Check out the link for the schedule of events. We have educational panels, game nights, and, of course, the Born This Way Ball to cap off the week. These events are all open to the public, so if you are in/around Southeastern Ohio, pass by the University of Rio Grande and check us out.
March 20th, 2013
Well, Michelle Shocked, I am actually totally shocked. What the hell?! It’s freaky to me, the whole business of going from a queer icon to someone who would actually say that God hates us. When the shock wore off, I found people were super angry but I just got scared. I think that as a queer person of color, I have been scared my entire life, and I get over it bit by bit, enough to get by and live, but then something like this happens and it’s like that feeling of getting gay bashed all over again.
When people say that God hates fags, there’s this idea that it’s okay to kill us, it doesn’t matter if we die, because if God hates us, the supposedly one loving force in the world, the one who is supposed to love everyone and everything, the one, the only whatever whenever, if he hates us, then how are we to exist? Also, if he hates us, why did he make so many of us?
When someone like Michelle Shocked, formerly a beloved 90s alt queer muse and maker decides that it is ok to hate us and lets us know that God does too, I am truly sickened, as she of all people should know what this means.
I made many mixed tapes with that song “Anchorage” – which was always for me a lesbian anthem. That song played in the big old car with an 8 track cassette converter, this gas guzzling behemoth of a Buick I used to peel out of a dirt parking lot behind a country roadhouse, with tall corn and grass on all sides, to get away from this scary dude who suddenly appeared out of the dark shadows of the cornfield wielding nun-chucks, or it might have been a belt with a heavy buckle, or maybe it was a tire iron.
Fear clouds my memory, because when you are being chased by a crazy man calling you and your girlfriend “you fucking dykes” and you are just a teenager, in the middle of night and nowhere and he is whipping something around, knocking the “ick” off the “Buick” on the back of your car, it’s hard to remember what was 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 safe, as I might be butch after all, but really 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 can 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 death 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 hopelessness behind the statement keeps me up at night and will haunt me just like the tragic memory of a young gay man who was murdered in front of my family’s bookstore in the 70s. He was beaten to death – because these men who were never caught nor punished believed that God hated him, and 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 dead and has no use for them anymore and I wake up sweating, my screams waking everyone in the house.
The project — which the nonprofit is calling the “Equality House” — is the first in a new campaign Planting Peace plans to wage against the group. Westboro is known for its intimidating tactics of protesting (or threatening to protest) what they refer to as America’s pro-gay, anti-God agenda, in close proximity to pride parades, soldier funerals and other events like the Sandy Hook memorial services.
~a poem by Cristina Dominguez~
Lesbian and gay man,
sold in bulk now
but still costly,
costing me a lot of
my personality
and sexualityEven when
I got the clerk
to help me,
to climb that
step stool
with that long arm tool
and get the
high end
top of the
hierarchy blend–
when it comes down,
comes over me,
it smothers me
and tries to hide
the queer that’s underneathThe tight stereotype
I’ve been
type-casted with,
the kind where,
here and there,
I stick out,
I tear at the seams
where you can see
the queer that’s underneathAt the register
they asked me to register,
to review the
exchange policy
and exchange
my fluidity
for the rigidity of,
for the stiffness
of distinction.
The subtraction and
extraction
of the part that
threatens them.
The extinction of
the queer that’s underneathThey were ready to
ring me up
ring me out
get me “over here Miss”
But I couldn’t
fashion myself
to the help
they dealt me.
So I could find
everything
“Okay”I hesitated and
contemplated.
I felt the
clothes in my hand
close in.
I drop the fabricated
fabric I tried on and,
head to the
opening and
narrow hall
simultaneously.
I embrace my ambiguity,
my embodied feeling–
reeling in the moment
in the frock that
they mock.
Exposing,
Posing,
showing-on
the queer that’s underneath
(Source: paradigmshiftnyc.com)
Don’t Say “That’s So Gay” Campaign (Wanda Sykes) [ x ]
I do this in class. If a student says “That’s so gay.” I ask them what they meant. After a common interaction, I say something like “Man, this assignment is so [insert-student’s-name-here].” For the rest of the class, that student’s name=something-not-cool. It works.
This needs to become standard business practice.
You know, Cyndi, being bisexual, pansexual, or queer aren’t fucking crimes. You don’t have to be gay to love and be in love with someone of the same gender. Now right wing bigots are going to quote you to debunk scientific studies about the genetic and/or biological roots of homosexuality. We can all choose who we date, but none of us can choose who we are attracted to.
