Start Spreading the News
The main headline of the PGN this week is about Philly’s counterprotest to the Westboro Baptist Church. Apparently WBC was planning a whole bunch of demonstrations as a response to the death of “a local doctor killed in Iraq”. Because a doctor being killed in Iraq apparently has something to do with homosexuality.
I don’t think I’m alone in saying, “what the fuck?”
I mean, I’m about as liberal as they come, and I’m about as spiritually accepting as they come; I have friends who are Satanists and atheists and pagans and Buddhists and conservative Catholics. My personal beliefs are that there should be one common thread to all faiths: respect. You can be totally pro-Jesus and believe that I am going straight to hell with every other homosexual on the planet, so long as you don’t use that as a basis for disrespect; I’d rather you try to “save” me and have me politely decline rather than just spit your venom without any reason or direction. How do you found an entire “church” (I can’t even call it that; let’s call it a hate group and be done with it) on a totally non-dogmatic principle of hate? The entire focus of this little cult is that God hates homosexuals, and that’s why we have wars, floods, famines, et cetera. There are a thousand thousand arguments that one could use to counter these people, but the whole point is that they are absolutely, 100% unwilling to listen to reason. Even Nazis, with the same fucked-up principles of hate driving their rampage, were occasionally swayed away from the atrocities they committed. But WBC just counters logic with volume (thankfully, a pitifully small volume, so we don’t get headaches), like a bunch of four-year-olds throwing a tantrum because they lack the intelligence to understand how the world actually works. I don’t even want to do cursory research to find out how this entity came into being; it’s one of the few things that I can say is just totally not worth my time, save for this dismissal.
And that’s why it’s nice to see that Philly won’t stand for it, to know that the Prop 8 protest easily drowned out the two or three dudes with signs by City Hall that day in November, to know that Central High has one of the largest and most active SGAs in the country to counterprotest like true champs, and to know that people in this city, while they might not be the most tolerant on Earth, are at least smart enough to look at a group of people blaming all of everyone’s problems on homosexuality, and say, “are you fucking kidding?” Hitler tried it with the Jews (not to mention the gays) 60 years ago, guys, and it didn’t really work out so well, did it.
In other news: although the lesbian whatsername (I can’t even remember now, isn’t that horrible) didn’t make it into the Cabinet, Obama has appointed openly gay Bradley J. Kiley to the office of Management and Administration. I keep trying to figure out who he would be in terms of The West Wing, but I don’t know that the exact position existed on the show; maybe a cross between Josh Lyman and Mrs. Landingham. (I might have watched that show too often for my own good.) In any case, Mr. Kiley will be the guy who keeps the office of the President running smoothly; considering that Obama seems to be much more well-connected to the goings-on of his administration than oh, say, the outgoing Prez (9 days!), it’s a fairly big deal. And it’s comforting to all of those who are still uneasy about Obama’s relationship with the LGBT community. Other other news: Philadelphia Family Pride just celebrated its 15th anniversary, the gay rodeo is hiring, and there’s some kind of naked party at the Sansom Street Gym today. Goodness!
I don’t know about the naked party. It’s a little chilly out today. Maybe they’ll have a summer one too.
~~ PQ
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