The Adventures of Jessica Sideways

While the republicans have ultimately lost in their homophobic battle against the Matthew Shepard Act, they pull no punches in the effort to misrepresent history. While they are losing their culture war in the fact that equal civil marriage is becoming more and more prevalent, they try to shout louder and louder and try to misinform the American people. This is not surprising, given the debacles with equality in civil marriage that we have seen and the loss we all experienced with Proposition 8 in California. But it is interesting to know that even in defeat, the Republicans are still willing and able to hoodwink the American people, or at least make a good attempt of doing so. The case in point being the quote from Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina (a Republican, no less) which is actually a homophobic denial of historical fact. But I think that it would serve us all well to reflect on what this woman has to say about the passing of this bill, which allows the murders and assaults of gay and lesbian people to be properly charged as the hate crimes they are.

“The hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed. But we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s, it’s really a hoax, that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.” – Virginia Foxx (R-NC)

Excuse me, Virginia, but the fact of the matter is that Matthew Shepard was killed because of the fact that he was a gay man and some homophobic punks in Laramie figured it out and killed him because of it. He was lured out of a bar and murdered by men who left him out in the cold to die. It is true that Shepard was robbed by the two men but the violence of this crime and the cruelty of these two men shows the true face of a real problem in our society. And this problem is known as homophobia, which is encouraged and even emboldened by the Christian religion and thus, to serve it’s constituents, the Republican party. Let’s look at the bigger picture here, the widespread violence and murder of GLBT people needs to stop and we need to stop it here, in one of the world’s most powerful nations. This way, we can set an example for the rest of the world to follow – to abandon the prejudices against gay and lesbian people that are so prevalent in societies plagued by Judeo-Christian “values”. This way, America can work to help end discrimination against homosexuals throughout the world. But of course, you don’t want that at all.

I’m not really a demanding girl, I just think that if you murder me because of the fact that I am transsexual, that is a hate based crime and should be afforded a hate crime enhancement. Transsexuals and homosexuals, while starting to gain more acceptance throughout the country, are in fact, seen as demonic, perverted people and there is a real stigma against being gay due to the poison that Judeo-Christian society has injected into our nation. Especially given the fact that there is no real secular reason to be opposed to homosexuality and in fact, the honest and open acceptance of one’s homosexuality has in fact, shown to make someone a bit happier and better person in the long run. Rather than denial that someone is homosexual, which is what the Christian religion strongly advocates for but rather, acceptance of the fact that you are gay is the most healthy course to take. But here in the United States, where religion is still going strong and the evangelical churches throughout the United States can easily pump the fears of it’s parishioners to fuel anti-gay agendas, religion is a tougher bug to capture. There is no bigger proof of this than the megachurches down in Colorado Springs, a beautiful place if it weren’t for the evil people who have their bases there.

I admit that I don’t have many Republican friends because the “values” that Republicans have disgust me and anyone who said they wanted John McCain to be president this year would have gotten an earful from me. I detest homophobic people just as I detest holocaust deniers because of the fact that they are willingly encouraging historical ignorance in our society and this is also ignorance that does a grave disservice to the American people. Of course, ignorance is the very platform of the Republican party given the fact that they fight stem-cell research, gay marriage (or any sort of rights or protections for gay citizens), abortion or family planning resources, separation of church and state, environmental reform, economical reform or anything that could help the American people to better their society. And of course, they do many of these things to please the majority of their constituents, which are the brainless droves of homophobic zombies who are willing to tow the line as long as the Republicans try to bring American laws and society in line with what one could be called a “Christian nation”. And I can honestly tell you, given how I feel about Christian values, the last thing I want in a society I live in is a similarity between Christian doctrine and societal laws and expectations. I am glad that society is becoming more atheistic but the problem with this is that religion will fight tooth and nail against it, even saying that any religion is better than no religion and imposing something even worse, such as Sharia Law. And it makes me reel that ultimately, we could continue to support and work to encroach myths from the Bronze Age which, in actuality, do more to harm a democratic society than to help it.

In Denial

If we do not learn from our history, we continue to allow history’s greatest atrocities to be committed, which is why holocaust denial is now illegal in Germany, among many other countries. If we try to skew or forget history, the lessons of the past will cry out to be relearned and will take another victim. The murder of Matthew Shepherd was because of his sexual orientation and anyone who reads the details of his murder will know this to be true. But to deny history works against the progress of humanity and makes us less visible and makes people see violence against those in the LGBT community as unimportant. Denial of gay bashing and murder of homosexual citizens is no different then denial of the holocaust, where many European citizens, Jews, “gypsies” and people who were considered undesirable (and yes, this also includes homosexuals) by the third reich were illegally imprisoned and tortured just because of who they were. We must not forget the lessons that horrific incidents like these have taught us because that will cause the growth of humanity to remain stunted and for people to continue their religious bigotry against the LGBT community. But then again, is this not what the Republican party ultimately wants?

I do not have an enviable childhood where I was loved and cared for, with a supportive environment that would have allowed me to transition before the hell I know as male puberty started to hit. No, what I got was being raised in ultra-conservative Texas, in a ultra-conservative family and being the only liberal for miles. Hell, I was advocating for Al Gore back in 2000 because even though I didn’t know what the problem with electing a Republican president was other than the fact that he obviously hasn’t been doing a good job in Texas as governor. And my sister wants to run to be a Senator when she grows up and we can all guess what her party affiliation would be, in addition to her stand on certain issues. But I was repeatedly abused emotionally, physically and sexually¹ by members of my family and I am none the less glad to have left the family household that I grew up in. It is uncomfortable to mention but I have to face it head on, otherwise, I give these demons more power to control my life and the way I live it then they truly deserve. I still dance and laugh and smile, not in denial of these facts, but rather in spite of them and it has taken many, many years to come up with the courage to confront these issues.

They contact me all the time about things I say about them in my blog, specifically to have me remove them from the website and I have told them that I would only remove things that are untrue about them from the blog. They have no interest in historical accuracy, what they want is for me to tow the line and deny my personal history, but I refuse to. If I forget and do not share my personal history, I stop growing as a person and I would be more susceptible to groups of people who don’t want to be better people and learn from history (i.e. Republicans). I would much rather admit to the painful history of my childhood so I can get over it, learn from it and grow to be a better person in spite of it, than to ignore it and spend the rest of my life and money paying a therapist (possibly a Christian therapist) to help me sustain my denial. I think I have grown to be the loving, empathetic, sympathetic, caring, compassionate and open-minded person that I am today because of the fact that I have grown in a household that did not espouse such values when they were so sorely needed. I think the end result is that I have not grown to be like my family but instead, I have grown knowing how not to act since I was treated this way as a child and found from first-hand experience that I would not want to be treated the same way. Learning from history means that we as a people grow, mature and learn to be more accepting and embracing of cultures and ideas foreign to us. The lesson for today is to please, please curb your ethnocentrism.

Footnotes

1. I would like to add as an aside, that this is not what caused me to become a transsexual, as some religious people might interpret it. I was sexually abused at the very young age of 10 but realized the fact that I am a girl when I was in grade 1. Thought I should bring that up. [↩]

No related posts.