Oh boo hoo hoo, Laurie, I made people laugh at you and you got offended. In the words that you would use to me and all of our families, "So what!?"
Does anyone out there know how offensive it is to me to have to "write on eggshells" because our police department is too soft on real crime to stop potentially one of the worst domestic terrorists in the world? Literally, I have to know how horrible this woman, Laurie and her brother Brian are, and I still have to choose my words so carefully because the police would rather protect a terrorist than a gay man. That's really sad, don't you think?
A bigot can paint a swastika on the side of a Jewish temple and be arrested for a hate crime yet a homophobic butch closet case and her brother can literally stick a computer chip next to my brain to send the same messages of hate all day and night long and nobody seems to think that's a priority. I'm tough though.
Today I took some time to explain to my own team why they offend me...and I want then to take the time tomorrow to explain to other people why that is. I would take the time here to do it, but it would seem redundant and self indulgent, like Laurie likes to tell people I am. I also don't like feeling too sorry for myself on a blog where I try to spread hope. I would like it very much if members of my team will take the time to explain to some of our parents just why it is that I am offended more than you think by my own team members. I love them dearly, but they are just as bad at offending me as Laurie is. I will say this for them though, at least they heard me.
The method I used was something to do with trying to explain how horrible the Holocaust was in Germany to a gay man. Without getting too far into it...I will say this. If any person is trying to explain the Holocaust to a gay person, then both the explainer and the gay man is woefully uneducated. Jews and gays BOTH lost big time in the crime of the century...and if anyone thinks that gays don't understand that, then the gays need to be educated and the Jews need to remember all of it.
What we are experiencing here in Palm Springs is a modern day Holocaust...it is meant in no way to diminish the crimes that took place in WWII. It is simply to call attention to the fact that if we think we have evolved into a better understanding of society...all we've really done here is allow it to happen right under our noses. Without fanfare. Without riot. Without justice and without a leader...until now. Thirty years of experimentation on the gay community without a whisper...is that progress? No, it isn't.
If I have offended you, good...maybe you'll educate yourself to do something to stop what is going on right under your noses...in the press, on television (look at the interviews posted on the blog) and in our court system. What Laurie and Brian have done here is, I guarantee you, far more offensive than anything I could tell you...you should see the pictures, read the medical reports and see the debt. Be offended that we haven't done better, but be glad we're doing anything at all. For thirty years nobody did.
