Let me paint a picture for you. Friday, November 21st, 2008. Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan. Beginning at 02:45 pm Eastern, the Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing. Where? A funeral? Not quite. They'll be picketing a high school. That's right. These morons are going to picket a public high school, and why? Because the school is going to be putting on a production of The Laramie Project, a play telling the story of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was brutally tortured and killed in Laramie, Wyoming ten years ago.
Keep two things in mind, here. One, this is the tenth protest of thirty that Fred Phelps and his sheep have planned for the rest of 2008. I'm not even going to count next year, because their first scheduled protest is January 20th. Guess where. I may actually watch the inauguration now. I want to see a glimpse of them getting arrested on live TV.
Two, this is a group that has been publicly banned from Canada. Yes, I typed that correctly. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church are currently prohibited from entering the country of Canada, and they're going to follow up the protest of Grosse Pointe South with two protests at the Canadian Consulate in Detroit.
As a matter of fact, I think there's only one thing that WBC and I agree upon: a dislike of Sarah Palin.
Let's see...some interesting quotes from their webpage, specifically the one listing their picket schedule...
"God hates you, and you're going to hell"
"God hates Mexico"
"God hates Canada"
"George Carlin is in hell" (Well, duh.)
"God hates Congo"
"Queen Elizabeth is a whore!" (Sadly, I am not making this up.)
"Muslims are pedophile freaks!" (Seriously. How are these idiots still alive?)
Also, apparently they're going to picket places in Washington, D.C. tomorrow, just because they're there. Although, on the subject of Washington...looking at their picket brief for the inauguration, they apparently were so busy calling President-elect Obama a heathen that either they forgot he was black, or they just don't care.
At least that's something.
Also, in a pathetically obvious occurrence of irony, they refer to their picketing as a "Love Crusade".
And the thing about the high school protest. The students of the school are apparently actually motivated by these idiots. And the principal said they're not going to stop them. I hope they don't. It'll be funny to see protesters get beaten with their own signs. (And I have a feeling that that's what will happen.)
I apologize in advance if I'm a little more emotional and biased than I usually am. It's just that Westboro kind of hits a nerve. I don't mind that they believe what they do, in fact, I encourage it, because it will likely cause less reactionary Christians to question their religion, which is exactly what they should be doing in the first place. What I mind is that they choose to share their beliefs in a hateful way. It bothers me that someone could hold so much hate for, well...everything.
I believe I heard it put that WBC is the live-action version of 4chan. After thinking on that for a few days, I'm inclined to agree. And 4chan is a terrible, terrible thing for humanity. They're completely necessary, but they're designed to hate. The difference is 4chan is a place where each and every one of us can let the evil and the hate out of ourselves in complete and utter anonymity. Westboro? They live their hate, and it will destroy them in the end.
But I've gone on too long for this. Until the next time.
09 November 2008
06 November 2008
A Minute Identity Crisis
What have I become? I had spent two years striving to be the most neutral person I could be, the way I learned. I was originally going to say "the way my father taught me", but looking back on things, he was just as biased with regards to politics as he was with regards to football. But that's not a bad thing, which is indeed my point here tonight.
My father taught me something when I was still a teenager, and that's something that stuck with me until recently, when it became very possible that I would indeed be able to vote in this election, and I finally started actually paying attention and taking it all in. He told me that the difference between Democrats and Republicans was that Democrats feel, while Republicans think. And, for a number of years, I agreed. I even sympathized with the election of George W. Bush to a second term, and backed a Republican candidate in the 2006 Michigan gubernatorial election, which is something I said I'd never do. (Though should Jennifer Granholm run again, I will again support a Republican.)
But that's not the point. The point is the axiom. Democrats feel, yes. That much is true. And Republicans usually do think. But they feel just as much as Democrats do. Most Republicans who toe the GOP line feel very strongly that gay marriage is an abomination. Quite a number of them also feel that just being gay is an abomination. Abortion? Stem cell research? Just about anything involving transsexuals? It's all based on feelings, for most Republicans. Hell, for most Americans.
Let me tell you something. I've read the Bible verses that are always thrown at me to defend the slipshod arguments that are always constructed, like bad prefab housing, around the idea that gay marriage and adoption shouldn't happen. And you know what? Not a single one of them matters. Because marriage in the United States is two things: a religious ceremony, one that you of a church can choose to deny a homosexual couple, and a legal contract, which none of you has any right to deny any person. And that's a lesson that California could stand to learn.
But I digress. My main point? There's so much less different between any two Americans than people would like to admit. I started struggling to get by in 2005, about a month after George W. Bush was inaugurated a second time. I'll still be struggling to get by in January 2009, when President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated. And I have this little inkling in the back of my mind that in 2013, when my first child will be three, almost four (the age I was way back in 1991), I'll still be struggling to get by. And so will everyone else who's struggling to get by now. Because Barack Obama can't change the world. He'll have a hard time changing America's mind about whether or not two men have the right to visit each other in the hospital.
And you and me? We're not that different after all. You're a living, breathing, human being (at least, I hope so), and so am I. I do my best to work for a living and put food on the table for my fiancée and future child, and indeed, to even make sure that we can sit at that table every night. And I'd be willing to bet, so do you. In fact, the way I see it, George W. Bush does the same thing. Sure, he may not need to pull that 40+ a week, the way you or I do, but he does it anyway. And he may not need to do it to make sure his wife and daughters eat every night, but the fact that he still works for a living, and still spends his money on his family, makes him the same as all the rest of us.
And that's the way it's going to be for a long, long time.
My father taught me something when I was still a teenager, and that's something that stuck with me until recently, when it became very possible that I would indeed be able to vote in this election, and I finally started actually paying attention and taking it all in. He told me that the difference between Democrats and Republicans was that Democrats feel, while Republicans think. And, for a number of years, I agreed. I even sympathized with the election of George W. Bush to a second term, and backed a Republican candidate in the 2006 Michigan gubernatorial election, which is something I said I'd never do. (Though should Jennifer Granholm run again, I will again support a Republican.)
But that's not the point. The point is the axiom. Democrats feel, yes. That much is true. And Republicans usually do think. But they feel just as much as Democrats do. Most Republicans who toe the GOP line feel very strongly that gay marriage is an abomination. Quite a number of them also feel that just being gay is an abomination. Abortion? Stem cell research? Just about anything involving transsexuals? It's all based on feelings, for most Republicans. Hell, for most Americans.
Let me tell you something. I've read the Bible verses that are always thrown at me to defend the slipshod arguments that are always constructed, like bad prefab housing, around the idea that gay marriage and adoption shouldn't happen. And you know what? Not a single one of them matters. Because marriage in the United States is two things: a religious ceremony, one that you of a church can choose to deny a homosexual couple, and a legal contract, which none of you has any right to deny any person. And that's a lesson that California could stand to learn.
But I digress. My main point? There's so much less different between any two Americans than people would like to admit. I started struggling to get by in 2005, about a month after George W. Bush was inaugurated a second time. I'll still be struggling to get by in January 2009, when President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated. And I have this little inkling in the back of my mind that in 2013, when my first child will be three, almost four (the age I was way back in 1991), I'll still be struggling to get by. And so will everyone else who's struggling to get by now. Because Barack Obama can't change the world. He'll have a hard time changing America's mind about whether or not two men have the right to visit each other in the hospital.
And you and me? We're not that different after all. You're a living, breathing, human being (at least, I hope so), and so am I. I do my best to work for a living and put food on the table for my fiancée and future child, and indeed, to even make sure that we can sit at that table every night. And I'd be willing to bet, so do you. In fact, the way I see it, George W. Bush does the same thing. Sure, he may not need to pull that 40+ a week, the way you or I do, but he does it anyway. And he may not need to do it to make sure his wife and daughters eat every night, but the fact that he still works for a living, and still spends his money on his family, makes him the same as all the rest of us.
And that's the way it's going to be for a long, long time.
03 November 2008
Politics? What are those?
It seems like about this time of the year, everyone's got some sort of blog about the election, or about why you should vote for Obama, or McCain, or write in someone, but I'm not like that. If you want to take your advice from some other source, read Esquire. (Seriously. They made some good points, and didn't just toe a party line.) And I'm not even voting (moved to a new state, lived here less than thirty days, as such, cannot register. It's a bitch, I know), so I guess that there's nothing I can say that will matter anyway.
And before I get into the real topic of this blog post, let me say that yes, I did delete a few posts. I deleted them for two reasons: they were bogged down with hateful comments, and I don't wish for anything I say in this blog to be taken at something other than face value, because I had something else in a previous post. Such a practice is low, and completely unethical, but it happens anyway.
I had planned a list of actual topics for tonight, but as it's 5:15 AM, I'm going to go to sleep, and perhaps type something up tomorrow. Until then.
And before I get into the real topic of this blog post, let me say that yes, I did delete a few posts. I deleted them for two reasons: they were bogged down with hateful comments, and I don't wish for anything I say in this blog to be taken at something other than face value, because I had something else in a previous post. Such a practice is low, and completely unethical, but it happens anyway.
I had planned a list of actual topics for tonight, but as it's 5:15 AM, I'm going to go to sleep, and perhaps type something up tomorrow. Until then.
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