Building bridges via video?

How could I possibly convince someone to be gay? What would I say? "Hey - we have no rights, everyone hates us - come along and join us! Live in my personal hell - with Madonna!"

The quote is from gay actor/comic Jason Stuart, in the trailer for God and Gays: Bridging the Gap. (I'd post the YouTube thing here, but I'm not as smart as that yet - so you have to just follow the link. Sorry...)

I'm not quite sure how I found it (one of those link-to-a-link things), but it looks to be a fascinating thing. The DVD is available but for $24.95, so I ordered a copy. (I've wasted more on a month of online porn, so it seemed like a good risk.) The onlines reviews seem good - my own review to come.

I do love Jason's last line from the trailer, though....

Come on! It's the year 2004, straight people! If you let us marry each other, we'll stop marrying you!

This is stupid - especially given my own history - but I'd never ever thought about gay marriage that way! Talk about preserving the sanctity of traditional marriage!

That behavior is not acceptable

Warning: this post contains considerable vulgarity. If you find this distateful, you might want to go over here, instead...

One of my AA sponsees has both a considerable anger problem and a habit of throwing vulgarities and epithets around. He comes from redneck stock, and it shouldn't surprise me. But it still does.

I am out to this guy. He knows my story - both as a drunk and as a long-term closeted gay man. But despite that, he still hasn't figured out that "faggot" is not an acceptable term, no matter who he's talking about. So when he's spouting off about one of the many people he still resents the hell out of, the phrase Goddamned fucking faggot still flies out of his mouth.

And when I sit bolt-upright and say, "Oh, really?" he still tries (at least at first) to give me this "Come on, you know I don't mean you" line. "Nah, you're gay, man - he's the Goddamned fucking faggot."

"Oh, so this is evidently Oz, and I'm the Good Fag of the North, and this guy's the Wicked Fag of the West? Is that how it works?" I shot back, the first time he tried pulling this crap. "Sorry, that crap just doesn't fly here, bucko."

It's exactly the same argument I used to hear about "black" and "nigger." It didn't fly with me 30 years ago, and it ain't flyin' today, neither.

I watched with amusement pompous press like The Advocate declaring that the "F-word" dead - that no one would dare touch it. I don't know what little gay campus they're living in, but here in northwest Ohio, "the other F-word" is alive and well, thank you boys.

"Sorry to tell you, bucko," I told my sponsee the other night, "but when the rest of the world says faggot, they're talking about me. And regardless of what spin you try to put on it, when you say faggot, you're affirming that their use of the word is correct. You say faggot when you think of a despicable human being; so do they. You think you can put your good gay friends in some bubble, but you can't. Going around calling people faggot is unacceptable. Period."

(end rant)

Now there is a beautiful image...

This is the logo of Affirm United (or S'affirmer Ensemble for our French-speaking family), an organization within the United Church of Canada which works for the inclusion of GLBT people into the life and ministry of the church.

I found it by following a link from my friend Poor Mad Peter, and you need to click here to see their rainbow cross used in their congregation's ceremony of affirmation.

I love the imagery of the rainbow and the cross - the rainbow given as a sign of hope in Genesis, the cross as a sign of hope in the Gospels. Here in the Republic of Jesusland, we'll take hope wherever we can find it.