Queer girl for the straight world
Aug. 8th, 2003 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenFor a while now I've had the vague desire to offer my services to humanity by going around to people, walking up to them, possibly shaking their hand and saying "Hello, I'm one of those 'gay' people you hear so much about. Please note that I am actually a human being, and at no time have I tried to molest your children or worship Satan. In fact I'm pretty normal. If you have any questions let me know."
I suppose in theory I could always contact PFLAG or something and ask if they're looking for speakers, but my point is that so often when I hear people talking about how sick/immoral/wrong/apt to kick puppies gay people are, my immediate thought is "Have you met one?" I would honestly love to sit down with people like that, have lunch, and talk. I can't help but feel that this might clear up a lot of their confusion.
I bring this up because I think one such opportunity has fallen into my lap. As some of you may know I moderate a few mailing lists, and one is a list devoted to people who, like me, practice a form of religion/spirituality that's a combination of Catholic and pagan ideas. It's not a bad little list, all things considered. Like most of my mailing lists (see also: batslash) it pretty much moderates itself, which is good because for years now I've hardly posted to it (see also: batslash). It's not that I'm not interested in the topic, it's just that I'm too busy to be an active mod, and I recognized that a few people on the list could do that job better than I could, so I more or less handed the reins over to them and went into lurker mode, only dipping in from time to time to read the latest posts and see what was up.
Well this week got me out of lurking. As you can imagine, current events were a popular topic, and one of those events was the gay bishop. Now during the week I'd seen the subject headings about the bishop but hadn't really read the posts, figuring the group could handle itself. This morning, though, I saw some of the subject headings change over to "gay" and the like, so I figured why not take a closer look?
Much to my surprise, a group dedicated to the incredibly niche market of Catholic PAGANS still had a few people in it who did not get the gay thing. Some were calling it an illness, others a sin against God.
I have to admit that this surprised me. I mean not to stereotype my own group or anything but - for fuck's sake, guys. You're Catholic PAGANS. Cleary literal definitions of the Bible are not your kink. How are you open minded enough in your spirituality to be casting rituals and spells yet had to pull back and go "Well the magic and the occasional invoking of the names of other dieties is okay, but the queer thing - that's too much."
[eyeroll]
Anyhoo, as you can imagine that got me posting. I grabbed a reply from one poster who started off his letter with words to the effect of "Not that I'm saying we should condemn homosexuals" and, deleting the bit where he then went on to compare us to pedophiles, I then said that speaking as the bisexual person who created the group he's making that statement on, gosh the "not going to condemn" thing made me happy to hear.
I then went on to say I wasn't going to kick anyone off the group for not being comfortable with homosexuality, but if they were that interested in talking about it well - here you go. Live gay girl. Ask away!
Who knows if they'll take me up on it but at least I made the offer. Made me late for work but what can you do?
In other more boring news it's raining right now and looks like I won't be going to the Ren Fair tomorrow. [pout] Perhaps Sunday.
I suppose in theory I could always contact PFLAG or something and ask if they're looking for speakers, but my point is that so often when I hear people talking about how sick/immoral/wrong/apt to kick puppies gay people are, my immediate thought is "Have you met one?" I would honestly love to sit down with people like that, have lunch, and talk. I can't help but feel that this might clear up a lot of their confusion.
I bring this up because I think one such opportunity has fallen into my lap. As some of you may know I moderate a few mailing lists, and one is a list devoted to people who, like me, practice a form of religion/spirituality that's a combination of Catholic and pagan ideas. It's not a bad little list, all things considered. Like most of my mailing lists (see also: batslash) it pretty much moderates itself, which is good because for years now I've hardly posted to it (see also: batslash). It's not that I'm not interested in the topic, it's just that I'm too busy to be an active mod, and I recognized that a few people on the list could do that job better than I could, so I more or less handed the reins over to them and went into lurker mode, only dipping in from time to time to read the latest posts and see what was up.
Well this week got me out of lurking. As you can imagine, current events were a popular topic, and one of those events was the gay bishop. Now during the week I'd seen the subject headings about the bishop but hadn't really read the posts, figuring the group could handle itself. This morning, though, I saw some of the subject headings change over to "gay" and the like, so I figured why not take a closer look?
Much to my surprise, a group dedicated to the incredibly niche market of Catholic PAGANS still had a few people in it who did not get the gay thing. Some were calling it an illness, others a sin against God.
I have to admit that this surprised me. I mean not to stereotype my own group or anything but - for fuck's sake, guys. You're Catholic PAGANS. Cleary literal definitions of the Bible are not your kink. How are you open minded enough in your spirituality to be casting rituals and spells yet had to pull back and go "Well the magic and the occasional invoking of the names of other dieties is okay, but the queer thing - that's too much."
[eyeroll]
Anyhoo, as you can imagine that got me posting. I grabbed a reply from one poster who started off his letter with words to the effect of "Not that I'm saying we should condemn homosexuals" and, deleting the bit where he then went on to compare us to pedophiles, I then said that speaking as the bisexual person who created the group he's making that statement on, gosh the "not going to condemn" thing made me happy to hear.
I then went on to say I wasn't going to kick anyone off the group for not being comfortable with homosexuality, but if they were that interested in talking about it well - here you go. Live gay girl. Ask away!
Who knows if they'll take me up on it but at least I made the offer. Made me late for work but what can you do?
In other more boring news it's raining right now and looks like I won't be going to the Ren Fair tomorrow. [pout] Perhaps Sunday.
