A Postcard from the Bitter Edge

January 2, 2007 should be, but won't be, a lesson for the A-list, the people who have given themselves up to the illusion that they can be sexually different and still live "normal" lives. Normal in this context means the lives of straight, vanilla people.

Yes, I am saying this out loud. Saying it even though I put out rather more energy than I still possess on the first round of picketing. Saying it despite the encouraging words of a number of straight fellow travelers. The message of January 2, 2007 is not gradualistic success: It is hate.

The straight world will always hate any sexual difference. They will never stop hating it. Even if you finesse a political win sometime in the future, they will still hate and your win will mean nothing.

We've looked at the AP's carefully-compiled list of yeas and nays, with yeas, as we know, being votes to place this on the ballot: objectively true, but subjectively false. Think not? Why then does the coverage say "the Legislature voted against gay marriage," not "62 reactionary assholes voted against gay marriage." In a very real sense, everyone who sat in that convention is polluted by this decision. Everyone who did not work hard enough, to some degree or other, is a sharer in the hate. That includes me, even though I have precious little money to spare and the A-list does not want me on the picket line, because they don't need supporters who would gladly punch out the lights of any bigot with a polished sign.

"They" admits no exceptions. Here's my little challenge to my friends who are fellow travelers. Can you, from the depths of your heart, honestly say that you tolerate all forms of sexual expression involving consenting adults?

Uh-huh: Damn those little words: "except" and "but." Shit, people of other races have been messing around with those little words for 50 years and seen almost nothing change. Why should sexually different adults expect anything else? Why, except delusion and denial?

Tolerance also admits no exceptions. It is one thing to be blandly tolerant of your A-list gay/lesbian friends. Her attire might be a trifle macho, and his might be just a bit too flawless. Does that tolerance include flaming drag queens, quieter transsexuals on HRT, the leather Bear with his "boy" decorated with nipple rings, chains, and whip tracks? Does it include stone butch dykes and their bois? What if, in the house next door, the het wife dresses up in thigh-high boots, carries a riding crop, and leads her husband around on a leash. Can you tolerate that?

It isn't tolerance until you can see past the trappings that intimidate you and see the love between people in wildly unfamiliar and scary contexts. Only when you can raise all love between consenting adults above the trivia and the noise will you really be tolerant.

You will also be almost as perverted as the rest of us, which is why that level of tolerance isn't going to happen, certainly not in my lifetime.

Back to the A-list folks. The view from the edge is "just give it up." Come back to the dark side. Rejoin a subculture that can handle what you are. Create your own rituals and bonds that are stronger than the flimsy tissue represented by the "m-word." Step outside with the admitted freaks. Stop trying to be entirely like the straight world. Come back to invisibility. Pick up the old world of arcane symbolism that defies the bigotry of the straight universe. However, when you pull back, let it be with a demonstration of rage that bigots, admitted or otherwise, will never forget.

Gaming the straight political system has failed you.

If I have made anyone angry, I only hope you are as angry as I am. Don't waste bandwidth flaming me, but prove me wrong.