Choosing To Be Gay

Mayor Pete Buttigieg (of South Bend) and Mike Pence are both politicians from Indiana. To his credit, Mayor Pete remembers every nasty thing that Pence did to ruin the happiness of Indiana homosexuals while he, Pence, was in one office or another in the state. He is still disposed to hold Pence's feet to the fire whenever he gets a chance. I recall the general outlines of Pence's campaign of terror and discrimination, all in the name of religion, and I'm just a concerned outsider. Mayor Pete was a citizen of Indiana, and gay.

(For a nice rundown of Mike Pence's greatest (anti gay) hits, see the website of the Indiana Democratic Party (indem.org). They have a nice timeline covering anti gay legislation that Mike Pence either initiated or helped pass. It's too much to copy here.)

He's still at it, Pence is. That fat, white monument to religiously based intolerance and hatred just can't let go of the gay thing. It's almost as though Mike believed that the homosexuals, the handsome male homosexuals, were following him around trying to trap him in their lifestyle! Mike seems to be afraid that he could have a dog in that fight! What is he afraid of?

The two of them were at each others throats last week.

Mayor Pete addressed Pence in a speech before the LGBTQ Victory Fund, suggesting that:

“. . . if you (Pence) have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.” (Daily Beast; The Raw Story.)

By suggesting that he, and all other gay men and women, had been born gay, he really got Pence's attention. This is because Mike Pence, and most of those insufferable religious exclusivists, claim to believe that homosexuality is a choice. After all, God's opinion is right there in the Bible. In an early book of the Old Testament.

These people slay me. That “choice” argument belongs in the first order of stupidity. It's right up there with the belief that the earth is flat. But here it is again, from a man whose personal values and morals are slippery enough to allow him to back every play that Donald Trump makes. “I'm a Bible believing Christian. I draw my truth from God's word.” (cnn.com) These guys are so stupid that they stand there saying this with no beard, wearing clothing made from blended fabrics. I'll bet that if you made a cursory investigation, you would discover that Pence's wife has never once spent the night in the shed because she was menstruating. These Old Testament Bible thumping so-called Christians make me sick. Even Jesus had little patience with the Old Testament. “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” Now, two thousand years later, geniuses like Mike Pence claim to know the mind of God better than God or Jesus. Somebody gag me with a spoon.

All of the hundreds of versions of Christianity agree that there is an all powerful, unique entity referred to as “God,” who lives outside of time and space, having preceded both things, and in fact having created both time and space, out of nothing. In this system, God created us as well, in a flash, using the results of his creation of time and space.

The spectrum of people who believe this nonsense always amazes me, It ranges from the extremely dumb, like Mike Pence, to the extremely intelligent, like Pete Buttigieg. It is the very silliness of religion what has resulted in the hundreds of versions of Christianity. There is no evidence for any of it; it is all a matter of “belief.” You must believe! Well no, there really is no reason to believe any of it. In the absence of any evidence whatsoever, there is nothing to compel anyone to believe any of it.

This is why Mike and Pete can disagree so vigorously on the choice question. This lack of evidence leaves people on their own, free to interpret the rules and norms of Christianity in wildly different ways. Does God want us to baptize babies, or does God insist that the individual to be baptized be an adult? Is reaching the age of consent sufficient? The age of reason? Is the Sabbath every Sunday? Or is it Saturday? Europeans used to fight endless wars over things like these.

Take a break here. The only source materials for this foolishness come in the form of mediocre, fourth or fifth generation translations of Iron Age texts which all, in turn, separated by centuries, had to pass through an approval process designed to please the political requirements of a royal personage. Perfectly good revealed texts were discarded as having no value to the power elite of the time or appearing to contradict other revealed texts that the bosses liked.

Now add the cherry-pickers who refuse to take Mr. Jesus' sage advice to shit-can the entire Old Testament as superannuated bullshit. The beardless shrimp eaters in their cotton/polyester shirts under woolen suits. This allows some men to believe that God made us all straight because being straight pleased God and by golly, God don't make junk. This is a comfort to men whose teenage experience included unbidden erections while watching Hercules or a gladiator movie and who decided right then and there that hell no, they were straight and that was that. Prayer was their way to keep the demons at bay after that. We're all straight, gol-darn it! If anyone CHOOSES to be gay at some later date, that is a terrible sin and God had nothing to do with it.

On the other hand, it allows other men, like Mayor Pete, to believe that God made us all, and if some of us were born gay, that was God's will. For the same reason: God don't make junk.

Most reasonable men and women these days think that Mayor Pete has the better side of this argument. Most of us know and love some homosexuals, they are our friends and family, we work together, we go to school and serve in the military together, and we have been assured many times that yes, they have always known that they were gay, they were, in fact, born gay. It's obvious to most REASONABLE people.

Mike Pence is far from reasonable though, so he and Mr. Buttigieg are gearing up for a war over that point of belief, just like those long ago Europeans would in their shoes. Mr. Pence has even mentioned the 1^st Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion. I would give my eye teeth to see him bring that question to the courts. Those would be Federal Courts, and some poor judge would have to listen to lawyers arguing that Mr. Buttigieg somehow violated Mr. Pence's right to hold a literal belief in the Old Testament, in its entirety, standing there without a beard. Pure comedy gold, that.

Speaking of potential for humor! That entire “choosing to be gay” thing makes me wonder if anyone has ever thought that one through. What would the mechanics of that be? Some kid is not getting anywhere with the local girls so he figures, fuck it, I'm going with the guys. The kid wants to get some one way or the other. Like you could turn it on with a switch. I did some thinking about what this would look like, and it was some funny shit. I discarded the idea, though. Way too stupid and unbelievable, unless you're Mike Pence.

Trans NON-Phobic, Definitely

Let's get that out of the way up front. I am not trans-phobic in any way that I can imagine defining the word. I've known trannies in both directions, and I'm fine with it. Also note that I am not now, nor have I ever been, anti-homosexual in any way. To the best of my recollection, and my recollection is more reliable than most people's, there has never been a time when I bore any ill will to any homosexuals, men or women, in general or in particular. Live and let live; let people be themselves. I think it goes without saying that the state trying to forbid married couples from performing certain acts in the privacy of their own homes is a complete non-starter. I think that's true for any two or more consenting adults who don't make a spectacle of themselves. Keep it quiet, and keep it to yourselves. It's none of my business. Do I hear a “but” coming?

But, I do not support rights for pedophiles, beyond the right to be imprisoned with the general population. Don't ask me to make any close calls in this area, like a seventeen year old high school boy with a fifteen year old girlfriend in a state where the age of consent is sixteen. But in general, pedophiles are outside of any reasonable society's norms of behavior. There are limits.

My feelings about barnyard sex are somewhat ambiguous. Aren't animals still considered property? Did that change while I wasn't paying attention? Have dogs been awarded privacy rights? Even so, there would still be the farm animals, they are certainly property. Sheep, horses. So I guess the farm animals are fair game, no? If they are property, well, I can't imaging a guy getting arrested for fucking his couch. And this is one area where almost all of the enthusiasts are men. Pitchers and catchers, too! That aspect of it gets pretty amazing. I remember reading a few years ago about a guy in the Pacific Northwest who “died after having sex with a horse.” I assumed that he was slipping it to a mare and she kicked him to death, or maybe he had a heart attack or something. But, no. The article was a bit vague, so you didn't really figure it out until you got to the part where it was explained that the guy bled to death from a perforated colon. I'm going to leave this whole line of inquiry to the legal experts.

Here is my guilty admission for today: I do think that American society has gotten completely carried away with categorizing people, mostly for the purpose of judging them. Harshly, in most cases.

Thinking about this the other day, I took pen in hand and set forth a list of the potential categories for non-standard sexual preferences. I was over twenty before I gave up. The variety is amazing, and everything that I was considering should be within a persons rights to define themselves.

Take gay men, for instance. Just your average man who seeks tenderness and affection (read: sex) from other men. There are at least a dozen categories right there.

There are gay men whose appearance and mannerisms are completely, perfectly male. It's not a disguise; that's just the way they are. No gaydar could make one certain about them, and they would casually be assumed to be straight. Then at the other end of that spectrum there are guys who display wild exaggerations of feminine mannerisms that are so obvious that you can spot them two blocks away. Then consider that there are guys at every click along this spectrum. Slightly Nelly; very Nancy; quietly swish; swish only when drinking; every possibility.

Then consider that gay men, like all humans, pick and choose from the available sexual behaviors that the human body makes possible. Many gay men only engage in oral activities. Among the inserts crowd, there are guys who are exclusively pitchers and others who only catch. A lot of guys are game for anything, and I worked with one guy who seemed to be actively hungry for everything, like he had a checklist and needed to fill in all of the boxes. Devices were involved. There is a tremendous diversity of behavior here, and this is only the gay men! And we haven't even begun to discuss cross-dressing!

As a concession to the brevity of life, I will refrain from duplicating the above analysis as it regards lesbians.

I think that it's important to admit that once we cross the border into trannie territory, all of the decisions become more critical, and perhaps even more private because doctors have become involved. Oh, but that's a two-edged sword, isn't it? The doctor-patient privilege protects private information, but the fact of the relationship itself is very visible! That must be disagreeable for shy participants.

This is the area where the rest of us, the “just folks,” can get a bit confused. Partly because here, too, there is a broad spectrum required to display people's desires and needs, psychological and physical, and that entire spectrum is more obscure to the rest of us. My own emotions regarding people who are simply gay are clear and straightforward: go for it! I enjoy your company, and I appreciate your grace and charm. Regarding the trans- crowd, I cannot help but experience a vague feeling of compassion that cannot exactly resolve itself into clarity. I wish them well, and I wish them success in their journey, but I cannot quite come to grips with my emotions, because I'm never quite sure what “success” they are shooting for, or what is the nature of the journey that they are on.

Doctors are necessary for all of it, though, and that is, I think, the important dividing line. Many people are not happy somehow with their gender identity, not happy in a way that is so deep that it cannot be satisfied just by modifying their behavior in some way. Some of them want hormone treatments, but no surgery. Some are satisfied with cross dressing and a bit of hormone therapy. Some men just want to smooth out their skin, raise their voices a little, and grow their hair. They may wish to look better in their dresses, but it's possible that they only want that body. Many women are content to dress in men's clothing that minimizes their female sexual characteristics, adding a men's haircut. Other men and women wish to go as far as medical science can take them into the realm of becoming the other sex, physical characteristics and all. What they may want in the way of tenderness and comfort is beyond my meager talents to discern. Unless it's obvious, of course, but often it is not.

My plea here is to be understood as a person whose heart is in the right place regarding our trans brothers and sisters, even if my head is a bit late sometimes in catching up. To anyone engaged in that struggle, I say be strong and the best of luck to you. Don't pay too much attention to the stupid shit that the rest of us say. What do we know anyway?

More Self-Censorship

I try to shelter you, gentle readers, from the worst of my negativity.  But in my private moments, watching TV or reading the news on the ‘Net, comments to myself can approach, or cross, the borders of decorum.   For instance . . .

I saw a picture of two world leaders accompanying an article.  Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Ugandan President Uhuru Kenyatta.  The legend told us, “Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (left) . . .”  As though the tall, black gentleman were the Premier of China.  They were having a meeting about business between the two countries.  I don’t know about you, but I’m very concerned about two things that came to mind immediately:  China’s “soft power” activities around the world, especially in Africa, and the treatment of homosexuals in Africa, especially in Uganda. 

My comment to myself was this, “we don’t care if you brand your homosexuals, herd them like cattle, and sell them as meat.  Just show us the money.” 

Was that fair of me?  Mr. Li may be a very nice man for all I know.  Perhaps I should limit my comments to things like, “where did he get that tie?!?!”  or, “couldn’t he afford a suit that fit him?” or the ever popular, “that dress is horrible!”