You Can't Straddle This Fence...
.......You'll get slivers in your nethers. Those down unders where they may cause some squirmin'.
This is a sore subject for me, perhaps a bad pun too, but I find myself revisiting on a regular basis. Perhaps it's the ethnology and culture of the community within which I make my life. Religion is a HUGE topic. Was that clear? I mean a permeating, overpowering, dominate, overbearing topic that doesn't go away.
With the way things, such as this particular issue, are viewed in my neck o' the woods, I seem to visit the same topics over and over. Which means I must be clear as mud when it comes to expressing how I feel about some of these issues or people just can't let go of old ideas. While visiting one of these issues this evening, an oft repeated phrase preoccupied and immersed my attention. "I'm not prejudice, but...." I listened carefully and I wondered, how does one utter those words without the resulting phrase being an oxymoron? We are, all of us, by nature, prejudice. You can't exist and not be prejudice. I am prejudicial towards idiots. My prevailing thought being, get an education - stupid!
I countered with my standard, "How does this impact your life?" The response really irritated me, because ultimately, it doesn't impact your life. It being gay. And if you think that it does, are you really so selfish as to believe that such an individual should just remain anonymous and miserable in their own lives in order to accommodate yours? Are we really that self absorbed? (Can you see the oxymoron?) In which case I would have to counter so many people that tell me that others who look for the personal freedom to be themselves and be happy without apologies are themselves, just being selfish. Well pot, this is the kettle, and last time I checked, you were black.
I guess perhaps the answer is, yes, we really are that self absorbed. We really think that if another persons life is somehow outside of our realm of acceptable, that they are selfish and not considering others. But why? Because they might make us uncomfortable? As Eddie Murphy so eloquently relates for us in "Delirious", "What the fuck, Gus? Gunigugu!"
I fail, miserably I might add, at seeing how the natural tendencies of one individual can really negatively impact another. All I can see, really, is the tragedy that miserable people create for themselves and others, when they deny who they are and try to live by the arbitrary principles of others. Tragic, that a young man or woman would marry someone and even go so far as to have children only to collapse under pressure and finally leave the situation to be who they are, gay and happy.(Can that be in the same sentence?) That is tragic. That, marrying and having kids and then leaving, impacts others lives. But, being true to oneself, being GLBTQ, marrying a partner and living a life, does not impact our society in way that I can fathom is detrimental to the culture at large over a long term.
There are actions in which others engage that do have a negative impact on me. Illicit drugs, irresponsible consumption of alcohol, self absorbed politicians, bad corporations or copious, capricious sex with strangers (you might have illegitimate children, or contract nasty things down in those nethers.Get it?). These things impact my life, my children, my family, my real estate investments. But other than the closed minds of my immediate community members, being gay? Mmmmmm, Nope. And while I kept my mouth shut tonight because I didn't feel it appropriate to engage in an argument over the subject, I did find it, well, frustrating. Will we never learn?
This is a sore subject for me, perhaps a bad pun too, but I find myself revisiting on a regular basis. Perhaps it's the ethnology and culture of the community within which I make my life. Religion is a HUGE topic. Was that clear? I mean a permeating, overpowering, dominate, overbearing topic that doesn't go away.
With the way things, such as this particular issue, are viewed in my neck o' the woods, I seem to visit the same topics over and over. Which means I must be clear as mud when it comes to expressing how I feel about some of these issues or people just can't let go of old ideas. While visiting one of these issues this evening, an oft repeated phrase preoccupied and immersed my attention. "I'm not prejudice, but...." I listened carefully and I wondered, how does one utter those words without the resulting phrase being an oxymoron? We are, all of us, by nature, prejudice. You can't exist and not be prejudice. I am prejudicial towards idiots. My prevailing thought being, get an education - stupid!
I countered with my standard, "How does this impact your life?" The response really irritated me, because ultimately, it doesn't impact your life. It being gay. And if you think that it does, are you really so selfish as to believe that such an individual should just remain anonymous and miserable in their own lives in order to accommodate yours? Are we really that self absorbed? (Can you see the oxymoron?) In which case I would have to counter so many people that tell me that others who look for the personal freedom to be themselves and be happy without apologies are themselves, just being selfish. Well pot, this is the kettle, and last time I checked, you were black.
I guess perhaps the answer is, yes, we really are that self absorbed. We really think that if another persons life is somehow outside of our realm of acceptable, that they are selfish and not considering others. But why? Because they might make us uncomfortable? As Eddie Murphy so eloquently relates for us in "Delirious", "What the fuck, Gus? Gunigugu!"
I fail, miserably I might add, at seeing how the natural tendencies of one individual can really negatively impact another. All I can see, really, is the tragedy that miserable people create for themselves and others, when they deny who they are and try to live by the arbitrary principles of others. Tragic, that a young man or woman would marry someone and even go so far as to have children only to collapse under pressure and finally leave the situation to be who they are, gay and happy.(Can that be in the same sentence?) That is tragic. That, marrying and having kids and then leaving, impacts others lives. But, being true to oneself, being GLBTQ, marrying a partner and living a life, does not impact our society in way that I can fathom is detrimental to the culture at large over a long term.
There are actions in which others engage that do have a negative impact on me. Illicit drugs, irresponsible consumption of alcohol, self absorbed politicians, bad corporations or copious, capricious sex with strangers (you might have illegitimate children, or contract nasty things down in those nethers.Get it?). These things impact my life, my children, my family, my real estate investments. But other than the closed minds of my immediate community members, being gay? Mmmmmm, Nope. And while I kept my mouth shut tonight because I didn't feel it appropriate to engage in an argument over the subject, I did find it, well, frustrating. Will we never learn?
posted by Molly Sue at
10:14 PM
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