We're listening.

[elfs]

Oklahoma State Senator Sally Kern, talking to her supporters about her opposition to homosexuals, didn't believe that her words would get out into the open.

They did.

Comments

[solarbird]

I've been posting (and before that emailing) this shit for years. Only worse. I guess I should have been working in video.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The bandwidth for this really only existed now. It's clever. Believe me, your posts have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. And yes, I'm as pissed as you are about the LG community throwing the BT under a bus.

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

That's something new? I tried to volunteer at the LGBT Community Center in New Orleans over a decade ago, and when it was known that I was _married_ to *gasp* a man, well... "We don't have anything you could help with," or "There's nothing here for you to do," or, once, a blatantly sneered, "We don't need _your_ help." Social groups which also contained the word "Bi" in their names proved about equally welcoming -- if you were gay, you were welcome, but if you were bi, then you were "just playing around" or you "hadn't made up your mind, yet", or worse, "just wanting to use another woman to spice up your straight marriage." Transsexuals, though, at that time and in that place, at least, seemed to be fairly well accepted. It was just us horrible bisexual people who were expected to get the hint and not bother the decent people.

Same here in Texas, the one time I made an effort to try. Had chosen to pay for a speeding ticket with community service -- since any non-profit could fill out the form, so I hunted up the local LGBT outreach center, showed up, smiled and said I was interesting in volunteering... got one long look up and down, had my apparently too-girlie looks sneered at, and was reluctantly handed a form to fill out. As she handed it to me, the woman said, "We've always got way too much work to do around here, and we're desperate for anyone to help." Stress on the 'anyone' clearly indicating, "Even (ugh) you."

So I filled it out, and because I'm bloody well not going to lie to impress some snooty little bitch who will _never,_ ever, in her whole life have even _close_ to the wild, kinky, both-genders-included, totally mind-blowing, porno-verse style (but with actual orgasms in!) sex-life I've had, I put down the truth on the form -- that I was bisexual and married.

I could tell when she got to that line, watching her eyes. She didn't bother to read any further to discover that I could type 120wpm, had worked as a bookkeeper, a payroll accountant, a tax assistant, and in tech support, and could fix any computer they had and probably handle their network as well. I've also done informal but frequent counseling of people -- from teen to older adult -- who were going through difficult, frightening coming out periods, and I know _all about_ walking people through the process of getting restraining orders against dangerous ex-spouses and hunting shelters in their area after their parents have thrown them out. In other words -- I was prepared and _able_ to be useful.

Of course, it wasn't about to happen. She got to that line, looked like she'd just stepped in a knee-deep pile of manure, and said, "We're slow today. We'll call you if anything comes up."

Fuck 'em. Life is too short to waste time dealing with their crap... of course, back in New Orleans I hadn't yet developed that attitude, and it seriously hurt my feelings.

[slutdiary.livejournal.com]

What a surprise she's married to a Baptist minister.

My email:

I listened to the words you were recorded as saying. They were clearly your honest and sincere heartfelt thoughts.

I must admit that they sounded much less like the christianity I was exposed to as a young man, and much closer to the sorts of things I heard during my years as a psychiatric nurse. Matter of fact, they sounded nothing at all like any christianity in my upbringing and I was raised by some fine christians.

The only thing further I would want to hear from you would start with the words "I apologize - I was wrong" and end with a period.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

But she's not wrong, at least not in her own mind. She'll go to her grave, fifty years from now, claiming as she had claimed for the last five decades, that treating teh gays like normal people is a sure sign our world has only another ten years.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I just point and laugh. No other response will even be heard anyway.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

They won't. But it's nice to remind them all to think twice before unzipping their gobstopping idiocy in public.

[amythis.livejournal.com]

It is disgusting, but also funny in that she couldn't actually come up with anything specifically wrong with homosexuality. "It leads to discouragement." The horror!

[pteryxx.livejournal.com]

In case you haven't already seen this propagating on the Net, it is the definitive response to Sally Kern's rant: the letter from Tucker.

Link from dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/12/19915/6336/595/475355

Link from Hyphoid Logic blog:
http://vyoma108.blogspot.com/2008/03/letter-to-sally-kern-if-tucker-should.html