Sweet Divinity: An Open Letter to Homophobes during Gay Pride

Hello, Dolls!

I am fully aware that the only thing more annoying than a sore loser is a sore winner, but you’ll please pardon me today as I gloat, full-blast.

50 years ago, the Stonewall Riots took place in New York City, and the gay liberation began in earnest. For the next five decades, we gays have struggled to be recognized as more than the second-class citizens that you detractors would have us labeled as.

We have fought for the right to be gainfully employed without discrimination, fair housing, hospital visitation, estate rights and we are still fighting for the right to donate our own damned blood.

Some of you have been very transparent about your disdain for us. For almost all of these 50 years, treating gay men and women like garbage has not only been condoned, but actively encouraged by politicians and those of you who would have us all believe that a Bronze Age book of fairy tales written by men in caves was enough justification to stunt our equality.

Some of you have been less transparent and suggested that in spite of our “sinful lifestyle choice,” you just love us to pieces. (Which is really just a great big fancy way of saying, “I’ll pretend to love you, even though I think you’re a goddamned monster.”) Personally, I have a lot more respect for the bigoted hillbillies and holier-than-thou types who call me “QUEER” than I do the bigots who call me “friend.”

Those shouting their hate at me are at least honest about their feelings, where as all of you professing to be my friend in one breath, and then dismiss who I am as some sort of choice in another, simply do not have the balls or the conviction. You’ve recently discovered, in this day and time, that blatantly spitting out your prejudice results in the majority recognizing you as the same type of ignorant bigot that has usually been reserved for racists and anti-Semites. But make no mistake about it: Blathering on with that tired tripe about “loving the sinner but hating the sin,” and how “it’s just an opinion” that you’ll “leave up to God” is baloney. You’ve already beaten God to the task of judgment, no matter how pretty you dress it up. You can put glitter on a dog turd, but it’s still a pile of crap.

I used to say, “I don’t care what people think of me,” when, in honesty, it was really all I ever cared about. I’ve spent the majority of my life looking for some sort of acceptance. All I ever wanted was for everyone to like me and to be my friend. Finally, I realized that at no point would this ever happen, and in no way should I care—even a little. I am, after all, the only person who has to face myself in the mirror each morning as I hoist whitening toothpaste to my gigantic mouth in an attempt to make what comes out of it less offensive. I simply couldn’t care less about your acceptance. I don’t need to be accepted. Why? Because I have my OWN acceptance, my PRIDE, and with that pride comes the dignity that I have erroneously been begging others for.

The idea that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” supposes that there was some sort of choice in whether or not I am gay, and that’s simply the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Especially considering that I have never in my 40-plus years met a person—gay or straight—who professes to have chosen their sexuality. But it isn’t enough for me to say, “I was born this way!” Of course I was, but what if I wasn’t?

How would this still be of concern to anybody that I am not sleeping with? And why are you so concerned with who assists me in staining my sheets? I don’t care what goes on between you and yours in your trailers when the Wal-Mart clothes come off after a few cans of PBR, so why are you so obsessed with MY sex life?

Whatever the case, June is LGBTQ Pride Month, and with it comes half of a century of liberation. Now here is the part where I gloat:

I urge all of you to go down to Chick-fil-A. (Unless it’s Sunday, because they worship the Sabbath on the wrong day, and even Jewish Jesus Christ Himself would tell them that.) Drive on down to that chicken shack and PIG OUT. I want you to go down to Chick-fil-A and buy a sandwich for yourself and every other homophobe that you know. I want to see the same lines of hillbilly pick-up trucks around the block that we all saw when Dan Cathy put in his two cents about gay people and marriage. Please do this. Because when I think of how many millions of dollars Chick-fil-A spent to “focus on the family” and prevent full marriage equality from becoming a reality, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for him as I wipe the tears of laughter from my clownish face.

Me? I’m going to go celebrate our historic advancements of equality and raise a glass to the beginning of the end of your idiotic hold on the LGBTQ population. I know you’ve spent the morning in your churches talking about how the end is near, but I’m here to tell you, THE END IS ALREADY HERE!

Amen,

The Divine Grace

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