten list.

10. Toilet seats – Look at all the different things we could catch from toilet seats – AIDS, cancer, pregnancy. It’s only logical that one could catch the gay from a toilet seat. Especially when you factor in the number of times we see a news story about some prominent person soliciting gay sex in a bathroom.

9. Airborne pathogens – Try as we may, it’s often extremely difficult to contain this much fabulousness in a small radius. Sometimes, our glitter gets caught up in the air ducts or blown by the breeze. You take a breath, and BOOM! If you’re a woman, you’re suddenly craving plaid shorts and microbrews, and if you’re a man, you find yourself with this unexplained need to trim your eyebrows and get a manicure.

8. Money – They say 90% of all US money, especially dollar bills, contains some trace of cocaine. And I definitely can see where some of that money may also contain gay. Because if you look close enough, you can find the letters to spell out ‘rainbow’ and ‘gay’. So to all the straight people out there – the next time you think about snorting a line, consider this: you are really snorting a line of rainbow covered evil.

7. Water – This one is given. We homosexuals generally take good care of ourselves, which includes personal hygiene. We shower, some of the gay falls off in our skin cells and hair follicles, and then gets washed down the drain, into the water. Even if that water goes through a filtering system, the gay is very robust and has a tendency to survive multiple filters, only to find its way to your glass of water. Why do you think the water you use on your plants makes them grow so well? It’s not because of the Miracle Gro. Oh no, it’s because of the ingrained lesbian trait of yard work and landscaping. We’re natural at it, it’s in our genes.

6. Contact – Don’t touch a gay. They teach that in preschool. No, wait, that’s don’t touch a hot stove. Well, this one is important too. Gay can completely rub off on you, so if you see a gay coming towards you, you either need to cross the street to avoid potential contact, or lay down and play dead. The CDC says that touching a gay increases your risk of contracting the gay by 93.452%. And that’s an exact figure.

5. Being in the same room – Again, with all of the different ways one could catch the gay, the most obvious one is this. So it’s best to avoid being the the same room as a homosexual. It just makes things easier. And if you’re forced to, say share an elevator with one, don’t make eye contact. The first thing you should do is listen to the muzak. If it’s Madonna, Cher, or Brittany Spears, you should be okay. They’ll be distracted by the music and probably won’t even notice your presence. However, if it’s anything else, you may have to make small talk. Just mention things like Ellen DeGeneres, marriage equality, or Pride, and you’ll be safe. You don’t have to know anything about these topics, just mentioning them will most likely get the homosexual to go off onto a tangent, and before you know it, you’ll be to your destination and you won’t have caught the gay.

4 through 2 all involve really in depth medical terminology, so I’ll save you the trouble and just tell you that cars, computers, libraries, grocery stores (especially organic or vegan) are all completely unsafe because of the nature of the gay. Basically, stay home, close all your windows and vents, and order everything online.

And the number one way to catch the gay?

Mosquito bites. That’s right. The mosquito. Think about it. They bite the leg of a gay, suck a lot of fabulous blood, then fly around and land on you. They stick their little needle nose under your skin and Whammo – you’ve got the gay, by transference. It makes ultimate sense too. We homos, especially the lesbians, love bonfires. And bonfires are lit in the summer months, when the mosquito population is at their highest. So here we are, sitting around a bonfire in our plaid shorts, sipping our micro brewed beer, when OUCH! a mosquito bites us. Only we’re slightly intoxicated, which allows the mosquito to take more of our blood before we notice. Then it flies away and lands on some hapless heterosexual. And now they’re gay.

So in the end, suffice to say anyone who is afraid of catching the gay needs to enter their doomsday bunker now. Especially since it’s been coded as a diagnosis by some ridiculous doctor in California with her own agenda.

But, ultimately, it proves we’re here to stay, and under some circumstances, attempting to recruit at a biological level. Now go out there and get your respirator and biohazard suit.