I’m having such a wonderfully gay time planning a little getaway to take place in a month or so. Our destination is Savannah, a city beloved for its festive, ebullient, positively gay atmosphere. Yes, we hope to have a gay ol’ time in a city that artfully blends Old South with New.
Since you ask, we will be celebrating our 33rd anniversary, definitely cause for a gay celebration, isn’t it? In fact, when I think of marriage in general, I often think “gay,” don’t you?” Because humor is a crucial piece of the marriage pie. Without it, you’ve just got a lot of boring arguments about who returned the empty milk carton to the fridge.
Gaygaygaygaygaygaygaygaygaygay.
Much as Homer Simpson historically says the ONE word he wills himself not to, I’m thinking all gay all the time lately.
Why is that? Because in the midst of a horrifying war spawned by a madman, staggering inflation and a pandemic only now showing signs of easing, a Harvard AND Yale educated governor down in Florida is faux-riled about teachers talking about gender issues in the classroom.
Not that that’s really a thing in his target of K-3 but, just in case…don’t say gay.
Saddling up straw horses is a specialty of Ron DeSantis, the aspiring presidential candidate who easily coaxed the “you had me at great chance to ostracize and belittle anybody different from me” Florida legislature to pass a bill forbidding classroom teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender issues with students.
So what? Who cares? Did someone mention pie earlier?
Here’s the problem. Let’s say you’re redheaded. You were born that way. Sure, you could dye it to a more conventional color, but your roots are red and any coverup is just that. In fact, you are super redheaded. You go to school, hang with your friends and you want to talk about what it’s like to be a redhead, but nobody lets you. There could be an entire discussion in class about heroic, pioneering redheads and the struggles they faced but those pages have been torn out of the books.
Why? What’s wrong with being redheaded? Well, it makes some misguided people very uncomfortable when redheads refuse to become invisible.
Also, if your teacher says “redheaded,” report him or her because they need to be fired. The new “don’t say redhead” law provides for the firing of that teacher. Which is nuts.
The message is clear to any redhead. Who you ARE is something wrong, bad, unacceptable, too terrible to talk about. So you stay quiet. And you feel less than. Just the way they hoped you would. And, when you’re just about as low as you can be, you think about just …disappearing.
DeSantis is not an idiot. He just plays one on TV. This guy debases himself for the base more than anybody and that’s saying a lot these days.
I think instead of passing silly laws and grandstanding about non-issues, why not celebrate the differences? Captain Obvious here would like to remind y’all how excruciatingly dull life would be if we were all just alike. I just got back from the grocery store where I saw a middle-aged man joyfully blowing bubbles at everyone who walked in the store AND a woman wearing her pajamas slow down in front of the beer cooler, bend herself backward like a circus acrobat and put eye drops in both eyes.
I don’t know about y’all but when I’m around non-toxic people who aren’t just like me, I’m energized, engaged, a part of something bigger than myself. And that’s a good thing.
It’s really simple. We don’t need to pass laws that stoke baseless fears and, worst of all, cause pain to people who are just trying to live their lives.