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The True Believers

No Comments 28 July 2011

Over The Rainbow: July 28

“One person with a belief is equal to 100,000 who have only interests.”
— Quote attributed to John Stuart Mill in a social media message on July 17 by Anders Behring Berovik, the 32-year-old suspect accused of gunning down and killing at least 82 young people at a summer camp in Norway and setting off a bomb in downtown Oslo that killed seven.

Facebook and Twitter are the great soapboxes of our current society. We use the free media outlets, share photos, videos, quotes, songs and sometimes scripture when we feel so inclined to back up our own beliefs or, as is more often the case, to justify them. Berovik, a self-described Christian Conservative, claims to be a true believer. If we follow his message through to his actions, he is 100,000 times more powerful than those of us who merely take interest in the world around us. We may believe in something, but we don’t figuratively or literally back it up with a semi-automatic. The oft-used scripture, “I can do all things … (and justify them because I am a true believer) … through Christ who strengthens me” comes creepily to mind.

Muslims, Gays, Blacks, Mexicans, Cripples, the Obese, the Ugly, Welfare Recipients, Illegals, Single Mothers, the Homeless, Abortionists, oh my God, it’s a virtual Jesus Christ smorgasbord of choices to pick and choose from for true believers like Mr. Berovik.
For example, if a true believer feels so inclined, (not unlike the brothers and sisters of the congregation of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas), they can build an entire religious experience around one group — say, fags — and then choose various side item groups as they work their way through the “Western Sizzlin’ of Jesus”-style fanatics line.

Go ahead “true believer.” Feel free to add some dead soldiers to your plate, maybe a branch or two of the military, and don’t forget the president! Mr. Obama’s actually a two-for-one side item. You got your government and you got a black man. Just call it a value meal. You can even “have it your way … have it, your way!” as the old Burger King jingle plays in the background. Just say, “I’ll take the works” and add the entire Red, White and Blue, U.S. of A., by God. Westboro Baptist Church does, and you can too, my friend.

100,000 times more powerful. That’s the secret boys and girls.

I read posts on Facebook all the time that go like this: “If you believe the government MUST be run by the Lord God, through our Savior Jesus Christ, the Christian Bible and the moral laws of our Founding Fathers, re-post this on your status update,” followed by a threat: “99.9% of everyone who reads this doesn’t have the b@#*$ to re-post. Do you?”
If you were a real true believer you’d have 100,000 times the needed amount of b@#*$ to do that and any other thing the voices inside and outside your head tell you to do. Just ask Mr. Anders Behring Berovik and the grieving nation of Norway. Ask the Westboro Baptist Church members and the mourning families standing graveside at a soldier’s funeral during one of the church’s righteous protests 500 feet away.

We all have our callings, our missions and our journeys in this life. The sane among us learn to moderate our actions in response to those beliefs for the larger good of society. Those who fall a little off to the side of center can become a real distraction from the beliefs they claim to hold dear. And then you have the Berovicks of the world, the true believers who coldly claim the power of 100,000 in the name of a vengeful God. Don’t be mistaken kids. The devil doesn’t make us do horrible things to others in the name of God.

The true believers do.

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

Everybody Wants To Join The Club

1 Comment 30 June 2011

Over The Rainbow: June 30

Men pretending to be lesbians

Fifty-eight year-old retired construction worker Bill Graber from Ohio wants to be a lesbian. Tom MacMaster of Edinburgh Scotland wants to be a lesbian. Both of these fine upstanding literary blogispherical men were recently “outed” for being HETEROSEXUAL men.
This proves the point that I’ve made all along: Everyone wants to be a lesbian, just like Lillian. Yes, (and don’t look at me that way) dear reader, I know the truth. You want to be a lesbian, too.
There, we’ve said it. Go ahead, it’s time for tears of relief. Let go of your shock and dismay and please, please, no more therapy. YOU are just fine the way you are. I understand you. No one blames you for wanting to be a dyke, whether you are a full male, a neutered male or a female in any form. We have all been there, friend.
Heck, before I knew I was a lesbian, I hung out as close to them as I could. I wanted to wipe their sweat with my handkerchief, bring them tall glasses of ice water and hang on their every word and smooth move. I learned everything I could about Birkenstocks, ear candles, Teva’s, organic potatoes, Doc Martins, good coffee, living with no electricity, camping in the woods and how to play sports. Well actually, I knew most everything I needed to know about sports. From softball, basketball, tennis, to football, track and even horseshoes, I played them all very well, and that was before I knew I was a dyke.
You can learn from me, and it can be different for you, now that your desire to be a lesbian is out in the open. I can help you. Take notes.
When you finish this article, go directly to your garage, dig out your bike, hit the local bike trail and pedal down to Cheap Thrills in Fayetteville. If you are female, you’re looking for boots. Not boots with 6-inch heels and spiky points on the toes, but leather motorcycle boots. These boots are made for walking and riding. You get it? Yes, you can dance in them, but they need to be heavy enough to ground you. As a lesbian, you need lots of earth contact, lots of grounding.
If you are a real man, like Tom or Bill, you’re going to have to butch up a little to qualify to be a dyke. “But I’m a man!” you say. Yes, and do you really think that qualifies you to be a lesbian?
I know plenty of dykes with more testosterone in their little toes (inside their leather motorcycle boots) than most of you blogger boys have in your entire … well, anyway, you get the picture? You men will have to work harder, in person, than you have ever worked in your entire life online. It’s much different being a dyke than it is pretending to be one on your silly little blogs. Boys, there are many, many lesbian imitators, but very few people, male or female, who can pull it off on a day-to-day basis.
You can try it, but don’t be too surprised if you have no interest in owning your own set of sweaty breasts, hidden under plaid shirts, wearing big-butted utilitarian jeans, river sandals and having sex in the woods while being eaten alive by chiggers and ticks in the middle of July. I’m not saying it’s not the most exciting way to live your life. It is, by far. That’s why everyone wants to be like us.
I personally have been the envy of everyone I have come in touch with or touched, but that’s another story. All I can say is this: Go for it! Try it for a month or two. Deny your lesbian tendencies no more. Male, female, construction worker, model, blogger, you know you want to be like us. I can help you.
Love,
Lillian

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

Like Martina On Steroids

1 Comment 26 May 2011

Over The Rainbow: May 26

Hiding in plain sight … or maybe not so much

Betty and I were married in Connecticut on June 19, 2009, nearly two years ago. We celebrated that day with both our daughters and three grandchildren, all of whom attended the church ceremony.

Betty and I celebrated the 17th anniversary of our Holy Union this past Sunday, May 22. What a difference 15 years makes! Well, sort of.

Back in 1994, we were young and bold. I remember walking around the Sixth Street Walmart holding Betty’s hand, feeling like nothing short of an asteroid falling through the ceiling could ever harm us. We were lesbians determined to claim our rightful place in the checkout line of life!

Betty and I have always tried to be out as much as possible. Every job I have applied for since our Holy Union, I have dropped the words partner or companion in the interview. I do not want to live in the closet.

Gay folks know what I mean, ’cause we have all been there to some extent, and I can tell you, it’s no fun. It’s like being a lawyer pretending to be a garbage man. Sometimes the pink silk tie pokes out from beneath your coveralls, and sometimes it’s hidden. Pretending to be who you are not is a lie, and lying is not good for little children or the gay community.

I have to smile when I see a diesel dyke, (i.e., a very butch or manly lesbian) with her nails painted red, wearing pearl earrings and a skirt, trying to “pass” at a family wedding or a business convention.

I’m like, “Sister, if you think you’re passing for a straight woman, looking like Martina Navratilova on (more) steroids, your breasts bound up in an ace bandage, wearing Doc Martin’s with little heels, you’re psycho!”

It’s the same thing with men, especially handsome gay men. Take a look at the Facebook profiles of your gay friends. Forget the Doc Martins with heels; men go as far as to use live women as props. There they are, cheesing it up for the camera, holding a sexy woman seductively close, mouthing the words, “I’m a top …”

Come on guys, really?

“But hold it right there,” you say! “Why am I reading a column poking fun at queer folk pretending to be who they are not, written by a local queer columnist under a pseudonym?”

Well … let’s go back to when Betty and I got married the first time, 17 years ago. One day we came home, tired from working all day, to find that our front screen door had been sliced open with a knife.

Another day, I walked to our mailbox expecting to find a few bills, when what I actually found was an explicit magazine photo, held down by a rock, showing what “one man and one woman” could do on the kitchen table, besides eating soft-boiled eggs.
We’ve known lesbians whose homes have been burned down and children who have been beaten up on school property.
You see some things change over the years, and some things stay the same.

Because we still have Bubbas out there and right wing conservative nuts calling down earthquakes from God to kill all the queers, we still have lawyers dressed like garbage men and dykes pretending to be Madonna. It’s sad, but we do what we can, when we can, and we choose our moments.

Fortunately, the closet is getting to be less of a sealed tomb with all the oxygen piped out and more of a high fashioned “changing room,” a place where we can come and go at will, slipping into our boxers and high-top Chuck Taylor’s when we want to and into our red lipstick and pearls when we must.

It’s not the way it should be, and it’s not the way it will be, but it is the way it is.

So be safe out there, baby dykes. And remember me when you give yourself a manicure with medium grade construction-quality sandpaper, ’cause I’ve been there girls.

Love,
Lillian

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

No Excuse For Violence Against Transgendered

1 Comment 15 May 2011

Over The Rainbow: May 12

Marcal Camero Tye was killed in the early morning hours of March 8 by a single gunshot to the head and from blunt force trauma caused from being run over by a car.

Two .38-caliber shell casings were found at the scene. Marcal’s body was dragged approximately 300 feet by a car after she was shot. Tye, who was well known as a transgender woman in Forrest City, Ark., was found dead by a passerby on a country road just outside the city limits, according to several media sources.

How many of you have heard about this gruesome Arkansas murder: a few, a handful? And why hasn’t it been all over your television screen, all over the front page of the local newspaper? For God’s sake, the FBI is involved.

The sheriff investigating the crime in Forrest City — St. Francis County Sheriff Bobby May — has said he doesn’t believe it was a hate crime, just a sexual act gone wrong. He’s speculated that Tye’s body was dragged by accident with her being caught underneath the suspect’s car and not being pulled by a rope.

But Bobby, sir, how did she get under the suspect’s car? Wouldn’t that be the result of a .38-caliber gunshot to the head, sir?

A transgender woman gets murdered and dragged under a car and it’s just a sex act gone bad. No freaking way, buddy, ’cause it’s open season in the South on transgender folk!

Unlike the swishy, limp-wrested boys and the butch rainbow dykes, transgender folk take it too damn far! “For God’s sake Bubba, they want to be like us. Hell, they want to fit into society, marry our daughters and chop off things that hurt!”
Here’s what one enlightened guy had to say about the whole Tye “murder smurder thingy:”

“I consider myself … a liberal. I have a degree from an Ivy League university. I support gay marriage. I refuse, however, to believe that surgery and hormones can make a man into a woman, nor do I believe that normal people should humor your own personal delusion about your gender.

“Transsexuals take a huge risk doing what they do to their bodies. I wouldn’t walk through south central L.A. in a Klan robe, and I wouldn’t walk through Brooklyn in a Nazi SS uniform.

“In the case of transgender people, I do blame the victim. They expect the world to conform to them, not the other way round. Now, you can do that, but don’t expect happiness and rainbows and flying ponies belching stingless bumblebees to appear out of nowhere. I wouldn’t beat up a tranny, but a lot of people would.

“Knowing this and still going through with the surgery is foolhardy. Getting a fake vagina and fake boobs will get you a lot of unwanted bad attention. So, trannies get murdered and beaten a lot. What the hell else do you expect?”

— Anonymous Internet response to the Tye murder

You can’t get more liberal than a man who believes in flying ponies who belch stingless bumblebees.

For Christ’s sake, this madness has to stop! If a woman runs past you down Dickson Street flashing her naked body in your face, YOU have no right to touch her. NO RIGHT.

If a transgender woman is working the wrong side of town at 3 a.m. NO ONE has a right to hurt her, let alone murder her. NO ONE. She did not ask for it! She did not chop things off to be pretty. She was born differently. Period.

There are all kinds of us out here in the world, boys and girls. All kinds. Get used to it. Learn from it. Live with it!

I want to believe there’s good in everyone, God in everyone, if you will, but then something horrible like this happens to one of us … and the dark beast turns around and stares at me and whispers: “What the hell do you expect?”

R.I.P. Marcal … May justice be served.

Love,
Lillian

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

I Still Smile

No Comments 28 April 2011

Over The Rainbow: April 28

Years ago, I met a man.

I was in a child care management position in a neighboring state, responsible for hiring teachers and aides to work with young children. In that position I had the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting and intriguing people.

Most of those that I interviewed and hired were young adults in their second or third year of college, eager for relevant child care experience to put on a future child development resume. Other applicants were older. Many of the older applicants had some not so evident, almost hidden, quirks. Quirks that led them to my office to apply for a job: a job that would tax them to their mental limits every day and promise them a whooping $7 an hour to start. I’m not saying they were crazy, just driven, either by their intense love of children, their need for a steady job or because they were, well, let me take that back, crazy.

Mr. Steve came into my office for an interview, answering an ad for a preschool teacher’s position. He was very well prepared for my questions. He had relevant child care experience, a background in education, was well spoken and he was breathing. (That breathing part is a joke in child care. You would understand the joke if you ever had three college teachers call in 15 minutes before 7 a.m. on a Friday morning to tell you they are throwing up or that their grandmother’s dying in Texas. You so wish at that moment for anyone who is breathing, to step in and volunteer to cover their classrooms for the day so you don’t have to.)

I liked Mr. Steve immediately. He was an older fellow, but still young enough to relate to all ages of the kids at the center. I figured he was in need of a steady job, and it was evident from his stories that he loved children. I called him back the next day and hired him. He was put in charge of a preschool classroom and the students adored him.

Back then, a director could apply for a background check on new employees and it was perfectly fine and legal to put them to work while you waited two or three weeks for the results to come in the mail. During those weeks after I applied for the background check, I shadowed Mr. Steve in the classroom, just as I would any new teacher. I grew to admire his gentleness and consideration of the feelings of the children he worked with. I listened as parents praised his abilities in the classroom.

His particular gentleness started me to personally ponder if Mr. Steve might be a young gay man. Being a lesbian in a leadership position at a Christian preschool, I was a little pleased to think that I might have unknowingly hired a gay man. Let me enlighten you further: This was more than five years ago in one of the most sought after Christian preschools in the area in the heart of the Bible belt.

I thought to myself that perhaps I was breaking the glass ceiling in child care at a local level! But little did I know, what I’d already done … until Mr. Steve’s background check came in three weeks later.

I picked up my mail and casually opened the envelope from the State Police. As I pulled out the letter, I noticed some excess writing on the response.

“Oh, no,” I thought. “I don’t want to read this.”

If a background is clear, the letter will say something like “no offenses found for this applicant.”

If Mr. Steve’s background check listed any complications, any felony charges — even breaking and entering as a teenager — he was in trouble. Worse yet, if there was anything even remotely related to sexual misconduct, I would be forced consult with my supervisor at Child Protective Services, and if the offense warranted it, send Mr. Steve home immediately without a job to come back to tomorrow. I held my breath and took a closer look at the fine print.

It turned out that Mr. Steve was born Ms. Stephanie.

“Oh my God,” I thought. I had not only broken through the glass ceiling in hiring Mr. Steve, I had gone through the attic, straight through the roof and had become a real danger to low-flying planes in the area. In addition to this Christian preschool hiring a director who was a lesbian, they also now employed a most excellent, most loved, male teacher who happened to be transgendered.

I still smile about you, Mr. Steve. Thank you for applying.

Love,

Lillian

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

Step Aside, Loudmouth

1 Comment 06 April 2011

Over The Rainbow

Prying open the jaws of the wolf

There are days when all I want to do is rant and rave.

Like the other day when a Nuevo Jesus freak is in front of me at Arsaga’s discussing the pathway to heaven with a fundamentalist brunette barista.

“Give me a freaking break!” I shout, as my cup of Columbian Supremo accidentally spills over his broad shoulders. “Good God, some of us are just here for the coffee!”

OK, so it didn’t happen that way, not even on my best ranting and raving days. But in an alternate reality where cartoon bubbles hover above all our heads, in the great comic book of my life, it did and I’m proud of it.

From time to time, I have a recurring dream of being attacked by a wolf. The wolf is extremely powerful and in my face, his mouth wide open and his teeth bared! Anyone watching the attack in the dream world would not give me a chance, but here’s what happens every time I am attacked. I shove my hands into its wet mouth and grab its jaws. I try to hold them open as long as I can before they snap shut on me. Then I realize if I don’t kill the wild animal, it will kill me. So with extreme strength and no other choice, I slowly pry its jaws apart until they break, and then with great relief I toss the wolf off me. It’s always a gruesome and frightening dream but also a dream of exhilaration.

Years ago my dream took on another energy form: reality. I was in San Antonio with a girl who, one evening in a fit of rage, shoved her large hands around my throat and started strangling me. I put my hands up in defense, grabbing her arms trying to push her off me, but she was much stronger. As she shook my head, I looked up into her eyes and somehow choked out the words, “You can never hurt me, so do what you need to do. I am much stronger inside than you are.”

For me, I believe the desire to rant and rave comes from being held back, held down, told to be quiet and shoved far back into the closet for far too long. It makes me fantasize about pouring hot coffee onto a jerk who feels he has a special privilege to hold up the line ’cause Jesus is his buddy. It makes me dream of wild wolves.

It also reminds me that there is a reserve of strength within each of us, no matter what is happening on the outside. Whether it’s just an annoyance or a real threat from a bully or abuser, we may not always be able to rip the jaws of the beast apart or stop the violence, but we can stand up with dignity and respect, knowing that what is inside of us is stronger than what threatens us.
And in an alternate reality, all I can say is this: The beasts and the bullies of the world don’t even want to go there, better not go there, because POOF! POW! SMACK! POP! heads are going to roll and coffee is going to get spilled in a lot more vulnerable places than just over your broad shoulders, buddy.

“So step aside now and nobody gets hurt.”

Love,

Lillian

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

First Experience

1 Comment 23 March 2011

There was a time when I did not know that I was a lesbian.

I had no words to describe who I was; I only had a feeling of being different. I used to say that I was asexual and could take care of myself. I had no desire to be with a man, and I did not know that I had the option to be with a woman. I believe this is a common experience for lesbians before they come to the full understanding of who they are and where they belong in this world.

Everyone has a first time: a defining moment in your life, positive or negative (usually a mixture of the two) when we figure out who we are and where we belong.

Although my first experience was as painful as partings can be, it opened a huge door for me, a door that had been locked for a long time. It taught me I could find happiness in my life and I could be desired and loved for who I am inside.

This is the essence of my first experience:

I am sitting on the couch inches from her and she’s looking into my eyes. She has a sinister look on her face, like a cat playing with a damp mouse caught between her teeth, releasing it then snatching it up again, releasing it, slapping it into the air, then catching it by its tail. She’s really not interested in devouring me as much as she’s interested in playing a game with me. I am watching her, and I am virgin and as innocent and white as an early December snow.

Prior to this moment I have known her only by the power of her voice when she sang about Jesus and the church and by the taste of the Southern food she cooked for me at her diner — once sending out a cheeseburger emblazoned with a green heart carved out of dill pickles under the top bun.

I’m so close to her face now, and I hold my breath.

Like her prey, I wonder if I should stay very still, lifeless even, so she will not know that I can still run away at any moment. She asks me to move closer to her and I do, breaking the spell of my stillness, alerting her to the fact that I am still in the game.

She asks if I want a kiss? The cat slaps me into the air, my head swimming, my body going end over end, to the ceiling, then the floor, the right wall and then the left. I see her face and she is smiling. She unwraps the chocolate and pushes it deep into my mouth. Once again I am damp between her teeth. And there I will remain for months, locked in her jaws.

She parades me around in front of her husband, she shakes me mercilessly in front of her friends, she toys with me, stalks me, over and over again.

I do not care. I want it and she is the only way I can have it. I tempt her, I chase her, I play with her until … but she soon bores of the game.
I bring her breakfasts of chocolates, but she will not eat. She will not chase me anymore. Desperate, I temporarily sacrifice my sanity. I beg her to look at me again, and finally for one brief moment, she does. She looks at me again for the last time with a far away look in her eyes — the look of a tired Jesus with unrepentant blasphemies and sins, desperate for renewed holiness.

Then, as quickly as she appeared, she was gone. She left me forever. That’s my story.

And the moral is? Hmm … The moral of my personal story, girls: “Never fall for a Pentecostal chick, with or without a husband.” There is so much guilt and fear in the fundamentally religious that it doesn’t matter how much love you share, the truth is Jesus will show up in your bedroom one night, He’ll quietly point to her, and the next morning, she’ll be gone.

So here’s to all of our first loves, boys and girls, to all our first times. May those memories rest in peace, and may each of us go on to find happiness, somewhere over the rainbow.

Love, Lillian

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

It’s Not What You Wear

1 Comment 10 March 2011

Serving proudly, openly; marrying freely, openly

You can specialize in detonating every IED on the road to hell, you can protect every convoy hauling diesel across the blowing sands of the dessert under fire, but you better not blog about your family back home, you better not mention your husband or your wife or your girlfriend in that profile update, if you happen to be on the wrong side of the great gender divide.
No, baby … those stars and bars and colors, don’t mean a thing, if you’re the macho Marine wearing the pink panties under those military proper tan fatigues or the butch Army dyke wearing the gray BVDS under your dress blues.
Not a thing.
It is not what you wear, but “how you take it off” that’s important to the United States of America.
OK, come on, knock it off people, I’ve had enough! Whine, whine, whine …
It’s not about letting gays and lesbians into the military. We have been in forever: the military, the latrine, the barracks and the closet. It’s about the military respecting every soldier and serviceperson and their family. It’s also the about consideration of human rights and human dignity.
Betty and I got married in Connecticut last June. Just like that.
The kids came in from Long Island and London. The grandkids stood up with us and hugged and kissed us, as we kissed each other. The minister smiled and blessed us in the name of God and asked us to both say, “I do” and then we did.
Years and years of waiting and wondering whether or not we would ever be able to marry, years and years of enduring dire predictions about the downfall of humanity if we were allowed to marry, and then we did … and nothing happened.
I tried hard to hear the crumbling walls of the Connecticut village, the quaking of the cliffs, the rising of the ocean, the giant wave about to swallow us all. I squinted hard at the clouds overhead for signs of lightening, but not even a solar flare. Nothing.
Birds were singing in the trees, dogs were barking across the street, and no old people fell over dead on the sidewalk in front of us.
And that is exactly what will happen when we finally allow our soldiers to serve honestly and openly in the military.
Will there be some jackass trying to make a point that, “we don’t want ya’ll in here in the latrine with us!” Sure there will be. There will also be a few macho jerks that refuse to serve alongside the queer boys. But there will be more soldiers, who simply relax into the idea that we are all different and fascinating in our own way. Let’s face it, there is a bit of voyeurism in us all. It is interesting to watch each other. Why shouldn’t it be?
But we need to get over the idea that gay, lesbian and all our various transfigurations and conglomerations, are in any way less boring than your normal straight guy. We humans are interesting for about fifteen minutes and then it’s time to go to lunch.
The military leadership has to get over the antiquated idea that you have to be straight to perform your duties as a soldier. It is just not true, it’s bigoted, it is wrong and it is detrimental to our effort to serve and protect our nation.
The military also has to get over the idea that we queers are interested in jumping straight soldier’s bones. It just ain’t happening kids.
We have enough to do, like loading our machine guns, smearing that black grease under our lesbian eyes and applying camel brown eyeliner and ocean blue eye shadow, so as not to clash with the colors the variegated dessert sands.
What, ARE they thinking? Geez.
Carry on soldier.

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

My Plate

1 Comment 24 February 2011

Speaking out on ‘silent crimes’

Last week the press reported that three priests, a monsignor and a Catholic school teacher are all facing criminal charges after a Philadelphia grand jury found a pattern of child sexual abuse.
Last year the Pope vowed to step up the Catholic church’s efforts to protect children from Holy Fathers who like to play “hide the communion” with little boys and girls in their parish.
Tomorrow a teacher, a principal, a father, a mother, a boyfriend, a coach, a neighbor will be in the news for crimes against children. It happens every day in some child’s life.
There are those in the straight community who believe early childhood abuse causes perfectly normal heterosexual children to turn into flaming, freaking gays when they grow up.
I personally think it’s the Tyson, hormone-laden “white meat chickens” with the 40-pound breasts and no legs to support them. Those damn chickens cause little “lisps” to develop when we are swimming around in our mama’s belly.
The truth is, there are some fucked up people out there doing some very real harm to the psyches of our children.
The majority of child molesters aren’t born that way, they are “homegrown.”
While all victims certainly do not become perpetrators, the majority of perpetrators don’t become molesters without first being victimized, usually by a family member or trusted friend of the family or an authority figure.
Maybe it has to do with the age of the child, the background of the family, genetics, early intervention, but whether or not a victim ever becomes a perpetrator does not negate the damage that sexual abuse does to children and to each of us as we become adults.
Crimes committed against children, “silent crimes,” are some of the most violent and damaging crimes ever committed. They haunt us. They chase us around corners and sneak up behind us in dreams 60 years later.
No child deserves that. No person, male or female, gay or straight, ever has or ever will deserve that.
Does it make us queer? I doubt it. Does it influence whom we will choose to love and trust someday? Maybe for a few, but for the majority of us, it just messes up our heads, our hearts and our lives, whether we go on to marry a man or woman or remain single. Lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, however we eventually identify ourselves, it messes us up.
I am one of the victims of a neighborhood good ol’ boy who used to like to grab little girl’s breasts.
There are many in the gay and straight communities who have been abused far worse than I, many who are still silent and afraid dozens and dozens of years later.
If it’s being done to you or to your children, is there a prayer in heaven to help you? If you are doing it to someone else, is there hope in hell to save you?
The answers are yes and yes.
Your redemption lies in your voice crying out through the silence, whether your voice is that of a grown-up or the small voice of a child.
If you need help, ask for it. If you are being hurt or have been hurt in the past, seek out those who can help you.
Silence is the great sealer of our fate.
There is a place for each of us in this world: a place over the rainbow and a place at the table. Meet me there for dinner at 5 p.m. will you?
Don’t worry, you’ll know me by my plate. I’ll be the one with the giant chicken breast and no leg.
Love, Lillian

Commentary, Over The Rainbow

The Love Of A Good Woman

No Comments 09 February 2011

The Hips Of A Hot Man

Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers: a man and a woman, roses, chocolate, steamy car windows, ecstasy hot enough to melt coconut oil off the back of a …

You straight folks have it made on Valentine’s Day, don’t you?

You openly go to restaurants, you party, dance, you kiss.

You hold hands in public and you eat those heart shaped sugar candies. What are they called? The ones

with the hot little words carved in pink?

You go out on the town and see other folks who look just like you and you smile and wink. Wink-wink-wink! Why there’s Jeremy and Renee, from Wal-Mart’s home office!

But do you see us queer folk, wink-wink-wink? I doubt it.

Although at times it’s good you don’t see us, your inability to see us in society as loving couples maintains the plague of marginalization that separates fellow human beings from the rest of your “normal society.”

Come on; take a look around you, man.

Do you see Michael and Austin at the table next to yours, making eyes at one another? Do you see Beth and Jeanine holding hands under the tablecloth at unarguably the best Thai restaurant in town? How about Betty and I huddled in the corner, “unusually close” for two old ladies?

“Too bad they’re all alone,” you think to yourself. “And single besides on Valentine’s Day!”

“I wonder what’s wrong with those two?” You mumble to your girlfriend, through bites of bread, butter dripping down your chin.

Are you listening, straight boy?

Do you want to know a little secret?

OK, so here’s an insight into the queer world for you straight folks in Northwest Arkansas: There are men sitting right beside you, (just glance, it’s rude to stare) who love the curves of men, and there are women at the next table over (just to the left of your girlfriend’s thigh) who prefer the soft lips of women. And guess what, dude? We are celebrating Valentine’s Day too!

Of course we’re not often allowed to celebrate openly like you are, unless we’re with our “own kind.” But that’s OK, cause baby we’re out here! We’re everywhere.

Just like you straight folks, we’re lusting after one another, celebrating longtime love affairs and marriages and looking for shiny new friends.

We’re not in your Hallmark Hall of Fame specials, nor do we get our faces on Day Spring greeting cards but we ARE here.

This Valentine’s Day keep your eyes open Northwest Arkansas. Make it a party game with your date. First one to discretely find the queers celebrating Valentine’s Day gets a box of chocolates!

We’re not here to please you, dude. But we’re here to stay.

To my own personal lover on Valentine’s Day 2011, I say this to you: Betty, you are the love of my life and I celebrate your presence every moment I live. Bless you for staying beside me for 20 years, for loving me without doubt, for keeping me warm in the winter and marrying me in the summer, but most of all, thank you for being my one true Valentine. I

dedicate these lines to you my sweetheart:

“How beautiful and how delightful you are. My love, with all your charms!

“Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say, ‘I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks.’

“Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the fragrance of your breath like apples and your mouth like the best wine!”

— The Song of Solomon

Clusters of fruit and the best wine to you all and happy Valentine’s Day Northwest Arkansas! May we all meet someday, Over the Rainbow …

Love, Lillian